9 minute read
Fathers and daughters
Photo: courtesy of the Aga Khan Studs
Jocelyn De Moubray takes a look at some of the younger sires who are starting to make an impact amongst the broodmare stallion ranks
BROODMARE SIRES AND THE STATISTICS about them are not of interest to everybody in the breeding world. There are those who think they are completely irrelevant – after all some of the top broodmares are by obscure or ordinary stallions – but there are people who think they are significant. Unfortunately, often by the time a stallion is established as a top broodmare sire he is, already dead or retired.
And for those who are interested there is little information available. Many people use nicking statistics and whole businesses have been set up and have flourished by expanding upon them.
Broodmare sire statistics are not easy to get hold of and lack all sorts of detail, which would give those of us who suspect they are significant more concrete evidence.
The Racing Post has a huge bloodstock data base and its website provides almost all the information anyone could wish to examine, but as far as I can see it has only one European broodmare sires’ table which lacks almost every detail which could be of interest.
I know, thanks to other sources that there are currently 3,413 named foals out of daughters of Galileo, but we don’t know how many of these are stakes winners or how many daughters of Galileo have produced at least one stakes horse.
If only the very best stallions have similar results year after year or crop by crop this is even more true of broodmares so it would be interesting to know, for example, what percentage of daughters of Galileo have had four or more foals, and have or have not produced a stakes horse.
In the meantime, while waiting for more information, there are some things we can say about broodmare sires with the statistics which are available.
There are few owner-breeders left, but for them by far the cheapest way to procure good new broodmares is to breed them themselves, so it makes sense for them to use the best broodmare sires they can and hope to get a filly.
At the end of his career many breeders sent mares to Pivotal hoping for a daughter to breed from and the same is true today of Oasis Dream. While the market does not encourage anybody to think long term, the future is never going to be the same as the past and the most successful broodmare sires are always part of a duo with the leading sires of the day.
Sadler’s Wells and Darshaan, Galileo and Danehill, immediately come to mind.
If Dubawi and Frankel are going to be the leading sires of the coming years, which looks more or less certain, than the best broodmare sires will be those whose daughters are suited to these elite sires.
It is hardly a surprise that the Aga Khan Studs’s Sea The Stars should be set to become an important broodmare sire, the son of Cape Cross has already excelled in every other capacity.
Sea The Stars’ oldest daughters are only 11-year-olds and so none will have had more than three or four foals to race and yet he is already the broodmare sire of a string of top horses, many of whom are by either Frankel or Dubawi – Onesto, Mohaafeth, Eldar Eldarov, My Oberon and Soft Whisper.
Breeding Sea The Stars mares to Frankel gives close inbreeding to Urban Sea 3x3, and if it is has already been proved to work twice, then you can be sure they will be many more foals to come bred in this way.
Urban Sea was after all the toughest and soundest of racemares before becoming the best broodmare of the modern era.
Frankel and Nathaniel are two of the best sons of their sire Galileo. They were born in same year, made their debuts in the same race and retired to stud near Newmarket in 2013.
Eldar Eldarov: produced on the Dubawi-Sea The Stars cross, being out of the Listed-winning Group 3-placed mare All At Sea
Streets Of Gold is out of the Frankel mare Truly Honored
Frankel was from that first day on the July course always better than his rival, but it looks as if there may be one area in which it is Nathaniel who comes out on top.
The oldest daughters of this pair are only eight-year-olds and have had only one three-year-old crop to race.
Both are only at the very beginning of their career as broodmare sires, but while Frankel has got off to the excellent start as everybody would have expected, Nathaniel is already looking like a phenomenon, something very special indeed.
Frankel’s daughters have already produced the high-class three-year-olds Noble Truth and Eydon, while the very tough two-year-old Streets Of Gold is the first foal out of the unraced Frankel mare Truly Honoured.
Nathaniel, meanwhile, at the time of writing, has had only 26 runners as a broodmare sire and yet five of these have already looked to be Group 1 class. They include Zellie (Wootton Bassett), who won a Group 1 as a two-year old in 2021, Tribalist by Farhh who was placed in the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Poulians, the Group 1 St Leger-placed (before disqualification) Haskoy (Golden Horn), and Novakai by Lope de Vega, who was Group 1 placed at two in Newmarket.
