I think I got a little carried away in May last year, after Declaration of War's first-crop son Olmedo landed France's G1 Poule d'Essai des Poulains. I was prompted to draw comparisons between the then-Ashford Stud resident and the same stud's recently-deceased champion sire Giant's Causeway. The comparison was valid, as there had been several [...]

In the battle to attract more European buyers back to the American sales, the weekend's action represented a solid advance. Of the seven turf races at the Breeders' Cup, as many as five were sired by American-based stallions and there was also an American-bred winner, Kameko, of the rescheduled G1 Vertem Futurity Trophy on Tapeta [...]

Memories being as short as they are in the bloodstock world, it may come as something of a surprise when I remind you that Makfi (GB) was the highest-priced new stallion in Europe in 2011. At a fee of £25,000, Makfi was ahead of Lope de Vega, who was priced at €15,000, and the likes [...]

Competing against the might of Coolmore and Kildangan can never be easy, but the shrewd Ballylinch Stud operation manages better than most, as last week's action reminded us. Lope de Vega's Group 1-winning Australian son Santa Ana Lane just missed out on the huge first prize when beaten half a length in Saturday's TAB Everest, [...]

Perhaps one wouldn't expect Wolverhampton's all-weather track to have featured very often in Juddmonte's extraordinary history, but the Dunstall Park circuit has indeed played its part. For example, it was over Wolverhampton's Tapeta surface that Kingman's son Emissary made a stylish debut three days ago, earning TDN Rising Star status in the process. This half-brother [...]

It isn't just the common law legal system which likes a precedent. Breeders love one too, to the extent that many prefer to have the reassurance that a mating represents a proven nick. However, when it comes to close inbreeding, such reassurance isn't usually there to be found. Consequently, it was a bold move on [...]

Bearing in mind that the competition among the Coolmore stallions features such fast horses as No Nay Never, Caravaggio, U S Navy Flag and Calyx (with Ten Sovereigns possibly waiting in the wings), it would be all too easy for breeders to overlook Starspangledbanner – especially when his name was once associated with pronounced fertility [...]

Dubawi's colourful story is a perfect reminder that attitudes–and prices–are constantly changing in the bloodstock world. Subject to the usual difficulties which face young stallions before their progeny prove themselves, Dubawi was priced at only £15,000 in his fourth year in 2009, having attracted no more than 91 mares in 2008.  Even that substantial price [...]

Sadly, the stallion career of the hugely popular Giant's Causeway petered out a little earlier than his many admirers would have wanted, with the champion son of Storm Cat being credited with only 15 foals in 2018, the year he covered nine mares before his death in April. He was 21 at the time, whereas [...]

Last year, in mid-September, Godolphin was in the enviable position of owning two highly promising sons of Darley's outstanding stallion Dubawi. The unbeaten Too Darn Hot had won the G2 Champagne S., and was to be even more impressive in the G1 Dewhurst S. Then, a day after the Champagne, the unbeaten Quorto defeated the [...]

Back in 2006, when the first two flashed past the winning post in the G1 Dewhurst S., they also earned themselves first and second places on the European Two-Year-Old Thoroughbred Racehorse Rankings. Galileo's unbeaten son Teofilo topped the table by 1lb from Danehill's dual Group 1-winning son Holy Roman Emperor, who had also been beaten [...]

As the TDN Rising Star Amalfi Sunrise drew off for an easy six-length success in the GII Sorrento S., I was reminded of a commission I received in the fall of 2015. With the Breeders' Cup bandwagon due to roll into Lexington and Keeneland, WinStar wanted to promote its extensive team of stallions. I was [...]