first-season sire championship

There will be a lot of I-told-you-sos when looking back on the first-season sires' championship with Blue Point (Ire) living up to his lofty billing by amassing 50 individual winners in Europe including two Group 1 scorers in what can only be described as a dream debut season.  The pledge of support behind Blue Point from a very early stage, in what was viewed by many as the most competitive first-season sires' championship in a long time, was telling.  Perhaps one of the most accurate predictions came from trainer Richard...

The market has reacted to the blistering start Blue Point (Ire) has had with his two-year-olds with the Kildangan-based stallion trimmed into 5-6 favouritism for first-season sire honours with Fitzdares.  Blue Point is operating at a 50 per cent strike-rate, with four winners on the board already in Britain and Ireland, as well as another in France. He has also enjoyed notable success with his offspring in the sales ring at the domestic breeze-up sales.  The in-demand youngster leads Ten Sovereigns (Ire), whose only runner in Britain and Ireland was...

The husband-and-wife team of Paul and Sara Thorman at Trickledown Stud, one of the most recognisable names in any sales catalogue, have revealed a change of emphasis that will see the operation concentrate more on pinhooking rather than breeding in the coming years.  Trickledown consigned over 300 horses annually in its pomp but, after reducing the broodmare band to just four ahead of the breeding season, Paul explained how he and his wife Sara will bid to enjoy life a bit more whilst running a more streamlined version of the...

It was extremely unlikely that any first-season sire this year would even get close to the record-breaking 56 winners for Mehmas (Ire) in 2020. That feat was made all the more remarkable by the fact that the start of the Flat season was delayed for several months by the pandemic-induced shutdown of racing. Leaving this huge tally aside, in any other year 35 first-crop winners at a strike-rate of 40% would be more than respectable, and it is this number, and £788,531 in progeny earnings in 2021, that sees Mehmas's...