Five Sires Stand Out as Royal Ascot Leaders

There are 30 races run over five days at Royal Ascot, which took place June 18-22. Of those, eight are group 1 races, eight are group 2 (over half of the races), three each are group 3 and listed stakes, and eight are handicaps or conditions races, most of which might as well be black type.

Perhaps surprisingly, just five sires were responsible for the winners of half the races: Shamardal sired three winners of four races after Blue Point became the first horse since Choisir in 2003 to win both the June 18 King's Stand (G1) over five furlongs and the six-furlong Diamond Jubilee (G1) just four days later.

Galileo and his half brother Sea The Stars sired three winners each, as did the previously useful sire Bated Breath. He is a Juddmonte sire, as is Galileo's best son, Frankel, who had two winners. Another Juddmonte sire, Kingman, had one winner and three group placings from his first crop of 3-year-olds.

Shamardal was from the first and only European crop by Giant's Causeway and is out of a full sister to Street Cry. He was undefeated in six starts on turf: three under the care of trainer Mark Johnston, including the soft-ground 2004 renewal of the Darley Dewhurst (G1), and three after his transfer to Saeed bin Suroor, including the first 2,100-meter (about 10.5 furlongs) edition of the group 1 Prix du Jockey-Club (French Derby) and the replacement 2005 St. James's Palace Stakes (G1), run that year at York during the Ascot redevelopment.

His first crop, foaled in 2007, included Lope de Vega, who won the group 1 Gainsborough Poule d'Essai des Poulains (French Two Thousand Guineas), then emulated his sire by winning the French Derby and is now a leading sire in his own right. In fact, Shamardal and Lope de Vega almost had to carry the ball between them to sustain the Storm Cat sire line until the arrival of Scat Daddy and Into Mischief .

Though he's indisputably a top-10 European sire, Shamardal is only the second-best European sire whose first foals were born in 2007. Dubawi holds the top spot. But Shamardal is the sire of nearly 60 group/graded stakes winners worldwide, and he was the No. 1 sire at this year's Royal Ascot meeting.

Blue Point, a 5-year-old, won the two top-level sprints for older horses; 2-year-old Pinatubo, now 3-for-3, won the increasingly significant Chesham Stakes, a listed seven-furlong test; and another 5-year-old, Cape Byron, won the top sprint handicap, the six-furlong Wokingham. With a third-place finish by 3-year-old filly Jubiloso in the one-mile Coronation Stakes (G1), the average distance for top-three finishers by Shamardal's progeny at Royal Ascot 2019 was 6.4 furlongs. 

The world leader, Galileo, sired three winners and 10 horses who finished in the first three. Sea The Stars had three winners and five top-three finishers, and Frankel had two winners and six top-three finishers.

Galileo's winners were all 3-year-olds: the one-mile St. James's Palace winner Circus Maximus, who was sixth in the Investec Derby (G1); the 1 1/4-mile King Edward VII winner Japan, who was third in the June 1 Derby; and South Pacific, the 1 1/4-mile King George V Handicap winner—a race in which Galileo also sired runner-up Constantinople.

In all, seven 3-year-olds by Galileo finished in the top three at Royal Ascot, along with 4-year-old fillies Magical and Magic Wand and the 5-year-old Waldgeist. Tellingly, the minimum distance at which any of them won or placed was a mile, and the average distance for top-three finishes by the 10 Galileo progeny was 11 furlongs.

Sea The Stars sired three group 1 or group 2 winners: 5-year-old Crystal Ocean earned his first top-level win in the 10-furlong Prince of Wales's Stakes June 19. Sea The Stars had an even better day June 20 when Stradivarius, also 5, won the Ascot Gold Cup (G1) over 2 1/2 miles for the second consecutive year.

It was also the fourth consecutive win on the card, from four races, for Frankie Dettori; it brought the house down—the crowd's reception was epic, to say the least. One race before, the 1 1/4-mile Ribblesdale (G2) for 3-year-old fillies, was won by Star Catcher, also by Sea The Stars—and also ridden by Dettori for trainer John Gosden. The average top-three finishing distance for the five Sea The Stars place-getters was 13.2 furlongs, with a median distance of 1 1/4 miles.

Including two wins, the six top-three finishers by Frankel were even more extreme: four 4-year-olds and two 5-year-olds, with one top-three finish at 10 furlongs, three at 12 furlongs, and two at 2 1/2 miles. Average distance for a top-three finish by one of Frankel's progeny at Royal Ascot 2019: 14.3 furlongs, with a median of 12 furlongs.

