Star Guitar
It has been over eight years since Louisiana hero Star Guitar was profiled in these pages. At that time, he was a leading second-crop sire in the state. Now, at the age of 20, he has become as much of an icon for passing on class, consistency, durability and soundness in the breeding shed as he was for exhibiting these traits during his racing career. Since taking the Louisiana sire title in 2018, the Clear Creek Stud resident has ranked among the state’s top five sires by progeny earnings every year (including runner-up finishes in 2019 and 2020) and has won Louisiana’s “Stallion of the Year” award for six of the last seven years. As of September 8, he is first in the state rankings by Louisiana-bred progeny earnings, third by progeny earnings, second by number of winners, and first (in a tie) by number of black-type runners.
Pride of place among Star Guitar’s 19 stakes winners goes to millionaire Touchuponastar (Touch Magic, by Lion Heart), one of four graded stakes winners for the stallion. The winner of 13 stakes races this far (including three editions each of the Louisiana Champions Day Classic Stakes and the Louisiana Premier Night Championship Stakes), the defending Louisiana-bred older male touched a new height on March 22, 2025, when he captured the New Orleans Classic Stakes (G2). Star Guitar is also represented in 2025 by 2024 Louisiana-bred champion 3-year filly Six String (Oh Whata Holiday, by Harlan’s Holiday), recent winner of the Louisiana Filly and Mare Sprint Stakes, and Rue Lala (Miss Addison, by Orientate), who won the Page Cortes Stakes at the Fair Grounds in March.
Admirably consistent, Star Guitar has 217 winners from his 350 named foals aged 3 and over, a 62 percent strike rate. His starters average over $70,000 in earnings, a figure that holds up even with Touchuponastar taken out of the accounting. While his winners have come from a wide variety of sire lines, he seems to do particularly well with mares from the Storm Cat male line and those that return Raise a Native, whether through Mr. Prospector or other sources. Star Guitar has also been a reliable sire at the sales, with a lifetime average of $20,894 for his yearlings and $38,954 for his 2-year-olds in training—not bad for a stallion who stood the 2025 season for $7,500.
As might be expected from a horse who has become a byword for begetting sound, hardy, reliable runners, Star Guitar himself showed those same traits during his own racing career, along with a fine measure of class. A four-time Louisiana Horse of the Year while racing for his breeders, Brittlyn Stable's Evelyn and Maurice Benoit, Star Guitar racked up $1,749,862 while winning 24 of his 30 starts. He was a stakes winner from ages 2 through 7 and ended up with 22 trophies from added-money events, winning stakes races on both dirt and turf. Among his many accomplishments, he won the Louisiana Premier Night Championship Stakes four consecutive times (2009–2012), the Louisiana Champions Day Classic Stakes three consecutive times (2009–2011) and the Evangeline Mile Handicap three consecutive times (2009–2011); he also set a track record of 1:43.71 for a mile and one-sixteenth at Evangeline Downs.
Star Guitar was sired by Quiet American, who was inbred 3x2 to 1968 Horse of the Year Dr. Fager. If he was no Dr. Fager on the track—and very few horses in American racing history have ever approached “The Doctor” in brilliance—he was still one of the best milers of his time, winning the 1990 NYRA Mile Handicap (G1) and defeating the great mare Bayakoa in the 1990 San Diego Handicap (G3). He sired 54 stakes winners including 1997 Kentucky Derby (G1) and Preakness Stakes (G1) winner Real Quiet, champion older female Hidden Lake, multiple Grade I winner Switch, and 1995 Hollywood Starlet Stakes (G1) winner Cara Rafaela, dam of 2006 champion 3-year-old male and important sire Bernardini.
On his dam's side, Star Guitar has solid Louisiana roots. He was the last foal of Minit Towinit, also a Brittlyn Stable homebred, who was a two-time stakes winner in Louisiana-bred restricted company. Also the dam of Louisiana stakes winners Favorite Minit (by Favorite Trick) and Grand Minit (by Grand Slam), she was sired by 1990 Count Fleet Sprint Handicap (G3) winner Malagra (by Majestic Light). A good sire in Louisiana, Malagra is best remembered for his daughter Hallowed Dreams, who tied Citation's then-extant modern-day record of 16 straight wins while racing primarily in Louisiana-bred stakes company.
Star Guitar has well justified the faith shown in him by Evelyn Benoit, who bought good stakes winners such as 2010 Canadian Oaks winner Roan Inish, Moment of Majesty, and Five Star Momma specifically to breed them to her stallion. Her efforts in supporting her horse have been well rewarded; Brittlyn Stable is the breeder of ten of the stallion’s black-type stakes winners, including Louisiana-bred champions Testing One Two and Star Moment (the latter out of Moment of Majesty), and has been the state’s leading breeder in five of the last six years, with Star Guitar’s progeny no small part of that success. The next stage may well be based on Star Guitar’s daughters, who are starting to come up with some nice horses; the best so far for Star Guitar as a broodmare sire is Brittlyn-bred Clearly a Test, a three-time stakes winner who has earned nearly $350,000.
Those looking for flashy horses or the latest hot sire will probably overlook Star Guitar, whose progeny tend to come in plain brown wrappers not unlike his own. But what they lack in show-horse looks, they make up for in solid builds, overall correctness, good minds, and the desire to race and win. That has been more than enough to make Star Guitar the kind of stallion that any regional breeder would be proud to have on the roster and a horse whose influence will be felt in Louisiana for years to come.