Andrew Caulfield Examines the Influence of Galileo

The Galileo juggernaut kept on rolling during the weekend, to the extent that his prize-money total in Britain and Ireland now exceeds £3,500,000, with his nearest pursuer yet to reach £1,300,000. 
Thanks to three victories at The Curragh, his total of Northern Hemisphere group/graded winners for the year has reached 13, headed by the Classic winners Australia and Marvellous and their fellow Group 1 winners Noble Mission and Spiritjim (of whom more later). The last two fought out a desperate finish to the G1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud Sunday, a day after Australia led home a Galileo 1-2-3 as he strolled to victory in the Irish Derby. For good measure, Galileo’s top-class son Rip Van Winkle also impressed, with his daughters I Am Beautiful and Jeanne Girl snatching first and second places in a tight finish to the G3 Grangecon Stud S. This first-crop sire now has five winners to his credit and there will surely be plenty more to come from a crop which numbers 106. 
I Am Beautiful’s success adds to the burgeoning reputation of Galileo’s stallion sons. Five of them have now sired a total of more than 20 group winners and it is going to be interesting to see whether Rip Van Winkle can add to his initial success to a similar extent to the impressive Darley pairing of Teofilo and New Approach. Teofilo numbers an Irish Derby winner among his five Group 1 scorers, while New Approach has already enjoyed Classic success with Dawn Approach (2,000 Guineas) and Talent (Oaks). 
This cumulative record surely bodes extremely well for Galileo’s younger stallion sons, which include the peerless Frankel, the Classic winners Cape Blanco, Intello and Roderic O’Connor and the major winner Nathaniel. Needless to say, Australia will take high rank among them when the time comes for him to join Galileo and Rip Van Winkle at Coolmore. Who wouldn’t want to use a dual Derby winner whose parents were excellent winners of the Derby and Oaks? 
Rip Van Winkle couldn’t claim such impressive credentials, especially on the pedigree front, though his 14-race career left no doubts about either his class or his versatility. Unfortunately for him, he was a contemporary of Sea the Stars, but once he was out of that brilliant colt’s shadow, he triumphed in two of Europe’s best mile races, as well as the Juddmonte International. That win confirmed that he stayed a mile and a quarter very well. Indeed he was beaten only two lengths when fourth in Sea the Stars’ Derby, so he is doing well to sire the first and second in a Group 3 event contested over six furlongs on fast ground. 
Rip Van Winkle also offered good conformation, with no major fault. If there were any doubts about him they probably centered on his first three dams, none of whom was a stakes winner. However, there was some reassurance in the fact that his fourth dam, House Tie, and fifth dam, the top 2-year-old Mesopotamia, were both highly influential broodmares. 
One aspect of his pedigree which appealed to me was that it contained Sadler’s Wells in his second generation and Sadler’s Wells’s close relative Nureyev in the third, creating 3×4 to Northern Dancer and 4×4 to Special. Sadler’s Wells and Nureyev, of course, rank among the most successful stallions of modern times, respectively achieving 13% and 17% stakes winners. 
Among the other outstanding grandsons of Sadler’s Wells o have Nureyev in the bottom half of their pedigrees are the triple Classic winner Camelot and the five-time Australian Group 1 winner It’s A Dundeel. Last year’s Derby winner Ruler of the World is another son of Galileo with Nureyev on the dam’s side, whereas the 2010 Derby and Arc winner Workforce has Nureyev on the top and Sadler’s Wells on the bottom. 
Several of these top performers are linked to Nureyev via Kingmambo, a son of Nureyev’s brilliant daughter Miesque. It is therefore interesting that Rip Van Winkle’s first group winner, I Am Beautiful, is out of Monevassia, a sister to Kingmambo. This means I Am Beautiful is inbred 4×3 to Nureyev, 4x5x4 to Northern Dancer and 5x5x4 to Special (as well as 5×2 to 
Mr. Prospector). Incidentally, I Am Beautiful isn’t the only 2014 group winner with three lines of Special, as Kirsten Rausing’s G3 Musidora S. winner Madame Chiang is inbred 5x3x4 and the 2012 Prix de l’Abbaye winner Wizz Kid also had three lines. 
I Am Beautiful was foaled when Monevassia was 18. Monevassia ran only twice so had little chance to match the achievements of her older brothers Kingmambo and Miesque’s Son (sire of the high-class Whipper). However, she has added to the family fortunes, notably producing Rumplestiltskin. This highly effective Danehill filly numbered the G1 Moyglare Stud S. and G1 Prix Marcel Boussac among her five wins from six juvenile starts in 2005. Rumplestiltskin is now also the dam of a group winner, as her daughter Tapestry–a representative of the famous Galileo-Danehill nick–was a Group 2 winner before finishing a good second to Rizeena in last year’s Moyglare Stud S. Monevassia’s unraced Sadler’s Wells filly Woman Secret also has a talented daughter in the Classic-placed Wild Wind. 
This family has also been in the news this year via Moon Is Up. This 3/4-sister to Monevassia is the second dam of the G1 Poule d’Essai des Poulains winner Karakontie. 
I promised earlier to give a little more detail about Spiritjim, who became Galileo’s 37th Northern Hemisphere-bred Group 1 winner when he took the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud. This 4-year-old, who has suffered only two defeats in nine appearances, is also the 12th Group 1 winner sired by Galileo from mares by sons of Danzig. It will surprise noone that mares by Danehill have provided as many as nine of the 12. Green Desert also gets into the act as the broodmare sire of the Oaks winner Was, whose record-priced younger sister Al Naamah won in such exciting style last week. 
However, the other two Group 1 winners–the top filly Lush Lashes and Spiritjim–are out of daughters by Danzig’s champion sprinter Anabaa, a stallion who will always be remembered as the sire of that magnificent filly Goldikova, as well as the broodmare sire of the similarly talented Treve. 
It is worth pointing out that the nine Group 1 winners out of Danehill mares come from a sample of more than 150 horses aged three or more, and Was heads a comparable team of 15 out of Green Desert mares. Daughters of Anabaa, on the other hand, have only eight Galileo horses aged three or more, so they have done extremely well to produce two Group 1 winners. 
Both Lush Lashes and Spiritjim landed a Group 1 victory over a mile and a half, even though Anabaa was at his best as a sprinter, which underlines once again how much stamina Galileo is capable of imparting to his progeny. Another example is this year’s Group 3 winner Adelaide, who was second at Group 2 level over a mile and a half at Royal Ascot. He is another out of a granddaughter of Danzig, this being Elletelle, a winner of the G2 Queen Mary S. over five furlongs. Her sire Elnadim ranked alongside Anabaa and Green Desert as one of Danzig’s winners of the G1 July Cup over six furlongs.