New Bay

Royal Applause (GB), a stalwart of the Royal Studs who has been retired from covering duties since 2014, has enjoyed something of a renaissance in recent years largely thanks to his son Acclamation (GB) and grandson Dark Angel (Ire). Numerically, Gutaifan (Ire) led the first-season sires' list last season and he is one of at least eight sons of Dark Angel at stud in Europe. In 2020, two of those will have their first runners, but it is a son of Dark Angel's sire Acclamation who is tipped for the...

For the stallions with first-crop 2-year-olds of 2020, the guessing game is effectively over. The market has offered up its opinions at the foal and yearling levels--for some, reputations have been enhanced even before their firstborns bore tack. For others, the market has nearly already decided their fate. Irrespective of what happened in the ring, however, a great many first-crop 2-year-olds are now in the hands of their trainers, and we have just mere months to wait before the most precocious of those begin to show their hands. In the...