Leading active NH sires

Upward trajectory for Yeats

We run through the leading active NH sires at stud in Britain and Ireland

THIS HAS BEEN written before the running of the Aintree Grand National, a decision that we made so that a one-off race with its massive prize-money won’t significantly affect our analysis of the NH sires’ table for 2020-21.

It was difficult to find the perfect timing for this review – we did not want to publish at the end of the NH season so too late to be of use to NH breeders, or too early so that it did not accurately reflect the season the NH sires have had.

So hence this post-Cheltenham publication – we might not have the final tables but, aside from the National, the Punchestown Festival and the Sandown end-of-season finale – the framework for the final NH stallion standings are pretty much in place.

First, we go through the season enjoyed by the older active NH stallions standing in Britain and Ireland before we run through profiles of younger sires – those with runners and those yet to be represented on the track – and we analyse the French-based stallion scene.

Sadly, generally British and Irish NH stallions have to get so old before they are able to start challenging for top honours – for many, their moments of glory don’t arrive until they are either pensioned or dead – the fantastic year enjoyed by the deceased Stowaway a prime example.

The late Whytemount Stud stallion has been challenging for his first-ever NH sire championship – he led the table for much of the season and regained the top spot after The Festival, courtesy of two Grade 1 success and four winners. His main protagonist is the previous champion Flemensfirth, now retired from the breeding shed.

A year for Yeats

Coolmore’s Yeats has been in close attendance to the pair throughout the season and is enjoying his best-ever results in terms of the NH sires’ table. He has already beaten his best-ever prize-money earnings and winner numbers, and he also matched Stowaway’s four Festival winners.

Progeny by the son of Sadler’s Wells were the first by an active NH stallion to break the seven-figure prize-money earnings this season, tipping the million in February.

He has achieved his seasonal success courtesy of 72 winners and six NH stakes winners (the leading active NH stallion on that statistic), headed by Flooring Porter, winner of the Grade 1 Christmas Hurdle and then the Stayers’ Hurdle for trainer Gavin Cromwell.

Yeats’s highest earning son is actually running in France – Figuero, trained by François Nicolle and bred by the Cypres family out of the Saint Des Saints mare Annaland, was a Grade 1 winner in 2019. He won the Prix Ingre (G3) in September and then finished second and third in last autumn’s Grand Steeple Chase de Paris (G1) and Prix la Haye Jousselin (G1).

His most expensive sales ring progeny Chantry House, who fetched £295,000 sold as a winning point-to-pointer at the Tattersalls Ireland Cheltenham Sale in 2018, finished third in the 2020 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle and built on that performance taking this year’s Marsh Novices Chase (G1).

The sire has had one store horse sale over €200,000 back in 2014 with a second-best price of €185,000 given for an as-yetunraced gelding sold by Rathmore Stud at the 2019 Goffs Land Rover Sale. At the same year’s Derby Sale, Highflyer Bloodstock spent €150,000 on a gelding from Springhill

Stud out of the Presenting mare Gaye Preskina.

Yeats’s average at last year’s store horse sales was 14,871gns, and at the foal sales 10,092gns.

He stands at Castle Hyde at an affordable fee of €5,000.

Getaway getting going

Yeats has not had the most winners of any living stallion this year, that honour goes to Getaway, his big books and support from NH breeders, purchasers and from his stud owners beginning to reap dividends.

The son of Monsun is two years younger than Yeats and has enjoyed a breakthrough season – Sporting John became his first Grade 1-winning chaser when taking the Scilly Isle Novices Chase in February for trainer Philip Hobbs.

He has had seven six-year-old winners over fences this season behind only Yeats as an active NH sire.

Getaway’s stock has always been highly regarded at the sales, and the sire has benefited from the flurry of point-to-point sales that have emerged over the past few years – he has had 12 horses who have fetched over €/£200,000 sold at the various NH horses in training sales with a top price of £570,000 given last autumn at the Goffs UK December P2P Yorton Sale for Classic Getaway.

The sire has had ten point-to-point winners through the disjointed Irish pointto-point season and four five-year-old chase winners this season in Britain and Ireland.

His top-priced store horse, a gelding out of an own-sister to the Grade 1-placed pair of Shadow Eile (Beneficial) and Corskeagh Royale, was sold by Oak Tree Farm at last year’s Goffs UK Summer Sale for £175,000.

At last year’s Derby Sale, Kevin Ross Bloodstock paid €170,000 for a gelding out of the Milan mare La Scala Diva from the family of Egypt Mill Prince.

