Galileo Tops By 2014 ABC Runners

GALILEO TOPS BY 2014 ABC RUNNERS 
When you see that Coolmore's top sire, Galileo, had 66 black-type horses (BTH) last year, of which 50 were graded/group stakes horses (GSH) (click here), it's not surprising he's also the leading 2014 North American or European sire of APEX ABC Runners. To review, a horse becomes an ABC Runner (meaning A Runner, or B Runner, or C Runner) by recording earnings among the top 8% of runners, in the year, in one of the five jurisdictions in which earnings are tallied: North America (US + Canada); Great Britain/Ireland (traditionally collected together by Weatherby's); France; Germany; and Japan. The accompanying table lists those top 8% thresholds (highlighted) for 2014: $63,525 for North America; about €40,000 in France; about £20,000/€25,000 in Great Britain/Ireland respectively; about €18,000 in Germany and the equivalent of $124,000 in Japan (note how steeply that has fallen–about 35% since 2008). With the exception of Great Britain, the idea is that ABC Runners may also be described as 'break-even-or better' racehorses, meaning that even C Runners at least cover their training costs (click here to see the APEX earnings thresholds table). 

Galileo sired a total of 60 ABC Runners in 2014, putting him well clear from a group of six other NA/EU sires with 43-47 ABC Runners each (click here to see the tables of top sires of ABC Runners in 2014). 

Coolmore's Kentucky branch, Ashford, stands #2, Giant's Causeway (47), and the top North American sire of 'break-even-or-better' runners. The Irish National Stud's Invincible Spirit comes next, with 46, followed by three North American sires which all had their first foals in 2006: Gainesway's Tapit (45), tops on the 2014 North American General Sire List; and Darley's Medaglia d'Oro and WinStar's Speightstown (44 each). What a sire crop that was: Lane's End's Candy Ride (37, tied for ninth) is also an F2006 sire, as is Japan's King Kamehameha, the second-best sire in Japan, behind only Deep Impact. Ramsey Farm's Kitten's Joy (43), whose first foals arrived in 2007, rounds out the seven NA/EU sires with 40+ ABC Runners in 2014. 

Another Lane's End sire, City Zip, and WinStar's Tiznow are tied for ninth with Candy Ride, with 37 ABC Runners each last year, followed by a four-way tie, with 35 ABC Runners in 2014, to round out the top 15: Darley's Dubawi (at Dalham Hall, GB) and Shamardal (Kildangan, IR); Airdrie, then WinStar's deceased Harlan's Holiday; and Juddmonte's Oasis Dream. Dubawi and Shamardal both had their first foals in 2007, like Kitten's Joy; Harlan's Holiday and Oasis Dream both had their first foals in 2005. 

Splitting the top 15, ranking eighth, is Lane's End's Curlin, with 38 ABC Runners in the year his oldest crop were 4-year-olds. Curlin racked up some pretty impressive statistics in 2014: he sired 103 winners and the earners of more than $7.8-million, over $2.6-million in front of the next best third-crop sire (first foals 2010), including 12 black-type winners (BTW), and 24 BTH, of which 15 were GSH. Curiously, though, Curlin has only ever sired two graded stakes winners (GSW): Palace Malice, who won the GI Belmont S. in 2013 and the GI Met Mile last year; and the filly Moulin de Mougin, who won the GII John C. Mabee S. at Del Mar last year. But the likelihood is this oversight is liable to be rectified in 2015, because there are some key pointers suggesting Curlin's shortage of GSW is temporary. Though his A Runner Index so far is a good-without-being-great 1.86, he has a very strong 2.95 Index for B Runners; 2.02 for C Runners; and a combined 2.21 Index for ABC Runners. That means that, besides his proven good horses, there are plenty of others by Curlin knocking on the door. Moreover, as you know, we also measure sires' ABC indexes at given ages: for 2-year-olds; 3-year-olds; 4-year-olds; and 5-year-olds and up. Through the end of 2014 Curlin's three crops of 2-year-olds rated 1.47; his two crops of 3-year-olds rated 2.21; and his single crop of 4-year-olds rated 3.08. They look very much like Giant's Causeway's ratings: better older. Curlin already has a total of 14 BTW and 30 BTH, of which 17 are GSH, yet only two GSW so far. We expect that gap to close in 2015.Curlin just could be in for a really big year; he was already ranked 12th on the TDN North American General Sire List last year (click here), so it wouldn't take much for him to make the top ten. 

