leading first-season sires past
Jocelyn de Moubray looks back at leading first-season sires of seasons past to assess if there is a system to predict...
Which young sires become super sires?
I
DON’T KNOW when people started counting to see who was the champion first-season sire in Britain and Ireland, but I suspect it was some time in the 1980s. Initially, anyway, I am sure it was probably more of a way to fill some empty columns in the trade press rather than a marketing ploy or something of real interest. An early first-season sire sensation was Coolmore’s Sadler’s Wells in 1988.
Since the 1980s two-year-old racing and stallion management has, of course, changed beyond recognition Courtesy of an unlikely quirk, the son of Northern Dancer not only produced his two best two-year-olds in his first crop but, remarkably, his sons Scenic and Prince Of Dance ran a dead heat for the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes. In The Wings, another son, was unbeaten in two starts in Deauville. Those success meant that Coolmore’s first star stallion was well and truly launched with his first crop of two-year-olds. This was something the best sons of Northern Dancer did – Danzig had started even faster in 1984 when three from his first crop of 30 foals won Grade 1s at two – Chief’s Crown, Contredance and Stephan’s Odyssey. To put this achievement in perspective, at the time the US foal crop numbered less than 50,000 foals, and from only 30 of these Danzig produced a champion colt and two
The first “real” champion first-season sire, Sadler’s Wells
38
www.internationalthoroughbred.net
other top two-year-olds. In the US plenty of first-season sires have produced two Grade 1 winners, including the 2021 champion Gun Runner, sire of Echo Zulu and Gunite, as well as the Grade 1-placed Pappacap. Others to have had two Grade 1-winning juveniles from their first crop in recent years include Nyquist, Liam’s Map, Union Rags and Uncle Mo, but three Grade 1 winners from a first crop of two-year-olds remains a rare achievement, as is the two produced by Sadler’s Wells in Europe. Since the 1980s two-year-old racing and stallion management has, of course, changed beyond recognition. In Britain and Ireland there are now significantly more Group races for two-yearolds and many more races overall, while the advent of All-Weather racing has extended the two-year-old racing season to more than nine months from mid-March to the end of December. At the same time popular first-season stallions tend to have at least double the number of foals that their 1980s counterparts had. Sadler’s Wells stood at £IR125,000 and had around 50 foals in 1986, whereas his son Galileo stood at the relatively modest fee of £IR50,000 and produced some 130 foals in 2003. The first-season sire championship has evolved, too, and has become a significant test for every stallion, and an objective stallion owners plan for from the moment a horse retires to stud. It seems to be widely accepted that the first-season sire championship is decided by the number of winners rather than any other criteria and at some point it has been taken to include the major European racing countries.
