Bill's Columns

We could all see it was a Royal Ascot like no other, decidedly lacking in crowd noise and atmosphere though, happily, not in the most important ingredient, class racing. It was a different Royal Ascot in the composition of the five-day program, too, with the addition of six £35,000 Handicaps over the five days. Normally there are 30 races, of which 22 are black-type races, with the other eight consisting of seven handicaps and one condition race, the 2 11/16m Queen Alexandra S. This year the Queen Alexandra was run for a £35,000 purse, as was the 2 ½-mile Ascot S., another handicap. So for the purposes of this analysis, I’ve separated the meeting into the 28 races run for a purse greater than £35,000 (the 22 black-type races and six handicaps) and the eight £35,000 races.

Among those 28 races, three sires had three winners each: Gilltown Stud’s Sea The Stars, Darley’s Dubawi, and Ireland’s Tally-Ho Stud’s specialist 2-year-old/sprint sire Kodiac. All three of Kodiac’s winners came on June 20, the meet’s final day: he sired the winners of both Saturday’s 2-year-old races, the 5-furlong G2 Queen Mary for fillies (this was Campanelle, for Stonestreet/Wesley Ward) and the 6-furlong G2 Coventry, won by the 150-1 shot, Nando Parrado. Kodiac followed up with the 4-year-old Hello Youmzain’s gritty pillar-to-post win in the 6-furlong G1 Diamond Jubilee for his happy new owners, France’s Haras d’Etreham and New Zealand’s Cambridge Stud. Kodiac is also the sire of Prince of Lir, the only freshman sire with a winner at Royal Ascot, The Lir Jet in the 5-furlong G2 Norfolk S.

Eight stallions tallied three or more top-3 finishers and/or two winners among the 28 races. Coolmore’s world number one, Galileo, was the leading sire of top-three finishers, with five, of which two were winners, including G1 winner Circus Maximus and G3 winner Russian Emperor. Kodiac, Dubawi, and Sea The Stars each had one place-getter to go along with their three winners. Sea The Stars’ winners were the great Stradivarius, galloping away to win his third consecutive G1 Ascot Gold Cup; the G2 Hardwicke winner, 4-year-old filly Fanny Logan; and the King George V H. winner Hukum, as well as the game G1 Queen Anne second, Terebellum. Dubawi had the impressive G1 Prince of Wales’s winner, Lord North, plus handicap winners Khaloosy (ran away with the 1m Britannia H. for 3-year-olds) and Onassis. Yeomanstown Stud’s Dark Angel had two ‘main event’ winners, including the now-6-year-old top 5-furlong sprinter Battaash (one of six winners during the week for Sheikh Hamdan’s Shadwell operation), who romped in the G1 King’s Stand S.; Dark Angel also had the impressive 3-year-old 5-furlong winner Art Power in one of the £35,000 handicaps, giving him also three winners for the entire week.

Darley’s veteran Exceed and Excel had four place-getters from the 28 races, two seconds (including G2 Queen Mary second Sacred) and two thirds (including G1 Diamond Jubilee third Sceptical). Coolmore’s Camelot had three seconds, including in two 12-furlong G2’s, while the leading European second-crop sire, Darley’s Night of Thunder, had the winner of the G3 Jersey, Molatham, for Shadwell (chinning American Pharoah’s Monarch of Egypt), as well as a second and a third. He also had his 11th Black-Type Winner, in Ireland on Saturday, which leads all North American/European second-crop sires; American Pharoah now has 19 Black-Type Horses to lead that category, while North America’s leading second-crop sire, Constitution, now has a Classic winner, with Tiz The Law’s convincing win in the 2020 version of the G1 Belmont. Among second-crop sires, it’s striking that the three who are now confirmed as top-drawer sires are the best son yet of Tapit (Constitution, who stands at WinStar), the best son yet of Dubawi (Night of Thunder), and American Pharoah, who might be initiating a new, turf-friendly branch of the Fappiano sire line for Coolmore. Incidentally last year’s European freshmen two-three also hit the board at Royal Ascot: Highclere’s Cable Bay is the sire of the 3-year-old filly Liberty Beach, who ran a bang-up third against ‘olders’ in the G1 King’s Stand at five furlongs; and Coolmore’s Gleneagles is the sire of Highland Chief, who won the £35,000 ten-furlong 3-year-old handicap at the meet.

A quick word about broodmare sires at Royal Ascot. Two tied with four top-three placings each, Coolmore’s Danehill Dancer and Galileo, who looks in time like he’ll break all the records for broodmare sires like he is for sires. Of Danehill Dancer’s four, including G1 Queen Anne winner Circus Maximus, three were by Galileo and the other was by Galileo’s son Teofilo. Galileo’s four broodmare sire placings included two by War Front, one of which was Chesham S. (Listed) winner Battleground, the first foal of Found, as well as Barney Roy (by Exceed And Excel’s son, Excelebration) and Monarch of Egypt, by American Pharoah.

Four broodmare sires had three podium finishes among the 28 main races. Pivotal’s three as a damsire included G1 Commonwealth Cup winner Golden Horde (by Dark Angel’s son Lethal Force) and G3 Jersey winner Molatham (by Night of Thunder). Dalakhani is the damsire of impressive Britannia H. winner Khaloosy (by Dubawi), as well as G1 St. James’s Palace second Pinatubo (by Shamardal). Dansili clearly has an affinity as a broodmare sire with Dream Ahead, as this combination produced both Royal Hunt Cup winner Dark Vision, as well as Dream of Dreams, beaten in a photo in the G1 Diamond Jubilee for the second straight year. Both Dream Ahead and Lethal Force, the son of Dark Angel who sired G1 Commonwealth Cup winner Golden Horde, now stand at France’s Haras de Grandcamp, having relocated from Ballylinch (Ireland) and Cheveley Park (England) respectively – so Grandcamp sure had a good Ascot. Finally, the venerable Kingmambo had three broodmare placings, including King George V H. winner Hukum, by Sea The Stars, a cross which has been very successful, including two G1 winners in Cloth of Stars and Zelzal.

For more articles by Bill Oppenheim, APEX ratings, and Brianne Stanley’s Worldwide Sales Ticker, please visit www.billoppenheim.com. Twitter @billoppenheim