There is also Silver Knott, also by Lope De Vega, who was an impressive winner of the Group 3 Autumn Stakes in Newmarket in October.
It is once again not a huge surprise that God Given, a Group 1-winning Nathaniel mare from a top family, should produce a horse as good as Silver Knott with her first foal, while Haskoy is out of a well-bred Listed winner, but the others are out of unraced mares or, in the case of Novakai, a mare who raced over a 1m6f.
Nathaniel himself produces few two-year-old winners and yet all of these, with the exception of Haskoy, were high-class two-year-olds.
Lope De Vega has covered few Nathaniel mares, but will surely be covering many more in the future. And then while Nathaniel was well supported at the beginning of his stud career he was not covering the same numbers or quality as either Frankel or Sea The Stars.
The class of 2012
The two sires whose first foals were born in 2012, Lope De Vega and Siyouni, are now well established among Europe’s elite sires but both started out with few believers and only limited support.
Siyouni stood at €7,000 his first season at Haras de Bonneval and Lope de Vega at €15,000 at Ballylinch Stud.
Two of the best fillies from Siyouni’s excellent first crop, Erveyda and Souvenir Delondres, have both already produced Group 1 performers in I Erevann and Dr Zempf, while the Group 1-placed filly Times Square is out of an unraced Siyouni mare.
The unraced Lope De Vega mare Vida Amorosa has already produced two Group-class horses by Mehmas, including the Group 1 performer Persian Force, while the Wertheimers have bred two Group horses from the Lope De Vega mare Burma Sea. Recent Group winner Statement is also out of a Lope De Vega mare.
Above, Adaay To Remember, who is out of a Sakhee's Secret mare, below, Saffron Beach out of the Raven’s Pass mare Falling Petals
Silver Knott, who is out of the Nathaniel mare God Given
The 2009 team beating the odds
The four sires who retired to stud in 2009 in the middle of a severe financial crisis all had circumstances against them – it was one year when nobody was excited by new stallions.
New Approach was a champion racehorse and made a spectacular start to his stud career and, even if he didn’t quite prolong his success, his daughters are clearly going to make their mark and have already produced two top-class horses by Dubawi – Ambition and Modern Games. It is another cross which will be duplicated in the future.
New Approach was a Derby winner but is, like Nathaniel, a son of Galileo whose daughters appear to produce horses faster than he himself did.
Raven’s Pass was Darley’s other new star stallion in 2009, but the son of Elusive Quality struggled with fertility problems from the word go. Still covering as a cheap stallion, Raven’s Pass’s daughters have already produced top horses in Mishriff and Saffron Beach and many others without in most cases visiting the most fashionable stallions.
The other two from the stallion generation of 2009 are among the surprises of this research.
Sakhee’s Secret was a top-class sprinter, he beat Dutch Art to win the Group 1 July Cup, and has an outcross pedigree by Sakhee out of a Secreto mare.
He stood for six seasons at Whitsbury Manor before going to Italy for another four years. It turns out that his daughters are excellent producers of precocious, fast two-year-olds, including this year Rumstar, Adaay To Remember and Rage Of Bamby.
Mount Nelson spent eight years standing at Newsells Park Stud before moving to Ireland to be a NH sire and then died at a young age.
His daughters have already produced the top two-year -old Quorto, this year’s Classic filly Wagnis, who was only narrowly beaten in the German Oaks, and several other high class performers, including the juvenile Group 1 performer Trident.
Teofilo, Kendargent and Soldier Hollow
Finally, the trio who retired to stud in 2008 include Teofilo, another son of Galileo, who is well-established as an outstanding broodmare sire.
Teofilo’s daughters surpassed themselves this year with six Group 1 performers and four Group 1 winners – Coroebus, Toskana Belle, Dreamloper and Cachet.
In contrast, the other two – Kendargent and Soldier Hollow – started out as cheap and obscure sires and yet both are still covering as respected veterans and have also made a significant mark as broodmare sires.
Kendargent’s daughters had a better season in 2021 than in 2022 with Sealiway and Sifahan winning Group 1s, but their overall record is remarkable considering he started out as a €1,000 sire.
Soldier Hollow began his career at Gestüt Röttgen but after producing a reasonably sized first crop struggled for support until his progeny began to race. The best winners to date out of Soldier Hollow mares are the Deutsches Derby winner Sammarco and the Japanese Group 1 winner Schnell Meister.
