She was some mare

Urban Sea’s extraordinary influence continues and the amazing matriarch is dam of the current leading two stallions in Europe. Aisling Crowe offers a mid-season assessment of the European sires’ table

THERE ARE a number of interesting things to note about the current European leading sire tables at their mid-season state, headed as is customary by Coolmore Stud’s Galileo.

Most strikingly the top two positions are occupied by half-brothers – Galileo is leading his younger sibling Sea The Stars.

It’s the norm for the best stallions to have more than one leading sire son or for a son to join his father as is the case currently with Shamardal and Lope De Vega, but for a broodmare to produce the two best stallions in Europe is quite an astonishing achievement.

Urban Sea’s position at the head of a dynasty is certainly assured and for all the legitimate talk of Galileo as an unparalleled shaper of the thoroughbred, the role of his dam cannot be understated.

She is rightly praised for her four Group 1-winning offspring, headed by the champion Sea The Stars, but all nine of her foals to run were black-type performers, with three more of them – Melikah, All Too Beautiful and Born To Sea – placed in Classics.

Her daughters, granddaughters and now great-granddaughters are producing Group 1 winners, but the achievement of producing the two stallions that currently sit atop Europe’s league table of sires is extraordinary.

Through their careers between them Galileo and Sea The Stars have sired over 100 individual Group 1 winners,with the former a record breaker in that department.

This year alone they have sired the winners of the Derby, the Oaks, the English and Irish 1,000 Guineas, the Preis der Diana, the Ascot Gold Cup, the Pretty Polly Stakes, the Tattersalls Gold Cup and the Goodwood Cup, as well as the first two home in the Queen Anne Stakes.

At the time of writing, Galileo has had 20 European stakes winners this season, while his younger half-brother has had ten.

Between them they have also earned over £5m in prize-money so far this season, quite an achievement given the funding cuts the sport has suffered. Their strike-rates are quite similar, too, with Sea The Stars siring 32 per cent winners to runners and his elder brother achieving 29 per cent.

Stradivarius

Third this year is Siyouni and he looks set for his best place finish yet. The Aga Khan Stud-based stallion benefited from the early resumption of racing in France and the good prize-money in the country, but his results are much deeper than that and are a reflection of ongoing growing presence in the stallion ranks.

He has had two Group 1 winners this year – Sottsass, his Prix du Jockey-Club winner of 2019 won the Prix Ganay in June, and Dream And Do took the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches.

With 73 winners he is alongside Kodiac (97), Dark Angel (82), Zoffany (75), Lope De Vega (68), Dandy Man (67) and Dubawi (60) with 60 or more individual European winners so far this year.

Kingman is getting towards double figures this season on the European stakes winners’ table, Camelot is creeping forward with eight, Frankel is on seven, a number matched by Sea The Moon, who is rewarding the shrewd support he has had from breeders and investors. He achieved his first progeny Group 1 victory this year with Alpine Star’s Royal Ascot Coronation Stakes (G1) success.

Sea The Moon is, of course, another descendant of Urban Sea as son of Sea the Stars and is currently a highly affordable £15,000.

One behind the Lanwades Stud sire on the stakes winners register for 2o2o is Coolmore’s new purchase Wootton Bassett.

Mr. Prospector dam-sire influence

The other noticeable statistic about the top ten sires in Europe is five of them have Mr. Prospector line broodmare sires – Galileo and Sea The Stars are out of a Miswaki mare, Dark Angel and Shamardal have Machiavellian as their dam-sire, while Camelot is out of a mare by Kingmambo.

A sixth stallion, Zoffany, sits just outside the top ten at number 12 in the rankings but is also out of a mare by Machiavellian, while Dubawi is from the Seeking The Gold branch of Mr. Prospector’s sire line.

Interestingly, this trend is replicated with the first-season sires – two of the top three, Mehmas and Territories, are out of Machiavellian mares, while Prince Of Lir has Whipper as his broodmare sire and Buratino’s dam-sire is Kingmambo.

