Bill Oppenheim: Classic Standards

Galileo's fingerprints are all over the four Guineas races which have been run so far in Britain and now France this season: he's the sire of the commanding G1 English 1000 Guineas winner, Minding (and the second, Ballydoyle; and the third, Alice Springs) and Sunday's impressive G1 Poule d'Essai Des Poulains – French 2000 Guineas winner, The Ghurka; and he's the damsire of G1 English 2000 Guineas winner Galileo Gold (by Paco Boy), and of Sunday's G1 Poule d'Essai des Pouliches-French 1000 Guineas winner, La Cressonniere, the second Pouliches winner in three crops of 3-year-olds for Haras De La Cauviniere's top young French sire, Le Havre. That's four out of four for Galileo as either sire or damsire.

Galileo has now sired 47 winners this year, and leads all European sires by combined North American/European earnings, which now total over $2.7-million (click here), with Shamardal and Footstepsinthesand (both sons of Giant's Causeway, both sired in his first crop, the year he stood in Ireland) battling it out for second and third, at around $1.28-million each. Galileo also leads all European sires in all worldwide black type categories from Northern Hemisphere-sired crops in 2016 with: 16 Black-Type Winners; 33 Black-Type Horses; nine Group/Graded SW; 22 Group/Graded Stakes Horses; three Group 1 winners; and five Group 1 horses.

In total, from 11 crops of 3-year-olds, The Gurkha is Group 1 winner number 51 from Galileo's Northern Hemisphere-sired crops. That's 4 1/2 Group 1 winners per crop, and okay, he now averages 160 foals per crop, but really good sires might average one Group 1 winner per crop.

Winner of the 2009 G1 Prix du Jockey-Club – French Derby (run over 2100m.), Le Havre is one of a strong corps of young French sires also including Kendargent and Siyouni, but in a European context he is also one of four European 'fourth-crop' sires (of 2016; first foals 2011) who have now separated themselves out as major international sires, along with Coolmore's Mastercraftsman and Fastnet Rock (Northern Hemisphere crops only) and Gilltown Stud's Sea The Stars (click here) They are the only horses to have sired more than one Group 1 winner: Mastercraftsman, Sea The Stars, and Fastnet Rock have sired three each; Le Havre has sired two, both winners of the 'Pouliches', Avenir Certain – who went on to make it a Classic double in the Prix de Diane – French Oaks, and now La Cressonniere.

Galileo Gold of course advertised his sire Paco Boy's credentials with a Galileo mare, and a second 3-year-old by Paco Boy out of a Galileo mare, Imperial Affair, won a £70,000 10-furlong handicap, the London Gold Cup, last Saturday at Newbury. There's even another Galileo sire-damsire story, because in his previous start, Imperial Affair had broken his maiden at the expense of a Galileo colt out of G1 Epsom Oaks winner Light Shift, named Ulysses, trained by Sir Michael Stoute for the Niarchos Family. Ulysses came out last Friday and blasted a field of maidens by eight lengths and, in a race with no favorite, was another being mentioned for the June 4 G1 Epsom Derby. Whatever those two go for, though–one by Paco Boy out of a Galileo mare and the other by Galileo – they are very much 3-year-old colts who look like they are improving rapidly.

One of the other highlights of last week's European racing was Frankel's first runner, a colt named Cunco, bred and owned by the Chilean-owned Don Alberto outfit and trained by Britain's reigning champion trainer, John Gosden. He ran in a six-furlong maiden at Newbury last Friday, drifted in the betting, but got the message in time and got up to win narrowly but going away; I tweeted that jockey Rob Havlin was still trying to pull him up when the racing channel switched over to the next racetrack. Logically, the seven-furlong Chesham S. at Royal Ascot was nominated as the probable target.

There are a couple of interesting and probably significant points to make about Cunco's pedigree. Frankel, as you know, is by Galileo out of Kind, by Danehill. Cunco is out of Chrysanthemum, a dual 7f-1m Group 3 winner by Danehill Dancer out of Well Spoken, by Sadler's Wells. So Cunco has a kind of 'mirror' pedigree: Sadler's Wells 3×3 and Danehill 3×3. A lot of people (myself included) don't like the idea of these kinds of pedigrees, because they suggest a narrowing of the available population. On the whole I've never had the impression these kinds of pedigrees were particularly potent, but maybe they are when the ingredients are Galileo, Sadler's Wells, and Danehill.

Speaking of Danehill Dancer, he has gone from zero to hero as a broodmare sire in the last 12 months. There's this thing we've noticed over the years about broodmare sires, or rather about sires becoming broodmare sires: when a sire is bred to really, really poor mares to start with, there is a delay to their success as broodmare sires, and it has to be because there is a level of mare which is of such low quality that they can't, on the whole, produce good horses in the next generation. So not until the sire starts to get mares of at least a little bit better, minimal quality so that when those mares go into production, the horse can get started as a broodmare sire. The first time I observed this phenomenon was Sharpen Up, who started out as a £500 stallion and ended up at Gainesway Farm after siring horses the quality of the full brothers Kris and Diesis. But for a long time Sharpen Up was considered a failure as a broodmare sire, then all of a sudden, after about a five-year delay, boom, he's a good broodmare sire. The same thing happened to Pivotal; initially, he was considered a failure as a broodmare sire, yet now people go out trying to find Pivotal mares to breed from.

The same thing could be about to happen to Danehill Dancer, who, ironically and perhaps fittingly, is himself out of a Sharpen Up mare. His first Northern Hemisphere crop was foaled in 1999, yet by the end of 2014, when his first crop was 15 years old, Danehill Dancer had only eight A Runners as a broodmare sire, in fact was only averaging one a year. Then, in 2015, boom: 10 A Runners as a broodmare sire–of which, by the way, six of the 10 were by Galileo. These included Minding, now a Classic winner, and Alice Springs, now Classic-placed. Then, new in 2016: The Gurkha, Classic winner by Galileo; and, for good measure, Cunco, Frankel's first winner–all out of Danehill Dancer mares. It sure looks like some of the better mares by Danehill Dancer just came on line. We can expect Danehill Dancer mares to suddenly become fashionable, at this rate.

One of the features of the European season to date has been the resurgence of Godolphin and the continuing emergence of Qatari Sheikh Joaan al-Thani's Al Shaqab Racing, which scored a notable double at Deauville over the weekend with the wins by Mekhtaal (Sea The Stars) in the G2 Prix Hocquart on Sunday, and by Jemayel (Lope de Vega) in Monday's G1 Prix Saint-Alary, and Al Shaqab is now, we think, the leading owner in France this year. They also have probably the leading British-trained contender for Royal Ascot's top 2-year-old race, the six-furlong G2 Coventry S., in the Richard Hannon-trained Mehmas (Acclamation), an impressive conditions race winner at Newbury on Saturday. Godolphin, meanwhile, appear to be a long way clear as Leading Owners in Britain. I keep hedging as owner's statistics are very tricky to compile: for example, Belardo is not owned by Godolphin, but rather by Godolphin and Prince A A Faisal, so those are tallied as different entities–not to mention the various permutations of Magnier-Tabor-Smith. The details are evasive, but we do know for sure Godolphin and Al Shaqab are having pretty good years on the European racetracks so far. Contact Bill Oppenheim at bopp@erb.com (cc suefinley@thetdn.com).