Lord Kanaloa | Horse Racing Free Tips

Posthumous First Japanese Sires’ Championship for Duramente

There's a new king of the Japanese sire ranks and his name is Duramente (Jpn). However, his coronation is bittersweet for the Shadai Stallion Station as the son of King Kamehameha (Jpn) died in September 2021 at the age of just nine.

The winner in 2015 of the G1 Satsuki Sho and G1 Tokyo Yushun – the Japanese 2,000 Guineas and Derby equivalents – Duramente was quick to make an impression following his retirement to stud in 2017. The champion first-season sire of 2020, he has progressed through the senior ranks at an eye-catching rate, finishing 11th in the general sires' table in the year of his untimely death, and then fifth in 2022.

Duramente's outstanding daughter Liberty Island (Jpn) played a major role in her sire's first championship. Out of the top-class Australian mare Yankee Rose (Aus) (All American {Aus}), whose exploits on the track included Group 1 wins in the Inglis Sires' and Spring Champion S. as well as finishing runner-up to Capitalist (Aus) in the G1 Golden Slipper, Liberty Island followed up her Grade 1 success as a juvenile by landing the Fillies' Triple Crown of 2023. She then found only the mighty Equinox (Jpn) too good for her in the G1 Japan Cup.

Duramente's leading first-crop son Titleholder (Jpn) was still running for him in 2023 at the age of five, and to his three Grade 1 wins of 2021 and 2022, which included the Kikuka Sho (St Leger), he added the G2 Nikkei Sho, as well as finishing third on Christmas Eve in the G1 Arima Kinen.

With a Classic winner from each of his crops to date, Duramente was also represented in 2023 by Stars On Earth (Jpn), his Oka Sho and Yushun Himba (1,000 Guineas and Oaks) winner of the previous year who was third in the Japan Cup and second in the Arima Kinen behind Do Deuce (Jpn).

Dura Erde (Jpn), the G1 Hopeful S winner of 2022, managed two Grade 1 placings in December, while Champagne Color (Jpn) won the G1 NHK Mile last May. The latter is a rarity in that his dam Memorial Life (GB) is by the subfertile and later gelded Reckless Abandon (GB).

Duramente, who was a son of the dual Grade 1 winner Admire Groove (Jpn), herself a half-sister to the Shadai stallion Rulership (Jpn), owned a pedigree replete with the dominant names of the Japanese breeding scene over the last decades, with his first three dams being daughters of Sunday Silence, Tony Bin (Ire) and Northern Taste respectively. It is easy to see why he succeeded in the short time granted to him at stud, and even easier to see that he will be missed.

King Kamehameha, who was also champion broodmare sire for 2023, was responsible for the quinella in the table, with another of his sons, Lord Kanaloa (Jpn) finishing a close second – a spot he has occupied for the last four years, the previous three being behind the 11-time champion Deep Impact (Jpn).

Among the top six sires in Japan for 2023, three were Japanese Derby winners, one a runner-up in that same Classic, and one a Japanese St Leger and Japan Cup winner. Lord Kanaloa is something of an outlier among this elite crew as five of his six Grade 1 wins came over 1,200m, with the other being the Yasuda Kinen over 1,600m. He is best known as a stallion, however, for siring the Fillies' Triple Crown and dual Japan Cup winner Almond Eye (Jpn). In 2023 he was represented by the G1 Saudi Cup winner Panthalassa (Jpn), who has himself just joined the stallion ranks at Arrow Stud, and by his fellow Grade 1 winners First Force (Jpn) and Brede Weg (Jpn).

Kizuna (Jpn), a son of Deep Impact and the leading first-season sire of 2019, has managed a top-five finish in each of the last three seasons and was third overall for 2023. His globe-trotting daughter Songline (Jpn) led the way, completing back-to-back wins in the G1 Yasuda Kinen in June after winning the G1 Victoria Mile. She also won the G3 1351 Turf Sprint at the Saudi Cup meeting of 2022, and that same race was won by another of Kizuna's offspring, Bathrat Leon (Jpn), in 2023.