Getaway’s store horses averaged 24,084gns, and foals 19,134gns.

He stands at Grange Stud for €9,000, his highest fee yet, and is bound to receive another book of over 200 this season.

A Coolmore three

Three fellow Coolmore stallions are following up the two big names – the 2004-born Mahler is topped and tailed by Westerner (1999) and the ever-consistent Milan (1998).

Milan’s most expensive sales horse is in fact a store horse – Ballyreddin Stud’s gelding out of Monte Solaro, who made €365,000 at the 2018 Derby Sale.

Milan was given a €2,000 fee reduction for this spring to €8,000.

His current runner Brewin’upastorm, rated 155, was a £250,000 Ryan Mahon/ Dan Skelton purchase at the April Tattersalls Ireland Cheltenham Sale in 2017. He is now trained by Olly Murphy.

Mahler, by Galileo, has made good and steady progress over the last few years and is due a best-ever finish on the table (previous best finishes were 13th in 2019-20, and 14th in 2018-2019).

His top-priced sale horse is the BHA 164-rated and Grade 1-placed Chris’s Dream, who sold for £175,000 at the Tattersalls Ireland December Sale in 2017 to Tom Malone as winning hurdler. Chris’s Dream holds an entry in the Grand National.

Mahler’s priciest store horse so far is his third-most expensive sales horse – €150,000 given by MV Magnier to Lakefield Farm for a gelding out of the Listed-winning juvenile hurdler Newtown Dancer (Danehill Dancer).

Mahler’s stock is performing well in the Irish point-to-point field and, despite the restricted season that sphere has endured, he leads the sires’ table with 16 winners.

His store horses averaged 12,737gns for 34 sold and his fee for 2021 is €5,000.

Cave courting success

The first non-Coolmore-based stallion on the living NH list is Court Cave, a son of Sadler’s Wells out of Weymss Bight and standing his 14th season at Boardsmill Stud.

He is another enjoying a best-ever season – a sixth place on the “living list”, current runners bred on the back of the graded races successes of Champion Court through the 2010-14 seasons.

He has 16 runners this year rated over 130 headed by Mister Whittaker (153) and the mare Court Maid (152), who picked up a winning prize fund of €73,750 when winning a 3m5f handicap chase at Fairyhouse.

He saw 64 mares in 2020, and has a private fee for this season having stood at €4,000 for the last couple of years.

The 20-year-old Shirocco retired to stud in 2007 and stood initially as a Flat stallion at Dalham Hall Stud (one year at Kildangan in 2009) moving to Rathbarry’s Glenview in 2014 after the subsequent Champion Hurdle winner Annie Power appeared on the track in 2012 and won her first Grade 1 in 2013.

Those results helped give the sire 11th and 25th placed finishes the NH table in those years, form which has subsequently drifted downward.

His results have picked up over jumps subsequent to receiving books of mainly NH mares with his oldest Irish-bred crop now six-year-olds. He seems to be setting up a strong link with Old Vic mares – of the 15 runners by the stallion out of mares by the late Sunnyhill Stud stallion, 11 have won. They include Annie Power and this year’s three-time novices’ handicap hurdle winner Grumpy Charley.

The son of Monsun is still represented on the Flat at the highest level – the admirable globetrotting stayer Prince Of Arran a recent flagbearer, while the German-trained Windstoss was a runner-up in the Group 1 Prix du Cadran last autumn.

He has had eight point-to-point winners on this winter’s interrupted Irish circuit.

Shirocco’s store horse averages are 15,026gns, and his foals have fetched an average price of 8,082gns.

The Grade 1 Arkle Novice Chase winner Shishkin and the Grade 1 Ballymore Novice Hurdle winner Bob Olinger are both sons of Rathbarry Stud’s Sholokhov (Sadlers’ Wells).

Shishkin’s dam Labarynth (Exit To Nowhere) was covered in 2013, the first year that the sire stood in Ireland, and the year that his subsequent Gold Cup winner Don Cossack won his first Grade 1 when taking the John Durkan Memorial Chase at Punchestown in December.

Sholokhov’s results should continue moving forwards for a few years yet as a result of bigger and quality books covered on the back of his Gold Cup-winning son’s success in 2016 and this year’s dual Grade 1-winning Festival successes. He is now on private fee, and his store horse average price is 24,070gns.

Sholokhov: had a brilliant Cheltenham with two Grade 1 winners from two runners