LUNAR-CY

The first-crop-sires table continues to whoop up hype beyond its relevance and this fervour has reached a new height this season. There were two very good classic-winning colts in 2022 that unfortunately died before they could enter stud duties. Coroebus and Desert Crown produced emphatic performances when winning at Newmarket and Epsom and had the physique to match.

That generation had no other colt to match their credentials. This meant that the best racehorses retiring to stud were from earlier crops. Superior athletes they were indeed: Baaeed, Stradivarius, State of Rest and Torquator Tasso all progressed markedly with age and produced a consistent level of the highest form under varied circumstances. They are all worthy recruits. The sprinting division was represented by Minzaal, who produced his best performance in his last race and earned a respectable rating achieving it.

Unfortunately the gormless demand from myopic breeders for a new face in the so-called “commercial” bracket was just as intense as ever, so opportunistic stallion masters sought to cash in by standing horses that have no pretension of siring top class racehorses. Most surprisingly, the largest book was covered by one of the lowest rated racehorses. How on earth the owners of one hundred and twenty three mares were convinced to send a mare to Space Traveller is baffling. He is a good looking horse, but was thoroughly exposed as well as below the best on the racecourse.  His own sire has managed one Group One winner in America (out of a Beat Hollow mare - I wonder how many of those graced his book?).  His grandsire never managed to produce a legitimate heir, though Zoffany was moving in the right direction at the time of his demise.

I regularly call for a greater diversity of stallions, so I could not complain if a horse with this history attracted fifty mares, but for him to have sired more foals than the other stallions on the list and more than many others who retired in previous years is not auspicious for the breed.

There is a problem with the severe reduction in independent stallion studs. There is a problem with the severe reduction in individual buyers at the bloodstock sales.  Recently owners, notably Clipper Logistics and Amo Racing (before their ‘Road to Damascus’ moment), who have spent heavily on the more precocious yearlings, have attempted to emulate the leviathans by establishing their own broodmare bands to support their own stallions. Where their designs have come unstuck is that they have yet to produce a colt worthy of the patronage.

Breeders and pinhookers are compliant in supporting this folly, because the principals have supported their stock at the sales.  Unfortunately for the breed, this has resulted in flooding the market with horses of severely limited horizons.  Rather than closing the gap, it is cementing the position of the superpowers.

It is crucial that there is a wider range of stallion choices and it would be hugely beneficial if there were more stallion farms standing genuinely influential horses, or even prospective ones. Patronising mediocrity is making that outcome more remote.

Those with foals by stallions covered in this category will no doubt feel incensed by these sentiments, but bear in mind your die is already cast. You have knowingly entered into a market where preconceptions are confirmed or rebutted before the end of the first crop’s first season of racing.

Starman made his debut in July of his three-year-old career. He is out of a mare by a stallion who was grandsire of six Cheltenham Festival winners. Hopefully he will produce progressive Group One winners over one mile at three years and beyond. That is the way to bring down the established order, not by siring more winners of minor juvenile events than others from your intake.