Average distance for 21 top-three finishes by Galileo, Sea The Stars, and Frankel is exactly 12.0 furlongs. These are all six-figure stud fee sires, so not relevant to the vast majority of commercial breeders, but there may be a hint that breeders should be thinking about applying the Coolmore model to these three as well: Breed them to speed. It looks like they're all supplying plenty of stamina.

Besides Shamardal, Galileo, and Sea The Stars, the other horse to sire three winners at Royal Ascot was a surprise: Juddmonte's fourth-crop sire (first foals 2014, first 5-year-olds 2019) Bated Breath, a consistent sprinting son of Dansili, who, like his sire, never won a top-level race, though he did place in five group 1 sprints, including twice to Dream Ahead and once to Society Rock.

Up until last week, Bated Breath had only sired two group winners, but he's now up to five, with two of his three Royal Ascot winners in group races. Plus, for good measure, his 4-year-old filly Simply Breathless captured the Wilshire Stakes (G3) at Santa Anita Park.

At Ascot, 2-year-old filly Daahyeh won the six-furlong Albany Stakes (G3); Space Traveler scored in the Jersey Stakes (G3) for 3-year-olds at seven furlongs; and Biometric won the one-mile Britannia Handicap, also for 3-year-olds. That was a very big week for Bated Breath—career-changing, so to speak.

Five second-crop sires had Royal Ascot winners, most prominently Kingman, who sired Hampton Court (G3) winner Sangarius (he had the 1-2 in that race), and three other 3-year-olds placed in group races.

No Nay Never sired the six-furlong Coventry Stakes (G2) winner, 2-year-old Arizona, as well as 2-year-old filly Celtic Beauty, second in the Albany. French sire Olympic Glory sired the upset Coronation Stakes winner Watch Me; Slade Power had his first black-type winner courtesy of the Queen Mary (G2) winner, Raffle Prize; and Mukhadram, a consistent 10-furlong horse by—wait for it—Shamardal, is the sire of Thanks Be, upset winner of the one-mile Sandringham Handicap for 3-year-old fillies.

Two first-crop sires hit the board at Ascot. Gleneagles was represented by 2-year-old colt Southern Hills, who won the five-furlong Windsor Castle Stakes, and 2-year-old colt Highland Chief, who ran third in the seven-furlong Chesham Stakes. The other place-getter by a freshman sire belonged to Brazen Beau, sire of Dubai Station, who was third in the five-furlong Norfolk Stakes (G2).

Two other sires deserve special mention. F2015 (first crop of 2015) Farhh's small first crop of 4-year-olds includes the one-mile Duke of Cambridge Stakes (G2) winner Move Swiftly and Gold Cup and 2018 Investec Derby runner-up Dee Ex Bee. The other is Showcasing, the Whitsbury Manor resident who sired his second six-furlong Commonwealth Cup (G1) winner in Advertise. This useful sprint sire son of Oasis Dream also sired Soldier's Call, who finished a good third against elders in the King's Stand.

Sales Update

At the close of the Ocala Breeders' Sales June 2-Year-Olds and Horses of Racing Age Sale, Brianne Stanley of The Bill Oppenheim Group calculated that 2,190 2-year-olds in training have sold since March 1 for a total of $209,488,200, at an average of $95,657. This was nearly a $25 million gain (+13%) from 2018, when 2,014 2-year-olds brought $184,580,500 and averaged $91,149.

But the European sales (613 sold) were down around nearly $5 million (9%), from $47.6 million to just under $43 million. Combined, the 2019 2-year-old in training sales saw 2,803 juveniles sold for a gross of $252,484,400, a gain of $20 million from last year. 

Sires of the 362 yearlings cataloged to The July Sale, Fasig-Tipton's summer yearling sale, include 111—almost exactly 30%—that are by 25 first-year sires. The highest representation among these 25 sires is a tie for first between two WinStar stallions, 2015 Dwyer Stakes (G3) winner Speightster  (by Speightstown ) and 2016 Wood Memorial (G1) winner Outwork  (Uncle Mo ).

Gainesway's Kelso (G2) winner, Anchor Down  (Tapit ), has 10 cataloged, as does Taylor Made's Not This Time  (Giant's Causeway). Among the high-profile sires with their first yearlings selling, Darley's Nyquist  (Uncle Mo) and Frosted  (Tapit) have three and five cataloged, respectfully; Taylor Made's California Chrome  (Lucky Pulpit) has five; WinStar's Exaggerator  (Curlin ) also five; and Claiborne's Runhappy  (Super Saver ) has four cataloged.

For more articles by Bill Oppenheim, APEX sire ratings, Brianne Stanley's Weekly Sales Ticker and more, please visit www.billoppenheim.com.