Honouring the best of breeding in 2018: the Racing Post Bloodstock Awards

Sire of the year

It is tempting to look for an alternative to Galileo at the end of a year in which the Coolmore phenomenon did not rule the British and Irish sire table with his usual authority – finishing top by a margin of ‘just’ £2.8 million, compared with £8.2m last year.

Dubawi was a contender, having supplied the two top-rated juveniles in Too Darn Hot and Quorto, as was Sea The Stars, sire of brilliant talents Sea Of Class and Stradivarius.

But it has to be Galileo. Even in a quieter year he fired in Group/Grade 1 winners Flag Of Honour, Forever Together, Kew Gardens, Line Of Duty, Magical, Rhododendron and Waldgeist, while he also surpassed his sire Sadler’s Wells’ record of most progeny wins in European Pattern races.

Tony Morris put it best in the Bloodstock Notebook when he wrote: “By his remarkable standards 2018 ranks somewhere short of exceptional – merely outstanding.”

Breakthrough sire of the year

Two elder statesmen of the stallion ranks, one Flat and the other jumps-orientated, defied the odds by making their top-flight breakthroughs relatively late in life in 2018.

Camacho, a 16-year-old son of Danehill who stands at Yeomanstown Stud, had long been known as a useful source of two-year-olds and sprinters but he took his progeny record to another level when he supplied Poule d’Essai des Pouliches winner Teppal and dual Group 2-winning juvenile filly Signora Cabello.

The half-brother to Showcasing – who goes from strength to strength himself – has been rewarded with a fee increase to €12,000 in 2019. It is unusual indeed for a stallion to stand his 14th covering season at a career-high price.

Sandmason’s leap forward in the past 12 months, meanwhile, was all the more dramatic for the fact that he had been so neglected by breeders that, despite being 21 years old, he has only ever been represented by 25 runners over jumps in Britain and Ireland and in the past two years had sired a sum total of zero foals.

“In the last few years I could've had a breeder standing at the end of my drive and told them we had Sandmason here, and they wouldn't have walked the few extra yards to look at him,” said Paul Rothwell, who stands the stallion at his Lacken Stud.

That all changed when Sandmason’s tiny homebred crops yielded Grade 1 winners Black Op and Summerville Boy in the spring, and he was subsequently sent 217 mares in the past breeding season.

Camacho and Sandmason proved it’s never too late in life.

Jumps sire of the year

Beeches Stud stalwart Flemensfirth gained a richly deserved first jumps sire championship in Britain and Ireland in 2017/18 and gets the nod here.

The 26-year-old son of Alleged has long been known as a fine source of talent, having provided superstars such as Flemenstar, Foxrock, Imperial Commander, Pandorama and Tidal Bay.

In the last jumps season it was Ascot Chase winner Waiting Patiently, Irish Grand National second Isleofhopendreams and winners of the Champion Bumpers at Cheltenham and Punchestown – Relegate and Tornado Flyer – who contributed most to the sire’s table-topping prize-money haul.

Flemensfirth also made his presence felt in the 2017/18 jumps season as damsire of Grade 1 winners Identity Thief and Next Destination.

Broodmare of the year

Two mares were represented by a pair of Group 1 winners in Europe this year – no mean feat when you consider a young stallion will be lauded for doing the same with far more offspring to bat for them.

They were Halfway To Heaven (Magical and Rhododendron) and In Clover (Call The Wind and With You).

Our award, however, goes to a mare who just failed to achieve that status but made up for that with an extraordinary sales exploit.

Lord and Lady Lloyd-Webber’s three-time Group 1 heroine Dar Re Mi, a daughter of their foundation mare Darara, was responsible for champion two-year-old Too Darn Hot and runaway Listed winner and St Leger runner-up Lah Ti Dar in 2018.

Her yearling colt by Dubawi – a full-brother to that pair – also became the most expensive yearling sold anywhere in the world this year, when knocked down to David Redvers on behalf of Qatar Racing for 3,500,000gns at Tattersalls.

Breeder of the year

There can be only one winner in 2018. Step forward John and Tanya Gunther, who tasted victory at the very highest level on either side of the Atlantic.

Undefeated US Triple Crown hero Justify was bred by the Gunthers at their Glennwood Farm in Kentucky and sold to China Horse Club and Maverick Racing for $500,000 at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale, while Without Parole – a Frankel colt produced from the father and daughter’s European breeding ventures – carried home silks to victory in the St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot.

There was also success in the sales ring with, among others, the Galileo colt out of Midday’s sister Posset sold to Stroud Coleman Bloodstock for 1,100,000gns at Tattersalls October Book 1.

Honourable mention goes to the Niarchos family, owner-breeders of brilliant three-year-old filly Alpha Centauri and Prix du Jockey Club winner Study Of Man.

Kudos, also, to a pair of small breeders who hit the big time this year in Gaie Johnson Houghton and Allan Belshaw.

Johnson Houghton bred the close relations Accidental Agent and Mohaather, winners of the Queen Anne and Horris Hill Stakes, while Belshaw’s prolific Simply Times family yielded eye-popping Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf winner Newspaperofrecord, Listed scorer Classical Times and the dam of Irish Derby victor Latrobe.

Consignor of the year

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to sell one million-guinea yearling in a year may be regarded as a success; to sell four within the space of three days is truly exceptional.

That is exactly what Newsells Park Stud did, though, at Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale. Its Galileo brother to Secret Gesture and Sir Isaac Newton sold for 3,400,000gns, while two lots by Dubawi – a half-brother to Legatissimo and a sister to Ispolini – were each sold to Stroud Coleman for 1,200,000gns.

It also sold the Gunthers’ Galileo colt out of Posset for 1,100,000gns and narrowly missed out on a fifth millionaire when a Galileo filly out of Wildwood Flower made 900,000gns to MV Magnier that week.

In all, Newsells Park sold 18 yearlings during Book 1 for a total of 11,055,000gns, making it the leading vendor by aggregate by a margin of more than 3,000,000gns.

As if all that weren’t enough, the operation’s Gleneagles colt out of Lady Eclair also broke the Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale record when knocked down for £380,000 in August.

Previous Newsells Park sale graduates Lightning Spear and The Tin Man struck at Group 1 level in 2018 and another, Japan, looks Classic class after claiming the Beresford Stakes.

Bargain of the year

Slim pickings in this category in a year when the elite Flat racing was dominated by homebreds from the big operations – the likes of Alpha Centauri, Cracksman, Enable, Masar and Saxon Warrior – and expensive purchases such as Fairyland (cost 925,000gns) and Forever Together (€900,000).

Even those winners who appeared to be triumphs for the smaller owner cost enough. Laurens, for example, set owner John Dance back £220,000 and David Menuisier’s stable star Thundering Blue was once a 190,000gns breeze-up buy.

Instead we look to an expatriate who cost mere centimes in her native France but has become a multimillionaire in America.

Sistercharlie, a daughter of Myboycharlie, cost Paul Nataf just €12,000 at the Arqana October Yearling Sale in 2015 and she went on to win the Prix Penelope for original owner Jacques Cygler.

Subsequently purchased privately by big-spending US owner Peter Brant, the filly finished second in last year’s Prix de Diane and was exported stateside, where she won four Grade 1 contests on the turf for Chad Brown in 2018 – culminating in a stunning last-gasp victory in the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf.

It’s not often that Sistercharlie’s breeder Ecurie des Monceaux, regularly the leading vendor at Arqana yearling sales, lets one slip through its hands so cheaply.

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