Speaking of 2014 NA-EU third-crop sires, Hill 'n' Dale's Midnight Lute was a respectably distant second behind Curlin, with 23 ABC Runners last year. Tiz Wonderful, sold to South Korea, had 21 ABC Runners last year, followed by Darley's New Approach (18); Ashford's Majestic Warrior (15); and Spendthrift's Into Mischief (14), though with far smaller foal crops, and fewer runners to date (therefore much higher indexes) than his contemporaries. 

Among F2011 sires with their first 3-year-olds, the 2014 NA-EU leader by number of ABC Runners is Ireland's Gilltown Stud's Sea The Stars (18), ahead of the F2011 group's runaway leader by A Runner Index, WinStar's Pioneerof The Nile, who had a total of 16 ABC Runners last year. France's Haras de la Cauviniere's Le Havre came next with 13, ahead of Coolmore's Mastercraftsman (11) and Taylor Made's Old Fashioned (9). Two horses are tied for the lead among F2012 Freshman Sires, with seven 2014 ABC Runners each: England's Highclere Stud's Paco Boy; and WinStar's Super Saver, number two Freshman Sire of 2014, in a narrow miss to Quality Road. Three freshman sires had five 2014 ABC Runners each: Ashford's Munnings; England's Whitsbury Manor Stud's Showcasing; and the Haras de Bonneval's Siyouni, a son of Pivotal. Lookin At Lucky, Lope de Vega, Rip Van Winkle, and Zebedee had four ABC Runners each from their first crops in 2014. 

Though we calculate the ratings the same way, Japan's racing setup is quite different from that in North American and Europe, so comparisons among the three regions are not always valid. Twelve sires had 30 or more ABC Runners in 2014, but Deep Impact is totally in a class of his own, with no fewer than 117 ABC Runners last year–almost twice as many as Galileo. King Kamehameha is a distant second, with 82, followed, again at a respectful interval, by Heart's Cry (54), Daiwa Major, and Neo Universe (each 50). Nine of the 12 Japanese sires with 30+ ABC Runners last year were sons of Sunday Silence.

AFTERTHOUGHT: While we applaud the idea of international rankings and we all appreciate Longines' beautifully targeted sponsorship at the top of the game, I think a little clarification about what we're actually looking at could be in order. To say Just A Way is the “World's Best Racehorse” and his contemporary Epiphaneia is the world's second-best racehorse makes an assumption which could be debated. Just A Way's 130 rating in the G1 Dubai Duty Free may have been the world's single best performance of 2014, and Epiphaneia's 129 for his four-length win in the G1 Japan Cup may have been the second-best performance, but 'best performances' do not necessarily equate to 'best racehorses'. Historically North America and Europe have been the true 'major leagues' in horse racing. Look, I would be as strong an advocate as anyone of the rise of international racing– Australian racing, Japanese racing, Dubai, Hong Kong– it's all good, in fact it's great. But let's not let our enthusiasm run away with us. I know it's a two-mile race, but please note, in the last two runnings of the G1 Melbourne Cup, nine of the top ten finishers were bred in Europe. Sorry, but Treve was the best horse in the world last year, and Australia and Kingman, in either order, were the best 3-year-olds, along with California Chrome, Bayern, and Shared Belief; and, by the way, Toast of New York, Tonalist, and Wicked Strong didn't even hit the board at the Eclipse Awards. All those American-raced 3-year-olds of 2014 stay in training this year, by the way, which is fantastic, along with Treve, the Niarchos Breeders Cup duo of Main Sequence and Karakontie, and Palace Malice. Should be some really good racing this year.