All to Play For in Sires' Championships

It's that time of year where most of the stories in the bloodstock world are being written in the sales ring, with the ink used to tell the tale of Book 1 of the Goffs Orby Sale still fresh on the page and the major plotlines ahead of next week's Tattersalls October Yearling Sale already starting to take shape.

But as the search continues for the Classic winners of 2026, it's worth also reminding ourselves of the many stories still waiting to be written on the racecourse in the closing chapter of 2024, arguably the most gripping and informative of all.

As Paul Hayward said in his TDN column of a couple of weeks ago, “Autumn brings a vast harvest of delights. Enjoy the feast.”

One of the main dishes will be served up at Longchamp on Sunday with the running of the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, but the waiter's recommendation for bloodstock enthusiasts is not to skip Saturday's appetiser at Newmarket, the Sun Chariot Stakes, a Group 1 where the outcome could go some way to answering the first of our big questions heading into the autumn.

Can Frankel Retain his Title as Champion Sire in Britain and Ireland?

To call it a famine for Frankel (GB) during the first part of 2024 might be an exaggeration, but his hold on the crown he won in 2023, for the second time in three years, has certainly been jeopardised by a slow start to the campaign. For context, it wasn't until Lake Victoria (Ire) won last month's Moyglare Stud Stakes at the Curragh that he came up with a Group 1 winner in Europe this year, before the same filly doubled that tally with victory in last weekend's Cheveley Park Stakes at Newmarket.

Now, after The Euphrates (GB) won the extremely valuable Irish Cesarewitch, barely 24 hours on from Lake Victoria's Cheveley Park success, Frankel suddenly finds himself with at least a fighting chance of reeling in Dubawi (Ire), Galileo (Ire) and Dark Angel (Ire) in what is shaping up to be a tantalising championship race.

Dubawi, Britain and Ireland's champion sire in 2022, currently leads old sparring partner Galileo by around £120,000, with Dark Angel barely able to be separated from Coolmore's 12-time champion in third. Then there's Frankel, who trails the pacesetting Dubawi by around £280,000 and needs his flagbearers to show some hunger for the feast ahead.

The Sun Chariot, worth £155,953 to the winner, could be where it starts with Frankel responsible for two leading contenders in Inspiral (GB) and Nashwa (GB), both mares who made significant contributions to his championship win in 2023. It's been tougher going all round this year–Inspiral has essentially looked a shadow of her former self in three starts and Nashwa has been off the track since contesting March's Dubai Turf–but there would be no time like the present where their sire is concerned for them to rediscover their former glories.

Inspiral gained the first of her six career top-level victories when landing the Fillies' Mile in the year Frankel won his first title in 2021. That contest, offering £283,550 to the winner, could be the next port of call for Lake Victoria, with the aim of becoming the first horse in Europe to win three Group 1 races as a two-year-old since Air Force Blue in 2015.

The Ballydoyle filly already dominates the ante-post betting for next year's 1,000 Guineas and Oaks. That bodes well for Frankel's prospects of future championship success, so too what happened at Book 1 of the Orby Sale where he was responsible for the only two seven-figure lots and blew his rivals out of the water in terms of average (€730,000) and aggregate (€4,380,000).

On the racecourse, however, the Frankel story is far from the only one in town this autumn.

That of Dubawi just keeps on giving for Charlie Appleby and Godolphin, with the unbeaten two-year-old colt Ancient Truth (Ire) waiting to write another chapter when he lines up in the Dewhurst Stakes, while the late, great Galileo has the makings of a strong team for Champions Day with the likes of Kyprios (Ire) (Long Distance Cup), Content (Ire) (Fillies And Mares Stakes) and Prague (Ire) (likely to be supplemented for the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes) all right in the mix. What a fitting epilogue it would be if they could combine to deliver their sire a thirteenth title.

And then there's the O'Callaghan family's beloved homebred Dark Angel, who has perhaps the most heartwarming story of all to tell if he could become the first champion sire to stand at their Yeomanstown Stud. He has an ace card to play, too, in the shape of his Queen Anne Stakes and Prix Jacques le Marois hero Charyn (Ire), sure to be a warm order when he goes for the £623,810 on offer to the winner of the QEII.

