Presentation to the Darley Flying Start Conference at Keadeen Hotel, Newbridge, Ireland
October 25th 2006
Jerome Reynier
Rising stars: English and Irish stallions
Good afternoon, my name is Jerome Reynier and today I will be speaking to you about the rising stars as successful stallions in both Ireland and England. It is such a vast subject and I do have a limited time to talk about it that is why I have decided to focus on the new generation’s sires, doing a sort of analysis about which ones are most likely possible to be successful..
Every year, breeders are looking for the right stallion for their mares and among them there are two types of different breeders: the commercial one who will be keener to use the first season sire to keep his stock the most fashionable as he can, and the breeder/owner who will keep his young stock to race and will not think about his stock’s value but his stock’s racing potential using proven sires even if they are less commercial and a bit more expensive. Before a stallion’s progeny begin racing, the only pieces of information available to a breeder are race record, pedigree, and conformation which can be referred to as the “3P’s” (Performances, Pedigree and Physical). Naturally, stallions with the best combination of those three elements are going to have the fourth “P” which is a more expensive “Price”.
As any gambler can tell you that it is always safer to play established form than to bet on a horse to do something he has never done. The same is true in selecting stallions. Proven stallions are a better bet than unproven ones, no matter how good the racehorse or how good the pedigree is. At the same time commercial breeders find it very profitable to patronize first and second season sires. The combination of breeders and stallions gives two different targets: breeders racing with proven stallions that invest in quality and obtain success on the track, and breeders selling with unproven stallions that get a fashionable stock and obtain success at the sales.
Once a stallion has his first crops race, a breeder can determine from reading statistics how successful a stallion has been, what type of runners he produces, and whether any nicking patterns are established. They are available via books, magazines, computer printouts, the Internet, etc. There are several different types of statistics including the number of winners, wins, earnings, percentage of winners to foals, winners to runners, stakes horses, etc. and they are done for the first crop sires (or “Freshman Sire Lists”), the second crop sires and the general list of sires, including different countries such as all the European countries or a combination of them such as Ireland & England for example.
Now, when I think about “Rising Stars”, I think about stallions that are not considered proven but are showing potential through their progeny; or have the potential to prove themselves in few years time based on the book of mares they have covered, which needs to be consistent in quality and quantity. This consistency concerning the book of mares is quite hard to get throughout a stallion’s career. Personally, I call it the “Cycle of Stallion Popularity” which is composed of the following parts:
1st Season at Stud:
The easiest year to sell coverings to breeders, the fact the stallion is brand new, advertising first season sire in magazines and newspapers is not that important because often it is considered as an event when a champion is retired to stud (i.e. two pages advert from Coolmore in last week’s Irish Field concerning the four new stallions retiring to stud next year including George Washington and Hurricane Run).
2nd Season at Stud: - First foal on the ground.
An effort of advertisement has to be made by stallion owners to keep a consistent book of mares advertising first foals on the ground. That will be the case for stallions like Dubawi, Shamardal, Oratorio, Motivator, Azamour, and Footstepsinthesand who have been retired to stud the same year (i.e. one page advert from Darley in last week’s Irish Field concerning Shamardal’s first foals coming next season).
3rd Season at Stud: - First yearling at the breeding stage.
- Foals sales records (from the past year).
Sometimes the covering fee is decreased for the first time even there is no real reason to. Sometimes that is the only method to keep this consistency in the book of mares for stallions that have not been world wide champion (i.e. Refuse To Bend, Haafhd, One Cool Cat) or are not bred like high stallion potential (i.e. Falbrav who has got the same sire and broodmare sire as the disappointing Helissio).
4th Season at Stud:- First two year olds unraced
- Training stage.
- Yearlings sales’ records (from the past year).
- Foals sales’ records (for the second time).
The yearling sales records are in general highlighted to do a comparison between the covering fee and the yearling’s averages or top prices proving the good value of a stallion.
| 2006 Gross |
Sold | 2006 Average |
2004 covering fee |
Return on Service fee (x) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dalakhani | £2,102,150 | 18 | 116,786 | £25,000 | 4.67 |
| Dubai Destination | £4,983,407 | 55 | £90,607 | £25,000 | 3.62 |
| Hawk Wing | £4,382,262 | 77 | £56,912 | £17,000 | 3.35 |
| Nayef | £1,363,985 | 30 | £45,466 | £20,000 | 2.27 |
The 2006 yearling sales statistics show that Dalakhani has been the most profitable stallion at the sales with his yearlings, relative to his service fee; they have been sold for more than four and a half times his covering fee. Dubai Destination has not been too bad with yearlings sold for more than three and half time times his covering fee.
5th Season at Stud:
- First three years old unproven but some expectations have been made resulting different factors such as the type of stallion (late progeny) or good results obtained the year before as a freshman sire.
- Statistics as a freshman sire have been made concerning performances of first crop of two years old the year before.
- More sales’ records.
The first crop sires statistics are highlighted if the stallion has been successful with his fist two years old (i.e. Invincible Spirit 30, Noverre 22), other ways advertising is done to promote the stallion as future classic sire rather than only two years old sire type (i.e. Rock Of Gibraltar, Beat Hollow).
6th Season at Stud: - Oldest progeny aged 4.
- Statistics as a second crop sire concerning performances of both 2 and 3 years old that raced the year before.
