Andrew Caulfield on the Magnificent Galileo
INVESTEC DERBY-G1, £1,380,000, EPM, 6-7, 3yo, c/f, 12f 10yT, 2:33.63, gd.
1–sAUSTRALIA (GB), 126, c, 3, by Galileo (Ire)
1st Dam: Ouija Board (GB) (Ch. 3yo Filly, Ch. Older Horse, 2x Ch. Turf Mare-US & 2x Horse of the
Year-Eur, 2x Hwt. Older Mare at 11-14f-Eng,
Hwt. Older Mare at 9.5-11f-Ire, MGISW-US &
Eng, G1SW-Ire & HK, G1SP-Fr & MG1SP-Jpn,
$6,312,552), by Cape Cross (Ire)
2nd Dam: Selection Board (GB), by Welsh Pageant (Fr)
3rd Dam: Ouija (GB), by Silly Season
(525,000gns yrl ‘12 TATOCT). O-Derrick Smith,
Susan Magnier, Michael Tabor & Teo Ah Khing.
B-Stanley Estate & Stud Company (GB). T-Aidan
O’Brien. J-Joseph O’Brien. £782,598. Lifetime
Record: GSW-Ire, 5-3-1-1, £874,323. *1/2 to
Voodoo Prince (GB) (Kingmambo), GSW-Aus & SP-
Eng, $237,195. Werk Nick Rating: A+++ *Triple
Plus*. Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree
Click for the Racing Post result, the brisnet.com PPs or brisnet.com catalogue-style pedigree. VIDEO, courtesy Racing UK.
It’s nearly 30 years since the British group Queen stunned the music and video worlds with Bohemian Rhapsody, but its operatic section is still imprinted on my mind–especially the bit where they chanted:
Galileo, Galileo,
Galileo, Galileo,
Galileo Figaro
Magnifico
Well, the equine Galileo wasn’t born until 1998, but he has certainly proved magnifico and he has already notched up an Anglo-Irish sires’ championship for each of his five name checks. A sixth championship in seven years looks very much in the cards now that the classically-bred Australia has become his third winner of the Derby. The win boosted Galileo’s prize-money for the year to more than double that of his nearest pursuer. Also, the TDN’s 2014 stallion tables show that Galileo leads the world’s stallions with 17 stakes winners, 10 of them at group/graded level.
Australia’s Derby-winning predecessors were New Approach and Ruler of the World. Interestingly, all three of Galileo’s Derby winners are chestnut, but I suspect that vendors would still prefer to have a bay Galileo to sell. The 525,000gns paid for Australia at Tattersalls made him only the 12th-highest priced Galileo yearling of 2012 and all 11 which sold for more, including the 2.5-million guineas Hydrogen, were bays.
Perhaps buyers need to remember those three chestnut Derby winners, plus the fact that Galileo’s long list of Group 1 winners also features the chestnut Cape Blanco (Irish Derby and champion turf male), Sans Frontieres (Irish St Leger), Nightime (Irish 1,000 Guineas) and Allegretto (Prix Royal-Oak). At First Sight, the 2010 Derby runner-up, was another chestnut Galileo.
Galileo is the product of a mating between Sadler’s Wells, a dominant bay, and the Arc-winning Urban Sea. This chestnut daughter of Miswaki had five chestnuts among the six horses in her first two generations. Even so, chestnuts are considerably outnumbered by bays among Galileo’s progeny–by more than four to one if his 2011 crop is anything to go by. So, if you think you are seeing many more good bay winners by Galileo than chestnuts, it is merely a reflection of the chestnut’s comparative scarcity among his progeny.
Buyers will probably need to remember this when Frankel’s chestnut offspring come under the hammer. Incidentally, another chestnut Galileo to look forward to could be the good-looking yearling brother to Frankel and Noble Mission.
Of course the Epsom Classics didn’t just belong to Galileo. Huge credit must also go to Urban Sea, as it was her second Derby winner, Sea the Stars, whose first crop was responsible for the unbeaten Oaks winner Taghrooda. Then there’s Cape Cross, who sired Sea the Stars as well as Ouija Board, the exceptional international racemare who produced Australia. And don’t forget Sadler’s Wells. Australia is the seventh of his grandsons to have won the Derby in the last 10 years (and another of the 10 was out of a Sadler’s Wells mare). For good measure Sadler’s Wells is the broodmare sire of Oaks winner Taghrooda. Put another way, the winners of both the Derby and the Oaks have a second generation which features the names of Sadler’s Wells, Urban Sea and Cape Cross, but in a different order.
To stick with Australia for the moment, his success is yet another reminder that Galileo shines with mares from the Danzig male line. Of course his exploits with Danehill mares are now legendary (Frankel’s brother Noble Mission recently become this cross’s ninth Group 1 winner), but he also shines with descendants of Green Desert, the other mainstay of the Danzig line in Europe. Galileo’s three group winners from his first 15 foals of racing age out of Green Desert mares include Was, winner of the 2012 Oaks. Now Galileo’s progeny out of granddaughters of Green Desert are beginning to make their mark. In addition to Australia, out of a Cape Cross mare, there is Forest Storm, a Galileo mare with a dam by Desert Prince. Forest Storm is the dam of Night of Thunder, the exciting Dubawi colt who conquered the future Classic winners Kingman and Australia in the 2000 Guineas.
