INTERNATIONAL REPORT JOHN WATHEN-BERRY
@JohnWathenBerry
Dubawi a deserved champion, of course Last week this column looked at the final standings in the General Sires’ Tables for 2022 in both North America and Japan. In both of those jurisdictions the champion of 2021 retained his crown. That wasn’t the case in Great Britain and Ireland. In fact, the new champion sire is one that had never previously won the premiership. Even so, there too the year ended with a strong sense of déjà vu. To the satisfaction of many bloodstock enthusiasts, Dubawi ended 2022 as champion sire of Great Britain and Ireland, thus putting right the notable omission of that title from his CV, the mighty little son of Dubai Millennium having been a part of the furniture of Europe’s elite sires’ ranks for more than a decade. While he had remained title-less, it was easy to describe him as the best sire in Europe never to have been champion sire. Now that he has taken the crown at the age of 20, we can put away the old cliché ‘always the bridesmaid, never the bride’ for a horse who had four times finished runner-up behind his regular rival Galileo (as well as having been champion sire in France in 2015). In the 10 seasons 2013 to 2022, Dubawi’s ‘form figures’ in the General Sires’ Table have been 3422325231. During Galileo’s 12 championship seasons, eight horses finished second to him, with Dubawi’s four second-
place finishes making him easily the Bay, a son of Dubawi who did very most successful of this elite group. well considering that he only had Montjeu, twice runner-up to three crops racing for him, his oldest Galileo, was the only other horse to offspring being four-year-olds in occupy that position more than once, 2022. Winner of the Prix du Jockeywith the other six being Danehill Club in 2015, New Bay retired to Dancer, Dansili, Teofilo, Invincible Ballylinch Stud in Ireland in 2017 and Spirit, Dark Angel and Sea The is now recognised as one of the most Stars. Under the circumstances, progressive stallions in Europe. nobody could begrudge Dubawi his He enjoyed a red-letter day in the breakthrough championship. autumn when responsible for a Group Thus, even with a new champion, 1 double at Champions’ Day at Ascot, the British and Irish sires’ his first-crop son Bay Bridge landing championship of 2022 still has the Champion Stakes (currently a very familiar feel. This Britain’s most valuable race) impression is further over 10 furlongs and his While he had reinforced by the fact second-crop son Bayside remained titlethat the five horses Boy taking the Queen who occupied the top Elizabeth II Stakes over less, it was easy five positions in 2021 to describe him as a mile. filled the same places from these the best sire never twoAside in 2022, albeit in a good horses, New to have been different order. Bay’s other stars of the champion sire. season included the Jane Galileo’s 12th championship season Chapple-Hyam-trained fourwas 2020 before he was year-old mare Saffron Beach, usurped the following year by among whose several good runs were his best son, Frankel. In 2022 Galileo victories in the Group Two Duke of dropped two more places, but he still Cambridge Stakes at Royal Ascot and enjoyed a very successful season in the Group One Prix Rothschild at fourth place, with Frankel and Sea The Deauville. Stars ahead of him in second and third She was subsequently sold for respectively. The fifth horse to feature 3,600,000 guineas at Tattersalls’ among the principal places was the December Sale, bought as a ever-reliable Dark Angel, occupying broodmare by Najd Stud, an fifth place for the second year in a row. international breeding operation The most successful new arrival owned by the Saudi Prince Faisal bin in the top tier was sixth-placed New Khalid bin Abdulaziz.
Narrow miss for the amazing Frankel Frankel’s second place in the British and Irish table meant that he came close to achieving the double of being champion sire of both GB/Ire and France in the same season. This double is not as rare as one might expect, largely because, while French prizemoney across the board is very good, the prize of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe is so big that whichever stallion sires the ‘Arc’ winner is very often the country’s champion sire. And the ‘Arc’ is often won by a horse sired by one of the leading stallions based in the British Isles. This year’s ‘Arc’ was, of course, won by the five-year-old Frankel (pictured) mare Alpinista, trained for her breeder Kirsten Rausing by the doyen of Newmarket’s training ranks, Sir Mark Prescott. As she had already won another of France’s biggest weight-for-age races, the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud and as another of Frankel’s daughters, Nashwa, had taken the country’s premier fillies’ Classic, the Prix de Diane, it went without saying that Frankel would take the crown. This he did by a wide margin: 37 of his sons and daughter collectively won 50 races and recorded 103 minor placings in France during 2022, with total prizemoney of 6,269,245 euros. Secondplaced Siyouni was considerably more prolific with 63 individual winners of 98 races, but his prize-money total was considerably less: 2,999,650 euros. Giving a useful illustration of the situation which often pertains in France, Siyouni was the only French-based stallion to finish in the top five in France’s General Sires’ Table for 2022. Third and fourth places were filled by Irish-based sires (Lope De Vega and Churchill) while fifth place was taken by a stallion Dubawi, like Frankel based just outside Newmarket. Churchill did particularly well as he had only two- and three-year-olds running for him. The same comment applies to Churchill’s season in Great Britain and Ireland, where he finished