- More sales’ records
That is a very important year concerning a stallion career, if the stallion produced quality racehorses with winners in quantity during his first two years; he will be considered as a good stallion and will cover a nice book of mares again.However, if the stallion did not produce one or two really good horses his covering fee will probably be decreased and it will be hard to get quality mares in quantity. There are so many stallions everywhere that any breeder has plenty of choices.
2006 Facts:
Successes: Galileo, Medicean, Mull Of Kintyre
Failures: Fantastic Light, Observatory, Kalanisi.
There are two “Cycles of stallion’s popularity”:
- If stallions are successful with their first two years old. The cycle will be completed within five years; it will include stallions which produced nice types of two year olds. That is why stallion owners generally increase the covering fee the fifth year.
That will probably be the case with Invincible Spirit next year who has shown superiority concerning his category as a freshman sire in Europe with 30 winners to date. He is also the best with percentage of winners to runners (47,6%), individual Stakes winners (3), earning’s more than €1M. The second being Noverre and the third Rock Of Gibraltar who was maybe expected to play a leading role and has probably been slightly disappointing.
- The second cycle is related to those stallions whose three year olds perform well; with the cycle completed in six years. Breeders will not be afraid to send their mares to this sort of stallion because they proved themselves as classic sire in general.
For example a stallion such as Galileo this year will probably see their covering fee increase. He seems to be another new influential son of Sadler’s Wells for Coolmore. He already produced this year twelve individual Stakes winners including two Classic winners, Nightime and Sixties Icon, but also the best European two year olds in his second crop, Teofilo. Medicean looks to be the “Cheveley Park winning ways” with the Champion three years old filly Nannina and the Classic German filly Almerita. Like Galileo he seems to have his best son in his second crop too, Dutch Art who is unbeaten in four starts and dual Group 1 winner.
There are also stallions that can be considered as surprising: these are stallions that had poor chances to succeed at the beginning of their careers and were quite unexpected to produce quality stock. Take for example Verglas who was standing in France and covered a poor book of mares and had an exceptional percentage of winners to foals the first years. Now he is standing at the Irish National Stud and for the past two years has covered full books of quality mares. It will be very interesting to see if he is able to produce higher quality of racehorses with an improvement of mares’ quality and quantity.
As statistics to date refer, couple of stallions have seen their status improving quite quickly from rising to proven such as Montjeu. He only has his first four year olds this year and produced two new European Group 1 winners last weekend.
Conclusion:
Some nice stallions will have their first crop as two year olds next year but they look to be more bred to produce late type of horses such as:
- Dalakhani by Darshaan, half brother to Daylami and Arc winner even he won a Group 1 at two.
- High Chaparral by Sadler’s Wells out of a Darshaan mare and Epsom Derby and Breeder’s Cups turf winner even he won himself too a Group 1 at two.
- Nayef by Gulch, half brother to Unfuwain and Nashwan.
- Hawk Wing by Woodman and winner of the National St. (G.1); good profile.
- Dubai Destination by Kingmambo, half brother to Librettist and he was a high-class two years old winning The Champagne St. (G.2) beating Rock Of Gibraltar. Such as Hawk Wing, he seems to have a good profile to be the next champion freshman sire.
The surprise could come from a cheap sire that covered a good book of mares and is bred to produce early type of two years old like Captain Rio for example. He is by Pivotal out of a Miswaki mare and was an early type of two years old himself winning a Group 2 by 8 lengths.
It is difficult to predict when a stallion will be successful because breeders usually send their mares once he is proven. To see the results of the mating, a breeder will have to wait three years before the resulting mating is a two year old in training. He may have to wait one more year before to see him succeed on the track at three years old. After a stallion’s initial year at stud there is often a quiet period in using the stallion until his first progeny make a successful impression at the track.
Bertolini covered few nice mares during his first year at stud before having a quiet second and third year, and a flat fourth year because breeders were waiting to see how his first progeny will perform. This year for his fifth year, he has been relocated to Kildangan Stud and his covering fee has risen substantially following his exceptional year in 2005 finishing European champion freshman sire by number of winners last year. At the moment his racing progeny comes from the period when he was at a low point on the stallion’s popularity cycle. His progeny are again likely to repeat that initial success when the Bertolini’s conceived this year in Kildangan will hit the track at two years old in 2009.
The same example is available for a lot of stallion such as Mark Of Esteem who produced a classic winner with his first three year olds in 2001 with the 1000 Guineas winner, Ameerat. Breeders sent their mares back to him the following year in 2002 giving nice three year olds such as the Epsom Derby winner Sir Percy and three others Stakes winners as Final Verse, Gravitas and Nantyglo.
If I try to do some predictions for next year concerning successful sires, I will say that Singspiel and Danehill Dancer will produce nice three year olds. The reason is, they had a good book of mares in 2003 because of their results the year before in 2002 with their first three year olds, such as Moon Ballad for Singspiel and Where Or When for Danehill Dancer. Also, I will say that Fasliyev and Cape Cross will probably produce high quality of two year olds as they produced in their first crops making them as first and second in the European Champion first crop sires in 2003. They covered in 2004 exceptional books of mares which will be on the track for the first time next year. I will certainly not be surprised to see few Champions two year olds by Fasliyev or Cape Cross next year.
As you can see, a stallion goes through a number of peaks and troughs before he is considered a success. It can be dangerous to jump to conclusions without analysing all the information available.
Thank you for attention.
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