The Half-Term Sire Report

We're not quite halfway through the Flat season but Royal Ascot feels like a pivotal point. It's not just the fact that it coincides with the summer solstice (even though summer has really only just arrived in these parts) but it includes the first properly meaningful two-year-old contests along with a set of races for the Classic generation which start to underline the really serious prospects.

While the yearling sales may tell one story of the popularity of stallions, one only needs to peruse the stakes race results on a regular basis to know that the reality is quite different. One feeds the other to a degree, but sales results are not entirely indicative of a stallion's success. And in measuring that success, there are of course a number of factors to take into account, not least the level of patronage and quality of mares each stallion has enjoyed at different stages of his career. 

The results from Royal Ascot, while reflecting a number of elite races, also include plenty of competitive handicaps and therefore offer a snapshot of the breeding scene in microcosm. What this year shows, as most others, is that, yes, the top stallions largely have done well, but so too have a number of names which have long ago fallen from fashionable grace despite the fact that they can, as they say, 'get a good one'.

Thirty different sires supplied a Royal Ascot winner this year, with the horse we can still regard as the king, Galileo (Ire), the only one to have three: Kyprios (Ire), Illinois (Ire) and Uxmal (Ire) in the G1 Gold Cup, G2 Queen's Vase and the Queen Alexandra Stakes. 

Galileo's half-brother Sea The Stars (Ire) supplied two winners, as did his son Frankel (GB). The only stallion to be represented by two Group 1 winners at Royal Ascot was Dark Angel (Ire), and we will come on to him later. First, though, let's have a look at how this year's freshman sires are starting to shape up.

First-season stallions

Now, let's not get carried away, even though some of us have been doing so since late March. What happens later this year and into next season with their first three-year-old runners is what really matters for this batch of stallions but keeping an eye on each stallion's first two-year-old runners is irresistible. And, as alluded to, it can sometimes be a self-fulfilling prophecy that early success on the track leads to greater demand at the yearling sales – which will begin in the blink of an eye – and this in turn will drive greater demand from breeders next February. Sometimes, but not always. 

As things stand right now, Scat Daddy's son Sergei Prokofiev, who hit the ground running when Arizona Blaze won the first Irish juvenile race of the season back on March 18, is holding his position at the head of the table. Arizona Blaze has held his form, too, by winning the G3 Marble Hill Stakes and finishing third last week in the G2 Norfolk Stakes. The Amo Racing team has got behind Whitsbury Manor Stud's Sergei Prokofiev and own his other black-type winner to date, the Listed National Stakes winner  Enchanting Empress (GB), who won twice prior to that but finished down the field in the G2 Queen Mary. 

'Sergei' has had nine individual winners from 32 runners and is comfortably ahead of Sands Of Mali (Fr) on six. The Ballyhane Stud sire is the only other stallion in this group to have had a black-type winner so far. His son Ain't Nobody (Ire), who is now unbeaten in two starts, won the Windsor Castle Stakes, with the Sands Of Mali filly Aviation Time (Ire) taking third. Darley's Earthlight (Ire) and Hello Youmzain (Fr), who stands in France at Haras d'Etreham, have five winners apiece.

Beyond this quartet there are plenty of young stallions starting to have greater representation on the track. Kameko has four winners on the board, including Juddmonte's six-length Pontefract winner Ardeur (GB), while Without Parole (GB) has three, and it is fair to expect both those stallions to feature more prominently in the second half of the season. 

Shamardal, who held some of the bragging rights last year when his son Blue Point (Ire) strolled to the top of the freshman championship, is well represented again this season, not just by the aforementioned Earthlight, but also Yeomanstown Stud's Shaman (Fr), who already has four winners to his name from 13 runners, and by Pinatubo (Ire), who is on three from nine runners. Big things are expected of the latter, who was himself a champion two-year-old whose early-season wins included the Woodcote and the Chesham. There's still plenty of time for his first crop to come to the fore.

The two first-season sons of Farhh (GB) are also worth keeping an eye on. King Of Change (GB) was a surprise breeze-up star and he has two winners from his first three runners. Far Above (GB) has had 17 starters so far and three of them are winners. 

Over in France, alongside the Arc winner Ace Impact (Ire) at Haras de Beaumont stands Stunning Spirit (Ire), a George Strawbridge-bred Group 3-winning miler by Invincible Spirit (Ire). He is another with two winners on the board from only three runners.

Second-season stallions

Last year's top two in the freshman division, Darley's Blue Point (Ire) and Too Darn Hot (GB), have maintained their excellent starts by siring a Classic winner each – Rosallion (Ire) and Fallen Angel (GB). The former has enhanced his Irish 2,000 Guineas form with victory in the St James's Palace Stakes and everything he has done so far marks him out as a superior being.

