For over three decades, the British and Irish sires’ championship has primarily been the domain of Irish stallions, specifically those based at Coolmore. It has been a scene of real domination, whether through Sadler’s Wells’ record-breaking collection of 14 championships or the 12 gathered to date by his outstanding son Galileo.
Against that, it is sobering to think that, until this year, the last British-based stallion to be crowned champion was the American-bred Mill Reef, a foal of 1968 who landed the second of his two titles way back in 1987.
That’s not to say that Britain is lacking when it comes to top stallions. Far from it. With the rise of Frankel and Kingman, alongside the steady elite presence of Dubawi coinciding with the twilight years of Galileo, it has become increasingly a question of when a British-based stallion might assume top spot, rather than if. And indeed, the tide finally turned in 2021, which will go down in history as the year of Juddmonte’s Frankel.
His first championship was achieved with a total of £5,262,659, while he also reigned as Europe’s leading sire by virtue of £7,669,782 in earnings.
A total of £3,840,486 placed Galileo in second; for any stallion, that would be a figure of immense credit but, in Galileo’s world, it pointed to an underwhelming year, for all that G1 winners such as Bolshoi Ballet, Joan Of Arc and Love contributed to a haul of 22 stakes winners.
It is very appropriate that the horse to end Galileo’s reign should be his best son, one who raised the bar by which excellence is measured.
Frankel’s unbeaten stretch of 14 races, ten at G1 level, was the longest seen in Europe since Ribot, foaled in 1952, while his Timeform rating of 147 was the highest awarded in the organisation’s history. Perhaps it was his venerable trainer, Sir Henry Cecil, who summed him up best when he commented, “He’s the best I’ve ever had and the best I’ve ever seen. I’d be very surprised if there’s ever been better.”
Such brilliance leads to inflated expectations, especially as it has ensured a wealth of opportunity that would be afforded to very few other sires. He stood his first season at Banstead Manor Stud in Newmarket in 2013 at a fee of £125,000, the lowest figure he has commanded so far, and a snapshot of his early support can be gleaned by the fact that his first book included 38 G1 winners and 25 dams of G1 winners, many of them sent by his owner-breeder, Prince Khalid Abdullah.
All those that doubted Frankel were quick to be proven wrong. His first crop is the source of 23 stakes winners led by the G1 scorers Call The Wind, Cracksman, Dream Castle, Mirage Dancer, Mozu Ascot and Soul Stirring, and that momentum has since been relentlessly maintained to the point that his record today consists of 83 stakes winners, 20 of them at G1 level. He can be relied upon to sire sound stock that tend to progress with racing, and, as Juddmonte stud director Simon Mockridge highlighted in a piece for TRC last year, plenty of his runners possess a ‘mental toughness’ that stands them in particularly good stead.
2021, as that European prize money total of £7,669,782 suggests, raised the bar to a new high.
There were 22 stakes winners in Europe who between them won 37 stakes races. The highlight was Godolphin’s Derby winner Adayar, who went on to back up his Epsom performance with a victory over older horses in the King George. Charlie Appleby’s yard also housed another excellent representative in Hurricane Lane, for whom a golden summer consisted of wins in the Irish Derby, Grand Prix de Paris and St Leger.
Another 3yo, Snow Lantern, captured the G1 Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket.
Enviable position
Among the older horses, Kirsten Rausing’s homebred 4yo Alpinista also progressed into a star of the German scene, sweeping the G1 Grosser Preis von Berlin, Grosser Preis von Bayern and Preis von Europa for Sir Mark Prescott.
Added to that, Frankel’s 2yos, bred in his first year at £175,000, also shone, yielding five stakes winners led by the unbeaten G1 Fillies’ Mile heroine Inspiral and Canadian G1 winner Wild Beauty.
Top Australian performers Hungry Heart and Converge completed the G1-winning octet of 2021 and enhanced an international reputation that also includes Japanese G1 winners Grenadier Guards, Mozu Ascot and Soul Stirring.
Europe is in the enviable position of being able to boast a weighty selection of stallions that also includes Dubawi, Kingman and Wootton Bassett, but the evidence points to Frankel being out in front, certainly in Europe if not the world, as highlighted recently in James Willoughby’s appraisal of the TRC 2021 sire rankings.
Much has been made in recent weeks of the fact that, prior to Frankel, the last British-based champion sire was the National Stud’s Mill Reef, an iconic name within racing history, who won the 1971 Derby, Eclipse Stakes, King George and Arc for Ian Balding.