Given that Dark Angel is already around £160,000 ahead of Frankel, Ascot glory for Charyn alone would push him to the sort of heights that makes Saturday's Sun Chariot must-win territory for the current title holder.

Could an Autumn of Firsts Await Sea The Stars?

Sea The Stars (Ire) currently sits just outside of the top five sires in Britain and Ireland this year, one place behind Kingman (GB), but there's still plenty to play for with the Gilltown Stud resident, starting with the Arc, Europe's middle-distance championship in which he enjoyed his own crowning moment, 15 years ago on Friday.

Cloth Of Stars (Ire), runner-up to Enable (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}) in 2017, and Sea Of Class (Ire), beaten just a short neck behind the same horse 12 months later, have gone closest to becoming Sea The Stars's first Arc winner as a sire, and now the task of trying to get him off the mark rests with a pair of Wertheimer homebreds, Sosie (Ire) and Aventure (Ire).

Prix de Pomone winner and Prix Vermeille runner-up Aventure is sure to have plenty of each-way supporters as a three-year-old filly getting all of the allowances, but it's the Andre Fabre-trained Sosie who heads the ante-post betting following his wins in the Grand Prix de Paris and Prix Niel.

Sosie might not have looked anything out of the ordinary in two starts as a juvenile–nor when finishing third in the Prix du Jockey Club on his second start this season–but he's really come into his own since being stepped up to a mile and a half, a familiar tale when it comes to progeny of Sea The Stars, following in the footsteps of Crystal Ocean (GB), Emily Upjohn (GB), Harzand (Ire), Hukum (Ire) and Taghrooda (GB), as well as his Arc silver medallists.

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule. See the outstanding Baaeed (GB), a five-time Group 1 winner over a mile, or the other great hope for Sea The Stars this autumn, many people's idea of the champion juvenile-elect in The Lion In Winter (Ire).

Never before has Sea The Stars produced a Group 1-winning two-year-old, but The Lion In Winter will go to the Dewhurst with a favourite's chance judged on the form of his win in the Acomb Stakes at York, beating the subsequent Royal Lodge Stakes winner Wimbledon Hawkeye (GB) and Tattersalls Stakes scorer The Waco Kid (Ire) (Mehmas {Ire}).

Already at the head of the ante-post betting for next year's 2,000 Guineas and Derby, The Lion In Winter was purchased by MV Magnier for €375,000 at Book 1 of the Orby Sale when offered by the Castlebridge Consignment on behalf of the Tsui family, who bred him under the banner of their Sunderland Holdings.

Twelve months on and a colt from a similar background starred at Kildare Paddocks on Wednesday when selling to Godolphin for €900,000. Of the 15 yearlings by Sea The Stars offered, 13 sold at an average of €235,385.

Only time will tell whether there's a Classic contender of 2026 among them–or his 22 yearlings catalogued to sell at Book 1 of the October Yearling Sale–but we'll know soon enough whether Sea The Stars can succeed in adding an Arc winner and/or a champion two-year-old to his already glittering CV.

Can Economics Continue the Irresistible Rise of Night Of Thunder?

The catalogue for Book 1 of the October Yearling Sale also features no fewer than 25 yearlings by Darley's Night Of Thunder (Ire), the emerging force on the Kildangan Stud roster and sire of arguably the most exciting horse in training right now, Economics (GB).

Connections of the Derby, Eclipse and International winner City Of Troy (Justify) might have something to say about that, but it's a statement made with one eye on the future and what Economics might yet achieve, having left the impression we've only scratched the surface of his potential in winning all four of his starts as a three-year-old, culminating with a first top-level success in the Irish Champion Stakes at Leopardstown.

Physically, everything about Economics suggests he'll make an even better four-year-old, but first there's the small matter of the Champion Stakes at Ascot and a box office clash with French challenger Calandagan (Ire) (Gleneagles {Ire}), last seen filling the runner-up spot behind City Of Troy in the International at York.

Victory at Ascot would well and truly cement Economics's place in the very top bracket, so too that of a sire who has gone from strength to strength since his first crop of two-year-olds hit the track in 2019.