Heart's Cry (Jpn), whose racing claim to fame was being the only horse to beat Deep Impact on Japanese soil when winning the G1 Arima Kinen of 2005, died in March 2023, three years after being pensioned at Shadai. He added a new Group 1 winner to his list last season, but not in Japan. His major flag-bearer was Continuous (Jpn), trained in Ireland by Aidan O'Brien and winner of the St Leger in England. Heart's Cry's previous year's Classic winner, the Japanese Derby hero Do Deuce (Jpn), holds similar dragon-slaying credentials of his own, having beaten Equinox in that race, and he was back for more in 2023, which ended with another top-level win for him in the Arima Kinen.

Heart's Cry ended up in fourth place in the table, having finished in the top three in the six years prior to that. Four years after his death, Deep Impact finally relinquished the title, and was fifth in 2023, a year in which he too was represented in overseas Classics by the Derby and Irish Derby winner Auguste Rodin (Jpn), who is a member of his final crop of just 14 foals.

Justin Palace (Jpn), from Deep Impact's penultimate crop, was his leading scorer in Japan and won the G1 Tenno Sho in the spring. That success has doubtless contributed to the move of his 14-year-old half-brother, the GI Belmont winner Palace Malice (Curlin), to Darley Japan after he spent eight seasons at Three Chimneys Farm in Kentucky. Incidentally, along with the brand new recruits Adayar (Ire) and Hukum (Ire) from Europe, Darley Japan has also taken in another former American-based stallion for 2024 in Heart's Cry's son Yoshida (Jpn), a name which is certainly not unfamiliar in Japanese breeding circles and beyond.

Sixth in the general sires' list for 2023 was Kitasan Black (Jpn), whose fame reached new heights courtesy of his son Equinox (Jpn), the highest-rated horse in the world last year. Kitasan Black, who is by Deep Impact's full-brother Black Tide (Jpn), is the kind of horse who simply wouldn't get a look in at a Flat stud in Europe these days, but that's a pity. His seven Grade 1 wins came between 2,000m and 3,200m and just about everything in between. His back-to-back wins in the two-mile Tenno Sho (Spring) were not off-putting to Japanese breeders, however, and he was the busiest stallion in the country in 2023, covering 242 mares. His load may well be eased somewhat during this coming season, with his son Equinox now having retired to stand alongside him at Shadai. Father and son are the two most expensive stallions in Japan at ¥20 million (€124,000) and the 'book full' sign went up for Equinox as soon as his fee, which is a record for a first-season sire, was announced.

Up and Coming

Suave Richard (Jpn), who was runner-up to Rey De Oro (Jpn) in the 2017 Japanese Derby before winning the G1 Osaka Hai at four and the Japan Cup (under Oisin Murphy) as a five-year-old, was the champion first-season sire in Japan for 2023.

The stand-out among his 21 winners is Regaleira (Jpn), who beat Sottsass's brother Shin Emperor (Fr) (Siyouni {Fr}) to win the G1 Hopeful S. on December 28. She owns a special pedigree, her dam Roca (Jpn) (Harbinger {GB}) being out of a three-parts-sister to Deep Impact. Regaleira's recent victory was also the first at Grade 1 level for Harbinger as a broodmare sire. The King George winner of 2010 finished 11th in the general sires' table.

While Suave Richard, by Heart's Cry, was also responsible for G2 winner Corazon Beat (Jpn) and was the easy winner on progeny earnings, he was not the most prolific when it came to number of winners. That honour went to Moanin, the Grade 1-winning dirt miler by Henny Hughes who was represented by 44 winners, a staggering number by Japanese two-year-old standards, and all recorded on dirt. In fact, the second, third and fourth in the table were all American-bred stallions. Giant's Causeway's son Bricks And Mortar finished runner-up with 14 winners, including the G3 Saudi Arabia Royal Cup scorer Gonbade Qabus (Jpn), and New Year's Day, whose career started in Kentucky but whose first Japanese-bred runners came last season, was represented by 23 winners.

The aforementioned Japanese Derby winner Rey De Oro was fifth with 13 winners, the same number recorded by the dual Dubai World Cup winner Thunder Snow (Ire), who was seventh, just behind Kentucky Derby and Preakness hero California Chrome, who is another to have been moved from America to Japan.

The post Posthumous First Japanese Sires’ Championship for Duramente appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Eleventh Japanese Title for Deep Impact

To a degree, when it comes to the Japanese sires' championship of 2022, one could resort to that old saying 'the more things change, the more they stay the same'. It holds good for now, as in the last three years the names filling the top three spots in the list have remained the same, in an unchanged order: Deep Impact (Jpn), Lord Kanaloa (Jpn), and Heart's Cry (Jpn).