in 22nd place in the General Sires’ Table. The lion’s share of the credit for his successful season is held by one horse, his three-year-old son Vadeni. This Aga Khan home-bred is trained in France by Jean-Claude home-bred and earned plenty of money in both England and Ireland as well as in France. In his homeland Vadeni won the Group 3 Prix de Guiche at Chantilly in the spring before taking the country’s premier three-year-old race, the Prix du Jockey-Club, and, on his final start of the season, finishing second to Alpinista in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. In between times, Vadeni was a Group 1 winner in England in the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown and finished third in the Irish Champion Stakes. His efforts through the season resulted in him being given the Cartier Award for Europe’s leading Three-Year-Old Colt. He remains in training as a fouryear-old in 2023. and it would be no surprise to see him dominating Europe’s weight-for-age ranks. during the coming season. To illustrate the extent to which the destination of France’s sires’ premiership can be decided by the ‘Arc’, one need look no farther than to Nathaniel, sire of the mighty mare Enable who took the race in ’17 and ’18. Nathaniel, who stands 40 km from Newmarket at Newsells Park Stud, was France’s champion sire in both of those years despite scant representation in the country: in 2017 he sired 10 individual winners of 14 races in France, while the following year he was responsible for 13 individual winners of 18 winners. Those figures would usually be a recipe for languishing well down the table — unless one of the races won is the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. Similarly, Treve won the ‘Arc’ in both 2013 and ’14. Although Frenchbred and -trained, she had been conceived in England, where her sire Motivator stood at the Royal Stud at Sandringham.
‘Doing the double’ done before As intimated above, taking the sires’ premiership in both GB/Ire and France in the same season is not as uncommon as one might expect. The two recent dominant sires of the British Isles (Coolmore’s great patriarch Sadler’s Wells and his similarly great son Galileo, both deceased) each did it more than once.
Dubawi’s son My Oberon wins the Group 2 Crystal Mile at The Valley on Cox Plate day.
REG RYAN/ RACING PHOTOS
Sensational Siyouni scores a local victory Because the champion sire of France is so often a horse standing overseas who wins it by virtue of the disproportionately high earnings of one outstanding horse, the bloodstock community in France generally recognises two championships: champion sire of France and champion French sire, the latter title going to the leading French-based sire. In 2022 that honour went to Siyouni, who was second in the overall championship. A quick glance at the tables of recent years makes crystal-clear the dominance of Siyouni in the ranks of French stallions. Winner of France’s top two-year-old race, the Prix JeanLuc Lagardere, in 2009, Siyouni retired to the Aga Khan’s Haras de Bonneval as a four-year-old in 2011 (at a fee of 7,000 euros, which in retrospect looks eye-wateringly
appealing as he now commands 150,000 euros). The son of Pivotal first figured in the upper reaches of France’s sires’ table in 2015, when his oldest offspring were aged three. In the eight seasons 2015 to 2022 inclusive, his ‘form figures’ in the premiership were 43422112; take out stallions based outside France and his figures become 12111111, his sole ‘defeat’ coming in 2016 when he finished second to Le Havre among the French sires. The breakthrough which saw Siyouni take the overall title for the first time was in 2020 when his son Sottsass won the ‘Arc’. When he won his second title the following year, the sire of the ‘Arc’ winner ‘only’ finished second but that was because the race was won by the German-bred Torquator Tasso, whose sire Adlerflug was responsible for only 12 individual winners in France all year.
Sadler’s Wells was champion sire of Great Britain and Ireland a record-breaking 14 times, his first championship season being in 1990 and then (after his fellow Coolmore inmate Caerleon had taken the title in 1991 largely thanks to the wins of Generous in the Derby, Irish Derby and King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes) he headed the list for 13 consecutive seasons, 1992 to 2004 inclusive. During this period he thrice headed the General Sires’ Table of France, in 1993, 1994 and 1999. In both 1994 and ’99 he was responsible for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner, courtesy of his top class sons Carnegie and Montjeu (both of whom, of course, subsequently enjoyed significant success at stud in Australasia). Galileo’s tally of sires’ championships in Great Britain and
Ireland currently stands at 12, two fewer than that of his father, a total which may end up being his final (posthumous) tally. He first claimed the crown in 2008, ceded it to Danehill Dancer in 2009, regained it in 2010 and then reigned supreme up to and including 2020. During this period, he was twice champion sire in France, in 2016 and 2019. He sired the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner in each of these seasons, with the Aidan O’Brientrained Found in 2016 and with the Andre Fabre-trained Waldgeist three years later. Danehill was another stallion to head both lists in the same season, in 2007. His best runner was the four-year-old Dylan Thomas, who had finished an agonisingly close second in the Derby the previous year before easily taking the Irish Derby and following up in the Irish Champion Stakes. He was then dominant in Europe’s best weight-for-age races as in 2007, when he won at the highest level in France (taking the Prix Ganay and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe) and in both England (the King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes) and Ireland (Irish Champion Stakes).
RACING.COM | WINNING POST, SATURDAY JANUARY 21 2023 | PAGE 7