Night Of Thunder was already the sire of three individual top-level winners before Economics came along, including the high-class sprinting mare Highfield Princess (Fr), a four-time Group 1 scorer, but there can be no doubt that this colt is his standout runner to date, while a worthy supporting cast promises to take him to new heights, if not this year then almost certainly next.

Godolphin's Prix du Prince d'Orange winner Ombudsman (Ire) has looked another three-year-old of huge potential in winning his four starts to date, while the return of Fairy Godmother (Ire) in 2025 is eagerly anticipated, the juvenile filly who has been kept off the track since coming from what looked an impossible position to win the Albany Stakes at Royal Ascot.

Closer to hand, May Hill Stakes winner Desert Flower (Ire) will get the opportunity to prove herself a two-year-old out of the top drawer when she lines up in the Fillies' Mile, before attentions then turn to Economics and his bid for the £737,230 on offer to the winner of the Champion Stakes.

Night Of Thunder is yet to finish higher than twelfth on the leading sires' list in Britain and Ireland, but the Ascot bounty would all but guarantee him a place well inside the top ten.

That's already the sort of company Night Of Thunder is keeping when it comes to events in the sales ring. At the Arqana August Yearling Sale, for example, he had the highest average (€612,000) of any stallion with five selling for an aggregate of €3,060,000, while at Book 1 of the Orby Sale his six yearlings sold achieved an average of €333,333, behind only the dominant Frankel among the top ten sires.

Expect more of the same at the October Yearling Sale where Economics himself sold for 160,000gns at Book 2 in 2022.

Who will be Crowned Europe's Leading First-Season Sire?

The battle to be crowned champion sire in Britain and Ireland isn't the only one that looks destined to go right down to the wire this year.

Of the 2024 crop of first-season sires in Europe, the top six have all been represented by between 17 and 14 winners, with Sergei Prokofiev just about maintaining the advantage he's held more or less from the outset, having sired the winner of the first juvenile race of the season in Ireland, the subsequent Marble Hill Stakes scorer and Phoenix Stakes third Arizona Blaze (GB).

When colleague Emma Berry penned her Half-Term Sire Report towards the end of June, the week after Royal Ascot, Whitsbury Manor Stud's Sergei Prokofiev had sired nine individual winners, three more than his closest pursuer, Sands Of Mali (Fr), and four more than both Earthlight (Ire) and Hello Youmzain (Fr).

In the three months and change since, Sergei Prokofiev has added another eight winners to his tally, taking his overall tally to 17, while the three immediately behind him at the time of the last update have maintained their formation with nine winners apiece.

Instead, the biggest mover has been Beech House Stud resident Mohaather (GB), who was yet to get off the mark at the point when Sergei Prokofiev was fast approaching double digits. Now, he finds himself in a tie for fourth with Hello Youmzain on 14 winners, including the Molecomb Stakes hero Big Mojo (Ire), Listed scorer Yah Mo Be There (GB) and Rockfel Stakes runner-up Serving With Style (GB).

The other new entry to the top six is Pinatubo (Ire), the Darley stallion of whom so much was expected at the start of this year given his own racecourse exploits. Timeform's highest-rated two-year-old for 25 years, he is yet to produce a juvenile of anything like his own calibre, and remains without a black-type winner, but numerically things are on the up with his 15 winners putting him in a share of second with Sands Of Mali and Earthlight.

That momentum could prove critical in a year like this when the bar seems likely to be relatively low in terms of the number of winners it takes to seal leading first-season sire status. There certainly isn't a Mehmas (Ire) (55 winners in 2020) or Blue Point (Ire) (49 in 2023), while you have to go back to 2018 and No Nay Never (29) for the last time it required less than 30 winners to come away with the crown.

Incidentally, the other thing No Nay Never did do that year to further distinguish himself from his contemporaries was to sire a Group 1-winning two-year-old, the Middle Park Stakes hero Ten Sovereigns (Ire), a feat that one of the class of 2024 has already achieved.

A tally of 10 winners will need improving upon to break into the top six, but Tweenhills stallion Kameko arguably made the biggest statement of all when his New Century (GB) won the Summer Stakes at Woodbine. The Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf is said to be next on his agenda, while it's far from out of the question that Kameko could end the season as the sire of two individual top-level winners should his Royal Lodge victor Wimbledon Hawkeye attempt to follow up in the Futurity Trophy.