Kodi Bear is out of a mare by the Woodman stallion Mujtaahid and New Bay is out of a Zamindar mare.

First-season sires dominated by Mehmas

The partnership between Tally-Ho Stud and Al Shaqab Racing could not have started any more beautifully as Mehmas, the first Al Shaqab stallion to stand at the O’Callaghan family’s farm, has become the breakout star from the first-season stallion ranks this summer.

Despite a truncated season, the son of Acclamation has already amassed 20 individual winners, which is no mean feat in spite of the strong support the Group 2 winner received from breeders.

Mehmas has 146 two-year-olds and, of them, 64 have made it to the racecourse since early June with 20 of them winning at least once with a winners to runners ratio of 31.25 per cent.

Alpine Star (Sea The Moon) wins her Group 1

Alpine Star

His success is not solely down to sheer force of numbers as there is quality too amongst his early runners – the Clive Cox-trained Supremacy emulated his sire when winning the Group 2 Richmond Stakes at Goodwood and that victory followed on from the success of the unbeaten Method in the Listed Rose Bowl Stakes.

Muker has won two of his three starts and was third in his other run, in the Listed Windsor Castle Stakes at Royal Ascot.

A further 20 of his runners have been placed which means that roughly two-thirds of his starters have managed to either win or be placed, which is another impressive point in his favour.

When it comes to two-year-old winners, currently only his Tally-Ho stud-mate and prolific source of juvenile talent Kodiac is ahead of him in the race to be crowned Europe’s leading two-year-old sire.

Rathasker Stud’s Coulsty lacks the weight of numbers that many of his compatriots possess, but the son of Kodiac, one of four by the stallion in the top 12 leading first-season sires’ rankings, is punching well above his weight.

From his first crop of just 44 foals, 13 of them have made it to the racetrack so far with five individual winners for a strike-rate of 38.46 per cent.

Most impressively from such a small pool Coulsty has produced a Group winner. His daughter Santosha won the Group 3 Princess Margaret Stakes at Ascot after a narrow defeat in the Group 2 Duchess Of Cambridge Stakes, proving herself to be a proper Group horse and shining the spotlight on her sire’s achievements.

Second-season sires head by Belief

Make Believe, who stands at Ballylinch Stud, became the first stallion from his cohort to sire a Group 1 winner when Mishriff won the Prix du Jockey-Club for John Gosden, Frankie Dettori and owner-breeder Prince Faisal, who raced Make Believe.

A Classic winner himself in France, but in the shorter Poule d’Essai des Poulains, Make Believe was quietly getting on with the business while other sires from his class were making headlines.

Rose Of Kildare was the standout member of his crop at two, Mark Johnston’s bargainbuy winning the Oh So Sharp and Firth of Clyde Stakes (both Group 3 races). At three she has added the Group 3 Musidora Stakes and has subsequently been purchased by Qatar Racing.

She is one of four stakes winners from the first crop of the Group 1 Prix de la Fôret winner by 2000 Guineas winner Makfi. He is now at stud in Japan, which increases his son’s desirability amongst breeders.

As well as Rose Of Kildare and Mishriff, who added the Group 2 Prix Guillaume d’Ornano to his Derby triumph and is now amongst the favourites for the Arc, Make Believe is also the sire of Group 3 Preis der Winterkonigin winner Ocean Fantasy and Listed winner Tammani.

With 22 individual winners from 59 runners, Make Believe’s winners to runners ratio of 37 per cent is bettered only amongst the top ten by Night Of Thunder, whose own strike rate is 45 per cent.

He also has four individual Group winners this season from his first crop with the unbeaten Group 2 Oaks d’Italia winner Auyantepui, Thunderous, winner of the Dante Stakes (G2), as well as Group 3 winners Molatham and No Limit Credit. Night Of Thunder also has five Listed winners amongst his three-year-olds.

Honourable mention must also go to the Irish National Stud’s Free Eagle (High Chaparral) – who has Derby runner-up and Listed Cocked Hat Stakes winner Khalifa Sat in his first crop.