The son of Never Bend later became a significant influence at stud whose sire line yielded the Derby winners Shirley Heights, Slip Anchor, Reference Point, High-Rise and Sir Percy, alongside the important sire Darshaan. Mill Reef was initially crowned champion in 1978, the year his son Shirley Heights won the Derby, and gained his 1987 title posthumously, primarily in recognition of the Classic achievements of his leading 3yo son Reference Point.
As such, you actually have to go back to 1985 for the last living British-based sire, Kris - another trained by Sir Henry Cecil.
Lord Howard de Walden’s homebred son of Sharpen Up was a brilliant miler of his era, winning 14 of 16 races, including the G1 Sussex Stakes and St James’s Palace Stakes (then a G2). Installed at his owner’s Thornton Stud in Yorkshire at a fee of £24,000, he finished runner-up to Niniski on the 1984 first-crop sires’ list before soaring to the top of the overall standings the following year as his outstanding daughter, the Fillies’ Triple Crown heroine Oh So Sharp, carried all before her. In the process, he became the first Yorkshire-based champion sire in over 100 years.
Startling aspect
Sadly various sons of Kris turned out to be average sires, meaning that his sire line was unable to gain a proper foothold. But he became an excellent broodmare sire; one of his significant gifts to the breed is as the sire of G1 winner Rafha, dam of the influential sires Invincible Spirit and Kodiac and ancestress of Mishriff.
One startling aspect of the past 50 years of the sires’ championship is that Frankel, Mill Reef and Kris are the most recent of only five British-based winners.
In 1981, the championship fell to Great Nephew, whose outstanding son Shergar had won that that year’s Derby, Irish Derby and King George. It was Great Nephew’s second championship following that in 1975, when his first good son, Grundy, had completed a similar sweep of the Derby, Irish 2000 Guineas, Irish Derby and King George.
Great Nephew’s owner, Jim Philipps, had rejected a sizeable offer for him from American interests during his career, instead choosing to sell part of his horse for a lesser amount to a syndicate of British breeders and stand him at his Derisley Stud in Newmarket, now part of Dalham Hall Stud.
As winner of the Prix du Moulin and Prix Dollar for Jack Jarvis, Great Nephew retired as an accomplished miler. He was a slow burner at stud, with his first top-flight winner, Grundy, not emerging until his fourth crop (would he receive the same level of patience today?). However, as that colt and Shergar illustrate, he was an extremely capable sire and it’s a shame that his sire line, which represents a branch of Phalaris via his sire Honeyway and grandsire Fairway, doesn’t live on today.
Fairway also sat behind the line belonging to Queen’s Hussar, the champion sire of 1972. A son of March Past, Queen’s Hussar won the 1963 Sussex and Lockinge Stakes and, from his base of Highclere Stud, near Newbury, sired one of racing’s greats in John and Jean Hislop’s homebred Brigadier Gerard.
It is that legendary performer who was the chief contributor to his championship haul of 1972 following an outstanding 4yo season for Major Dick Hern that included wins in the G1 Eclipse Stakes, G1 King George, G1 Champion Stakes and the G2 Lockinge Stakes (today a G1).
Queen’s Hussar also left his mark as sire of the Queen’s 1974 Prix de Diane heroine Highclere, herself dam of blue hen Height Of Fashion and ancestress of Deep Impact.
Yet Brigadier Gerard, who was beaten only once in 16 starts, was by far the best horse sired by Queen’s Hussar. He understandably retired with much fanfare to stud, but although capable of producing good runners, G1 winners Light Cavalry and Vayrann being notable examples, today is remembered as an average sire at best and his sire line quickly petered out in Europe (one son, General, did stand with success in Argentina, where he sired champion Lord At War, subsequently an influential broodmare sire on a global scale).
Times have changed greatly since the days of Queen’s Hussar and Great Nephew. What is notable looking at the list of previous champions is how much of a role the Derby winner played in handing their sires the title; in addition to Great Nephew and Mill Reef, the list between 1975 and 1991 includes Northern Dancer (champion in 1977 and 1984, the years of The Minstrel and Secreto), Petingo (1979; Troy), Nijinsky (1986; Shahrastani), Blushing Groom (1989; Nashwan) and Caerleon (1991; Generous).
Of course, Frankel was also aided by the achievements of his Derby hero Adayar, yet in keeping with the typical championship seasons enjoyed by Sadler’s Wells and Galileo, was able to field a range of G1 winners, and at differing ages and over differing distances.
Now firmly established as one of Europe’s elite and with sizeable, well-connected crops in the pipeline, it doesn’t take too much imagination to envisage 2021 marking the first of several sires’ championships for him.