Grade 1 winner and Maryland-bred champion POSEIDON’S WARRIOR, bred by Dark Hollow Farm and William Paca Beatson, explodes out of the gate as a Grade 1 sire!

FIRENZE FIRE, a member of POSEIDON’S WARRIOR’s first crop, was tenacious down Belmont Park’s long stretch in the historic Champagne Stakes-G1 on Oct. 7, getting his second graded win in four starts and earning a Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series: Win & You’re In™ spot for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile-G1 at Del Mar. FIRENZE FIRE, a Mr. Amore Stable homebred trained by Jason Servis, won Saratoga’s Grade 3 Sanford in his stakes debut in July.

Ranked among the top-five freshman sires in the nation, POSEIDON’S WARRIOR launched his stud career at Pleasant Acres Stallions, Morriston, Fla., after racing three seasons and winning stakes each year, most spectacularly during a 4-year-old campaign that saw him take Saratoga’s Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap-G1 and finish third in the Belmont’s Grade 1 Vosburgh Invitational.

A son of champion sprinter and top sire Speightstown and final foal out of a Dark Hollow Farm’s Maryland Broodmare of the Year POISED TO POUNCE, a daughter of influential broodmare sire Smarten, POSEIDON’S WARRIOR was purchased at the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic 2-year-olds in training sale by Chuck Zacney, who campaigned him until midway through his 3-year-old season. Trained throughout his career by Butch Reid, POSEIDON’S WARRIOR went on to win four stakes for Swilcan Stable before retiring with seven wins in 21 starts, for earnings of $701,147.

Dark Hollow Farm and Beatson have had a winning connection to the Champagne Stakes in the past, as the breeders of HOMEBOYKRIS, who captured the 2009 edition over a field that included Super Saver and Discreetly Mine.