Tap the Champagne Scores Second Straight Victory, Boosting Tropical Racing’s 2025 Momentum
Saturday, Nov. 15 was an exciting day for Tropical Racing. The partnership’s four-year-old filly Tap the Champagne registered his second consecutive victory at Laurel Park. So far in 2025, Tap the Champagne has started in three races; she has won two starts and placed in a third, bringing her annual earnings to $81,600.
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In the turf allowance race, contested over 1 1/8 miles, Tap the Champagne was favored to win at odds of 1.50-1. She lingered mid-pack for most of the race, exploding in the stretch and rallying to the lead; at the wire, she was six lengths in front of her nearest competitor.
The Making of a Star: Tap the Champagne’s Rise From Digital Sale to Dominant Filly
To begin with, let’s look back at how Tap the Champagne joined the Tropical Racing family. Bred in Kentucky by Spry Family Farm, the filly was consigned to the June 2025 Inglis Digital USA sale. Consigned by former owner and trainer Pavel Matejka, the gray filly fetched $350,000 from Tropical Racing, making her the most expensive horse in the sale.
However, that six-figure sum is looking like a bargain the more that Tap the Champagne races: not just because of her dominant performances on the track, but because of her incredible bloodlines. First of all, her sire is Tapit, one of the best sires of the twenty-first century; he led the general sire list (defined by total annual progeny earnings) three times. The class of his best offspring, including undefeated 2022 Horse of the Year Flightline and four different Belmont Stakes (G1) winners, is legendary.
Perhaps more importantly—since Tap the Champagne is a filly and will hopefully go on to be a broodmare—Tapit is the leading broodmare sire of 2025 by earnings. That means that the offspring of his daughters have earned more total prize money than any other stallion’s this year. He sits atop the broodmare sire list with a whopping $34.1 million in earnings; best amongst that number is Hit the Show, winner of the $12 million Dubai World Cup (G1) in April. Because the offspring of Tapit’s daughters have been phenomenally successful, that means his best daughters will be highly sought-after as broodmares themselves. Breeders hope they have the same ability to pass on talent.
Given this filly’s tremendous female family, there’s every hope she’ll be able to do that. Tap the Champagne is out of the stakes-placed mare Champagne Royale (by grade 2 winner French Deputy), who proved to be a remarkable broodmare. Her Street Boss colt Danza captured the 2014 Arkansas Derby (G1), a major Kentucky Derby (G1) prep race, by an impressive 4 ¾ lengths, and finished third in the Run for the Roses itself; he earned $866,428 in his career. Champagne Royale’s Rockport Harbor colt Majestic Harbor did even better, earning an astounding $1,295,814 in a 42-start career. His biggest win came at age six in 2014, when he won the historic Gold Cup at Santa Anita (G1), formerly the Hollywood Gold Cup. Champagne Royale’s Elusive Quality filly Totally Tucker produced graded stakes winners Totally Boss (by Street Boss) and Super Steed (by Super Saver).
A Royal Line: Tap the Champagne’s Elite Female Family
Tap the Champagne’s fifth dam is Brighton View, a mare whose other female-line descendants include grade 1 winners Olympio, On Fire Baby, Cuvee, and Pyro. Interestingly, two of this family’s best members are also offspring of Tapit: Tapizar, winner of the 2012 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile (G1) and sire of two-time champion Monomoy Girl, and 2014 champion sophomore filly Untapable. Both Tapit and Brighton View’s granddaughter Carols Christmas were owned by Winchell Thoroughbreds.
Instead of Carols Christmas, Tap the Champagne is descended from Brighton View’s stakes-winning daughter Weekend Fun, dam of stakes winner Double the Money. Bred to useful runner and sire Al Hattab—who sired British stakes winner Al Stanza from another daughter of Brighton View, Light Verse—Weekend Fun produced winner All Week End. All Week End had ten foals make it to the track, and all of them won. Tops among them was All Thee Power, who captured the 1991 California Derby (G2) by eight lengths. Champagne Royale, dam of Tap the Champagne, is out of All Week End’s daughter All Tanked Up.
