champion sire
Galileo and Dubawi, two titans of the sport whose fates have been so entwined for the past two decades that the marrying of their superior bloodlines to one day give us a champion sire was perhaps as inevitable as it is satisfying for us bloodstock nuts. On 12 occasions, in 2008 and then every year between 2010 and 2020, Galileo topped the end-of-year sires' table in Britain and Ireland. On four of those occasions Dubawi filled the runner-up spot, before the Darley stalwart finally enjoyed his day in the sun...
Twenty-five years into this new millennium, the season's 86 Group 1 races in Europe have all been run and, with the year ebbing away, Night Of Thunder stands on the cusp of becoming the champion sire of Britain and Ireland for the first time. The odds for a grandson of Dubai Millennium collecting this honour would not have been short in the aftermath of that stallion's death at the age of just five. A quarter of a century ago the aptly named Dubai Millennium appeared to have the world at...
The recent football World Cup featured a few surprises, with several high-profile teams losing out to supposed lesser lights. That situation is not a mirror of what happened in the General Sires' Table of Great Britain and Ireland in 2022, when the established stars held their position so well that the first five in the 2021 table are the first five in the 2022 table, albeit in a different order. The most notable change in the order is one which many observers will applaud: Dubawi (Ire) has gained his deserved...
The bookmaker Fitzdares makes Dubawi (Ire) 13/8 favourite to be champion sire for the first time. Darley's 20-year-old elite sire was third in last year's table in Britain and Ireland behind Frankel (GB) and Galileo (Ire), and he enjoyed an annus mirabilis on the international stage, becoming the first stallion to be responsible for three Grade I winners at the same Breeders' Cup meeting in Yibir (GB), Space Blues (Ire) and Modern Games (Ire). Juddmonte's reigning champion Frankel is second-favourite to retain his title at 15/8, with the 12-time champion Galileo (Ire),...
Sadler's Wells, winner of the G1 Eclipse S. during a tough campaign as a 3-year-old in 1984, didn't take long to establish himself as an outstanding stallion (siring two Dewhurst Stakes winners, ie dead-heaters, in his first crop and thus swiftly making his aptitude for his second career clear) but for quite a long time the jury was out as to his effectiveness as a sire of sires. Ultimately, though, any such doubts were utterly dispelled. His best son on the racecourse, Montjeu (Ire), became a terrific stallion and then...
In a temporarily upside-down world, a comforting air of normality can be found in a perusal of the end-of-year stallion tables. To Benjamin Franklin's certainties of death and taxes, in this smaller world we can add just about the only sure thing in racing and bloodstock: Galileo (Ire) is champion sire. Perhaps the greatest compliment that can be paid to the King of Tipperary is the fact that, even at his home at Coolmore, the operation which naturally has free-flowing access to the supersire via some of the best mares...
Gainesway Farm's three-time North American champion sire Tapit will be the featured stallion for the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame's Foal Patrol Season 4, which will debut online at www.foalpatrol.com on Dec. 29. One of the most influential and breed-shaping stallions of the past half-century, Tapit has sired 27 Grade I winners, 31 yearlings to bring $1 million or more at auction, and earners of more than $162 million on the racetrack. He stands at historic Gainesway in Lexington, Ky., for a 2021 fee of $185,000. Foal...