With seven black-type horses each this year they are flying high, and Too Darn Hot also has what looks to be the champion two-year-old in Australia, Broadsiding (Aus). What is worth noting is that Blue Point has had 134 runners this year for three stakes winners, and Too Darn Hot 83 for five stakes winners. From a much smaller sample, Study Of Man (Ire) has had three stakes winners from 41 runners, and a total of five group horses (winners or placed) compared to four and three for Too Darn Hot and Blue Point. On 7.32 per cent, the Lanwades resident has the highest strike-rate of black-type winners to runners of this group. 

Coolmore's Calyx (GB) also deserves a mention here. He had two Group 2 winners last year and though he is yet to notch a stakes winner in Europe this season, the Group 3 runners-up Eben Shaddad and Purple Lily (Ire), among his four black-type performers, are clearly both useful.

The admirable Haatem (Ire), winner of the G3 Jersey Stakes and second in the Irish 2,000 Guineas, continues to fly the flag for his sire Phoenix Of Spain (Ire), who has three black-type horses to his name.

Haras d'Etreham's City Light (Fr) has a very good percentage of winners to runners (currently 39 per cent – the highest of any in this group with more than 70 runners) and it should only be a matter of time before some of those are converted into stakes winners. He's one to watch.

Proven stallions 

It is probably fair to say that all breeders or observers of the bloodstock scene have either a conscious or unconscious bias towards certain stallions. Some years ago, in a kind of racing version of the old Jack Spratt rhyme, Ed Harper commented that he is not really interested in races beyond a mile or 10 furlongs, while I replied that I was the exact opposite. Of course one must take note of the sprinters, and acknowledge the vital role they play in pedigrees, top and bottom, but from a pure enjoyment point of view, the middle-distance and staying races are the ones I find most absorbing. It is perhaps not surprising then that the winners of such races are put on a pedestal in my mind when they go to stud. 

For a long time I had a bias against horses who had gone to stud after only one season on the racecourse – I still don't think it should be encouraged but there is no denying that there are some decent stallions who have not raced at three. 

In fact, the stallion currently in pole position on the general sires' table, Dark Angel (Ire), is one of them. It wasn't that he couldn't race on, but the premature end to his racing career came about presumably to capitalise on his commercial value as the winner of the G1 Middle Park and G2 Mill Reef Stakes.

It is academic now but the profile of so many of his runners suggest that he, like them, would have trained on and remained sound for seasons to come. Dark Angel is quite rightly the pride of Yeomanstown Stud and, with Group 1 winners Charyn (Ire) and Khaadem (Ire) to his credit last week, he is currently above Dubawi (Ire) and Kingman (GB) at the top of the list. 

Then of course there's Mehmas (Ire) – bred on the same Acclamation-Machiavellian cross as Dark Angel and similarly upwardly mobile, with 19 juvenile winners already on his tally this season.  And while we are on this subject, it was the poor fertility of George Washington (Ire) that led to the early retirement of Holy Roman Emperor (Ire), who probably deserves a bit more love than he receives. His son Rashabar (Ire) served a timely reminder of that when winning the G2 Coventry Stakes last week.

The Aga Khan Studs' Zarak (Fr) has signalled from the start of his career that he is a stallion to be taken seriously and he is really starting to hit his straps this season. His son Metropolitan (Fr) is now a Classic winner, while Haya Zark (Fr) won the G1 Prix Ganay and Zarakem (Fr) was second to Auguste Rodin (Ire) in the G1 Prince of Wales's Stakes last week after winning the G2 Prix d'Harcourt. Zarak has had 15 black-type performers so far this year – only one behind his stud-mate Siyouni (Fr) and second only to his own sire Dubawi when it comes to percentage of black-type winners to runners (6.48 per cent).

Camelot (GB) is not far behind Zarak this season on that particular metric, with 5.88 per cent black-type winners to runners, thanks in part to Luxembourg (Ire) – who is now a Group 1 winner at two, three, four and five – as well as his Group winners Bluestocking (GB), Pensee Du Jour (Ire), Sevenna's Knight (Ire), Dare To Dream (Ire) and Los Angeles (Ire). The latter, who was third in the Derby, could yet take Sunday's Irish Derby. However, one of his biggest rivals for that prize is Ambiente Friendly (Ire), who is one of the horses behind a strong season to date for his sire Gleneagles (Ire). It is easy to see the G2 King Edward VII Stakes winner Calandagan (Fr) become a Group 1 winner for Gleneagles before too long, while further down the distance scale, Mill Stream (Ire) has won the G2 Duke of York Stakes and was third in Saturday's G1 Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes. The G3 Diomed Stakes winner Royal Scotsman (Ire) was another of Gleneagles's five black-type winners of the year and holds several Group 1 entries.

The sires' championship may well have a very different feel to it by the season's end, though it is easy to see Lope De Vega (Ire), who has two Classic winners in the bag this season, taking higher order this year. The big question will be which one of them – if any – continues the level of consistency required to step forward and steal Frankel's crown.