Farewell to a Stallion Thoroughly Deserving of Acclaim

There is no little poignancy in the timing of Acclamation (GB) making his permanent exit from the stage just as his most celebrated offspring, Dark Angel (Ire), stands on the cusp of being crowned champion sire in Britain and Ireland.

As the mares sale got underway at Tattersalls last Monday, the news filtered through that Acclamation, who had been officially retired only a matter of weeks beforehand, had died at the age of 25. His passing, though at a good age and with his legacy already assured, will leave a void at Rathbarry Stud where he stood for 21 consecutive seasons. 

Paul Cashman, whose late father Liam bought Acclamation to stand at Rathbarry, said, “Back in those days, those type of sires could get going a bit easier. Would they get going now? That's the question we have to ask ourselves. With everything having become so polarised you nearly want a Group 1-winning horse now to catch people's eyes, but back in those days, and we're talking 20-odd years ago, more horses got a chance. 

“You were buying the horse, the individual and the race record and taking a punt that it would work. As we've all seen, that outcross has really worked. It has clicked with a lot of the lines that are there now. Not too many horses can be a sire of sires, and now he is coming through as a broodmare sire – he's doing it every which way.”

By Royal Applause (GB), his is the branch of the Northern Dancer line primarily associated with speed, through the champion two-year-old Try My Best. He in turn sired the Queen Anne Stakes winner Waajib (Ire), whose two Group 1 winners were the six-furlong specialist Royal Applause and, at the other end of the spectrum, the Adelaide Cup winner Apache King (Aus).

Acclamation's dam, Princess Athena (Ire) (Ahonoora {GB}), was, like Royal Applause, both fast and precocious, winning the Queen Mary Stakes for David Elsworth. She was unfortunate not to also become the dam of a Royal Ascot winner when Acclamation ran into the Aussie monster of a sprinter that was Choisir (Aus) when second in the King's Stand Stakes back in 2003. By then he was already a multiple winner, and he would go on to finish third behind Oasis Dream (GB) and The Tatling (Ire) in that year's Nunthorpe Stakes before landing consecutive wins in the Starlit and Diadem Stakes. 

Acclamation made his final appearance on the track in the Hong Kong Sprint at Sha Tin during the international meeting which, only this weekend, featured his highest-rated son, the Hong Kong champion Romantic Warrior (Ire), who became the first horse to secure three victories in the Hong Kong Cup.

Bred in Ireland by Corduff Stud and Timothy Rooney, Romantic Warrior is something of an outlier in Acclamation's portfolio in that ten of his group wins have come over ten furlongs. As versatile and durable as he is talented, however, the six-year-old has also won over six, seven and eight furlongs. 

Romantic Warrior's own legacy will be as one of the best Hong Kong-trained horses of the modern era, who has represented the island with honour in winning Australia's Cox Plate and the Yasuda Kinen in Japan. Closer to home, it is Acclamation's stallion sons who have cemented his own position in the pantheon of influential sires. 

Furthermore, the day after Acclamation's death was announced, two of his granddaughters, Vertical Blue (Ire) and Believing (Ire), both by Mehmas (Ire), sold for 3.2 million and 3 million gns respectively at Tattersalls, following the previous year's December Mares Sale when another granddaughter, 1,000 Guineas winner Cachet (Ire), by Aclaim (Ire), fetched 2.2 million gns. And it is one of Acclamation's own daughters, the late Marsha (Ire), who still holds the filly/mare sale record in Europe having fetched 6 million gns back in 2017.

Along with Mehmas and Aclaim, Acclamation's sons Equiano (Fr), Attendu (Fr), Expert Eye (GB), Lilbourne Lad (Ire), Bouttemont (Fr), Johnny Barnes (Ire) and Harbour Watch (Ire) have all ended up at stud, but it is far and away Dark Angel who has made the greatest impression in this role to date. Mehmas, bred on the same cross with Machiavellian, may yet challenge for that accolade, but it was Dark Angel, from Acclamation's debut crop, who first put his sire's name in lights. There arguably could not be a more admirable conduit for this line than Yeomanstown Stud's grey, winner of the Middle Park and Mill Reef Stakes in his sole season of racing.

