Galileo Closing In On His Own Remarkable Sire

In his own lifetime, the ground-breaking scientific endeavours of the original Galileo sufficed only to have him condemned as a heretic. In the case of his equine namesake, in contrast, the danger is that his contemporaries take his greatness for granted. In any walk of life, never mind the unpredictable world of breeding and racing, it is only seldom that we can be so confident that posterity will share our regard for one still in our midst. On the day that Galileo formally turns 19, then, it is worth taking a step back to remind ourselves that we are witnessing the pomp of a stallion who will define an epoch. Because while his name is assured of immortality on the Turf, the horse of flesh and blood will not be around forever.

At his current rate–now up to 62 individual G1 scorers, 14 of them recording wins at that level during an extraordinary spree in 2016–he may well come close in 2017 to his sire's aggregate of 73. Certainly it seems safe to assume that his 15th crop, born this spring, will be extending a record taken from Sadler's Wells by the time they make it onto the track. And who knows how many more crops may yet follow? John Magnier, as a true stockman, will doubtless have a fatalistic view of that–knowing, as he does, that the legend of Galileo was very nearly brought to a premature end in the autumn on 2008, when the horse was struck down by a double attack of colic.

For Magnier and his partners, the horse's reprieve has had miraculous dividends of another kind. Galileo's crisis took place only four months after the retirement of Sadler's Wells, at the age of 27. And while Frankel had been foaled that spring, it is mind-boggling to consider the parade of elite performers we owe to Galileo's survival. To name a random sample: Intello, Ruler of the World, Australia, Magician, Gleneagles, Highland Reel, Found, Minding, The Gurkha and now Churchill.

We are becoming so accustomed to their sire's hegemony–his progeny earnings in 2016 have topped $30 million; Tapit, next in the list, is just about touching $20 million–that it takes something truly outlandish to renew our appreciation of the genetic gold he is vesting in the breed: a 1-2-3 in the G1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, for instance. For the fact is that many who admired the giddy new summit he attained at Chantilly in October will have forgotten that Galileo's offspring had already that season filled the frame in an English Classic, in the G1 1000 Guineas.

In both cases, of course, the plaudits were shared by a trainer whose intimacy with Galileo, as a racehorse, has unquestionably assisted him in drawing out the full potential of his progeny. Interviewing Aidan O'Brien for a recent book, I was fascinated to learn how carefully he modulates his handling of Galileo's stock. Whereas the foals of Montjeu, that other great heir to Sadler's Wells, needed protecting from experiences that might unnerve them, Galileo's only needed protecting from themselves. “If you overwork them, they won't stop,” O'Brien said. “So if they're not ready physically, they'll hurt themselves. Most horses, if you work them before they're fit enough, or when they're feeling any pain, they'll stop–and they will never give you their all again. But Galileos never question anything they are asked.”

It is the mutual good fortune of O'Brien and Galileo to have their respective gifts complemented by a talent commensurate with their own. By the same token, it is unnerving to speculate what damage may have been done to sons of Galileo in less sensitive hands. But that is only one factor in the preponderance of “in-house” champions to have served Galileo so well over the years. It could be argued, for instance, that there is a chicken-and-egg quality to the current debate over commercial breeders' infatuation with speed. You hear a lot of people washing their hands of trying to win a Derby because they can't afford access to a stallion listed as private for several years now; but few seem to ask themselves whether Galileo would be quite so dominant in Classics if some of the mares seeking fast bucks from a fast sire were instead sent to one of those less fashionable sires with a legitimate right to produce a Derby colt, if only they were given a meaningful chance.

That is hardly Galileo's fault, and with age he may yet restore some balance to the situation himself–as a sire of sires. Frankel's flying start potentially makes him eligible to develop into the champion's principal heir, but besides three Derby winners at stud, Galileo also has an expanding portfolio of horses capable of tempting commercial breeders away from their beloved blue-collar speed sires: young stallions like Intello, who has been impressing with his debutants in the ring; Classic milers, like Gleneagles and now The Gurkha; while Coolmore will in due course have another champion juvenile to promote at stud, in Churchill.

It is precisely horses of this type that show why Galileo has become the genetic grail. He has produced enough fast horses from fast mares for breeders to be confident that he will not so much neuter speed on the dam side, as compound it–above all, Danehill speed. They used to say of Danehill that he could get you a sprinter from a sprinter, or a stayer from a stayer. But with Galileo it seems you can throw out the rule book. You're just going to get a good horse, and with some of them, it doesn't seem to matter quite what you ask them to do. Minding is a good example. On a conventional reading of her maternal genes, it seemed possible to question her stamina for the Oaks trip. Galileo meant that the distance was never even an issue to O'Brien. Yet despite bolting up at Epsom, the filly bookended her campaign with Group 1 wins at a bare mile. Equally, while Frankel is out of a black-type winner at 6f, so is Seventh Heaven, who looked such a thorough stayer at 12f in her two Group 1 wins last season.

Galileo's own racing career, featuring just one start at two and majoring in middle distances at three, limited general expectations of his juveniles and his freshman statistics duly fell short of those compiled by Mozart, Bertolini, Medicean, Observatory, Mull of Kintyre and Fantastic Light. None of his first 2-year-olds, sired at Ir£50,000, won at pattern level–in contrast with Sadler's Wells, who even produced two Group 1 winners in one race when Prince of Dance and Scenic dead-heated for the Dewhurst. But if Galileo's first crop might have pointed the weathervane one way, in subsequently filling the podium in the St Leger, we now know that his second, featuring a champion juvenile in Teofilo, was still more instructive in registering the way the wind was blowing.

The fact that Galileo won that solitary juvenile start by 14 lengths makes it poignant to wonder what kind of possibilities may have passed him by, when held up by a couple of bouts of coughing earlier that season. In contrast with many sires, as they mature, Galileo's 12th crop on the track was almost certainly his most precocious. Churchill, Waldgeist and Rhododendron all won G1 races at two, while Hydrangea failed only by a nose to join them. Given the proven sustainability of his progeny's excellence, Galileo seems unlikely to be surrendering his crown any time soon.

After all, the more evidence we have about what works best with any sire, the more confident we can be about mating strategy. Sure enough, 10 of the 14 mares to give him a Group 1 winner in 2016 have since foaled a sibling. Among others, these include the dams of Found, Minding, Highland Reel, Alice Springs and The Gurkha.

Now champion stallion for an eighth time, Galileo may yet reel in his own sire–whose record of 14 titles was presumed certain, at the time of his pensioning, to stand for all time. Where the first Galileo redrew the firmament, in racing terms, the second is strewing it with new stars. Let us renew our sense of wonder, then, should he manage to assemble yet another dazzling constellation during 2017.