At the age of 20, Cape Cross has long been one of Ireland’s higher-priced stallions, but it wasn’t always so. He spent his first four seasons at fees around the €10,000 mark, before sending his fee climbing by becoming champion sire of 2-year-olds with his first crop. This early success could have suggested that Cape Cross–a Group 1-winning miler–was destined to make his mark principally as a sire of speedy, quick-maturing performers. The truth, though, is that his biggest gift to Northern Hemisphere racing has come in the form of two magnificent performers at up to a 1 1/2 miles–Sea the Stars and Ouija Board. Between them, they collected 13 Group 1 successes, including the 2000 Guineas, Derby, Oaks and Irish Oaks. Sea the Stars also triumphed in the Arc, a race in which Ouija Board had finished third in 2004, while Ouija Board twice won the Breeders’ Cup F/M Turf. Ouija Board also landed a pair of Group 1s over 1 1/4 miles. This suggests that Australia will have no problems dropping back to that distance, which breeders often prefer to see on a stallion’s resume rather than the traditional Classic distance of 1 1/2 miles.
This illogical prejudice against 1 1/2-mile performance means that breeders lucky enough to own an Oaks winner tend to look lower down the distance scale when selecting stallions. The stallions recently visited by Oaks winners include the sprinters Oasis Dream, War Front and Fastnet Rock, the speedy Mr. Greeley and the top milers Kingmambo, Dubawi, Rock of Gibraltar, Shamardal and Dansili.
Fortunately they have been prepared to make an exception for Galileo and Lordship Stud was rewarded with the St Leger winner Sixties Icon when Love Divine visited him. Ramruma, Sariska and Light Shift are other Oaks winners with youngsters by Galileo. A couple have also visited Galileo’s best son Frankel, who never ventured as far as 1 1/2 miles.
Australia provides the perfect answer to those who believe that mating an Oaks winner to a Derby winner is a recipe for too much stamina. In the past we have seen the triple Classic winner Meld produce the Derby winner Charlottown to Charlottesville, a winner of the Prix du Jockey-Club and Grand Prix de Paris in the days before their distances were reduced. Then there was the promoted Oaks winner Snow Bride, who produced Lammtarra to Triple Crown hero Nijinsky. Several Oaks runners-up have also produced post-war Derby winners, including Windmill Girl (who produced Blakeney and Morston to winners of the St Leger), Furioso (Teenoso) and Slightly Dangerous (Commander In Chief).
Australia is the latest in a very long line of Classic winners bred by the various Earls of Derby. The female line came into the Derby studs thanks to an exchange between the 18th Earl and Madame Couturie in which Amboyna, a half-sister to the outstanding stayer Alycidon, was swapped for Gradisca, the Derby winner’s fifth dam. The very well-related Gradisca produced the 1954 Prix de Diane winner Tahiti and her legacy also includes the Australian superstar Kingston Town, who had her as his third dam, and Teleprompter, winner of the G2 Queen Elizabeth II S. and GI Arlington Million. Australia’s second dam is Teleprompter’s sister Selection Board.
Moving on to Taghrooda, surely few people dared hope that Sea the Stars’ first crop would come close to matching Galileo’s outstanding first crop, which featured Sixties Icon (St Leger), Nightime (Irish 1000 Guineas), Red Rocks (Breeders’ Cup Turf) and Allegretto (Prix Royal-Oak). However, the task may not be beyond 2009’s 2000 Guineas, Derby and Arc winner, who has made a very encouraging start.
He already has five group winners to his credit, including the unbeaten Taghrooda and a leading Deutsches Derby candidate in Sea the Moon. Another of his group winners, Vazira, was second in the G1 Prix Saint-Alary.
Sea the Stars is based at the Aga Khan’s Gilltown Stud. In addition to Vazira, the Aga owns Shamkiyr, a good second in the G1 Prix du Jockey-Club on his stakes debut, and the group-placed Zarshana.
Coincidentally, Taghrooda comes from a family which has excelled for the Aga Khan and more recently for other leading owner/breeders. Her second dam Ezilla is a sister to the brilliant broodmare Ebaziya, who produced three consecutive Group 1 winners for the Aga. Her first foal, the Sadler’s Wells filly Ebadiyla, took the Irish Oaks and Prix Royal-Oak; her second, the Kahyasi colt Enzeli, won the Ascot Gold Cup; and her third, the Rainbow Quest filly Edabiya, took the Moyglare Stud S. Then, at the age of 20, Ebaziya produced her fourth Group 1 winner, namely the Monsun filly Estimate who carried the Queen’s colours to victory in the Ascot Gold Cup.
Ebaziya’s magic didn’t extend to her unraced sister Ezilla, although Ezilla visited Sadler’s Wells to produce Taghrooda’s dam Ezima. This mare was acquired by Shadwell for 320,000gns after she had won three listed races in Ireland from 10 to 14 furlongs. With Sadler’s Wells as her sire, Ezima is a sister-in-blood to the Classic-winning Ebadiyla, who was represented in the Derby by the 12-1 Ebanoran.
Ezima has a yearling sister to Taghrooda and a 2-year-old Dansili filly, so there are likely to be further dividends for Sheikh Hamdan’s investment.