That branch line has a decent chance of continuing a good while yet. This year's champion miler Charyn (Ire) is the latest to join the stallion ranks, at Sumbe, where he will stand alongside another of Dark Angel's sons, Angel Bleu (Fr) and his grandson Golden Horde (Ire). Darley has Harry Angel (Ire) and another son, Raging Bull (Fr), is at Gainesway in Kentucky.

Other stallions to be carrying Acclamation's line at stud include Pyledriver (GB), in some ways the unlikeliest of middle-distance heroes but a hero nonetheless. By the short-lived Harbour Watch, his superb record included the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, Coronation Cup, Hardwicke Stakes, King Edward VII Stakes and the Great Voltigeur. It will be intriguing to see how he fares at the Beeches Stud in Coolmore's National Hunt division, where he covered 109 mares this year.

It could perhaps be argued that Acclamation has a stronger record through his male progeny, but two of his seven Group 1 winners to date are female, with Makarova (GB) having recently emulated Marsha in winning the Prix de l'Abbaye at Longchamp's Arc meeting. 

Money maker! 💰

Romantic Warrior banks HK$22.4m with victory to leapfrog Golden Sixty (HK$167.17m) as horse racing's world record earner (HK$177.32m)… 💙@LONGINES | @mcacajamez | #HKIR pic.twitter.com/I8UBh4yt4M

— HKJC Racing (@HKJC_Racing) December 8, 2024

It will be interesting to see how My Sister Nat (Fr), the Grade III-winning half-sister to Sottsass (Fr), Shin Emperor (Fr) and Sistercharlie (Ire) fares as a broodmare for Peter Brant's White Birch Farm, while Croom House Stud's Sweepstake (Ire), a stakes winner from Acclamation's first crop, is already well established in this role as the dam of the Australia (GB) brothers Broome (Ire) and Point Lonsdale (Ire) as well as Diego Velazquez (Ire) (Frankel {GB}).

The Commonwealth Cup winner Eqtidaar (Ire) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}) was another Group 1 winner out of an Acclamation mare. His half-brother Massaat (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}) narrowly missed out on that accolade when second in the 2,000 Guineas to Galileo Gold (Ire), which he followed up by winning the G2 Hungerford Stakes.

With 24 foals reported on the ground this year, Acclamation covered 16 mares in his final active season this spring. There are then still a number of chances for his record to be enhanced further. That it is so impressive in the first place owes a lot to the temperament he imparted, according to Cashman.

He said, “As we've just seen with Romantic Warrior flying the flag again at the weekend, it just shows you what Acclamation's offspring are like: they are honest, they are tough and they want to win. A horse's temperament is half the battle and that's what he put into his horses. They are very honest and game horses, that shone through, and breeders bought into it.”

Cashman continued, “Gay [O'Callaghan, Yeomanstown Stud] broke the mould when he bought Dark Angel as a two-year-old to stand at stud. That wasn't being done at the time and it was half frowned upon, but you could see what Gay was getting at because Dark Angel was a very good two-year-old but there wasn't the racing programme then and you had to have an above-average three-year-old to go up against the older sprinters because they were so battle-hardened.

“That Machiavellian line [with Acclamation] really clicked for Gay and then for Tony and Roger [O'Callaghan, Tally-Ho Stud] with Mehmas, it's the same thing as well. They are so tough and honest, and Mehmas this year has broken the record for the most number of two-year-old winners in a season.

“As my father said at the time, Acclamation was very good to us and to a lot of people. He was good for young mares to get them up and running with winners on the board, and to kick on to another level. He was a very commercial horse for a lot of people.”

Jockey James McDonald said of Romantic Warrior on Sunday as his earnings were boosted to just shy of £18 million to become the highest-earning racehorse of all time, “He's the best, forget the rest.” For just that one horse alone, Acclamation would have earned a place in the history books, but we will remember the rest, too, especially those whose sons and daughters continue to add to what is already an unforgettable legacy.