But all things change eventually and, as we know, two of those stallions are no longer active, with Deep Impact gaining his last three championships posthumously. With his legend now fully appreciated worldwide, he was quick to make his mark in his home country after his retirement to the Shadai Stallion Station in 2007. The son of the hugely dominant Sunday Silence was Japan's champion first-season sire of 2010. He made his debut in the top 10 of the country's general sires' list the following year by finishing in fourth position when King Kamehameha (Jpn) was champion, but Deep Impact then wrested that title from his stud-mate in 2012 and has held it on an annual basis ever since.

The members of his final small crop of 14, conceived after covering 24 mares before his premature demise at the age of 17 in August 2019, are 3-year-olds this year. In Japan, where it is still considered desirable for the elite gallopers to race on as older horses, Deep Impact could maintain his supremacy for another year, but sooner or later his reign will come to an end. His stars of 2022 in Japan were the G1 Osaka Hai winner Potager (Jpn) and Ask Victor More (Jpn), who won the G1 Kikuka Sho (Japanese St Leger). He also featured as the broodmare sire of G1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup victrix Geraldina (Jpn), a daughter of Maurice (Jpn) and perhaps Deep Impact's crowning glory, Gentildonna (Jpn), the Fillies' Triple Crown, Japan Cup and Arima Kinen winner who was Japan's Horse of the Year in 2012 and 2014.

Farther afield, he was represented by G1 Australasian Oaks winner Glint Of Hope (Jpn), while the G1 Vertem Futurity Trophy winner Auguste Rodin (Ire) gives Deep Impact a great chance of further European Classic success this year.

The top-class sprinter/miler Lord Kanaloa, a son of the late King Kamehameha, looks a champion sire in the making with a growing international reputation. He was the approximate equivalent of only £163,000 shy of Deep Impact in progeny earnings from 276 winners last year, the best of them being G1 NHK Mile Cup winner Danon Scorpion (Jpn) and G1 Dubai Turf dead-heater Panthalassa (Jpn). Not too many of his offspring have made it to Europe yet, but a notable winner in Ireland last season was 'TDN Rising Star' Beginnings, a daughter of dual Guineas heroine Winter (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) who now has Classic aspirations of her own.

Heart's Cry was absent from the covering shed in 2022, having been pensioned at Shadai the previous June at the age of 20. A contemporary of Deep Impact, he finished runner-up to him in the freshman championship of 2010 and, despite always being in his shadow, has enjoyed a sterling career of his own.

Heart's Cry sired the 2022 Japanese Derby winner Do Deuce (Jpn) and his previous best performers around the world include Japan Cup winner Suave Richard (Jpn), Cox Plate winner Lys Gracieux (Jpn) and dual Grade 1 winner Yoshida (Jpn), who is now at WinStar Farm in Kentucky. In France this year, he was represented by the Aidan O'Brien-trained G3 Prix Thomas Bryon winner Continuous (Jpn), who is out of a full-sister to Maybe (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) and thus bred on similar lines to Saxon Warrior (Jpn).

For the second year running Deep Impact's son Kizuna (Jpn), the second of his sire's Derby winners in 2013, was fourth in the general sires' table having been the leading first-season sire of 2019.

His highlight of the year came when Songline (Jpn) won the G1 Yasuda Kinen, having started 2022 with victory in the G3 1351 Turf Sprint at a Saudi Cup meeting which was dominated by Japanese runners. Kizuna's son Bathrat Leon (Jpn) won the G2 Godolphin Mile at Meydan the following month.

Duramente (Jpn), who sadly died after a bout of colitis in August 2021 at the age of just nine, looks an increasingly big loss to the Japanese ranks, having finished fifth in the table for 2022. Another son of King Kamehameha, and out of the dual Group 1 winner Admire Groove (Jpn) (Sunday Silence, Duramente was represented by the G1 Hopeful S. winner Dura Erede (Jpn) between Christmas and New Year, and his son Titleholder (Jpn) took last season's G1 Takarazuka Kinen having become a Classic winner the previous year in the Kikuka Sho. Another Classic winner came his way in 2022 in the form of the Yushun Himba (Japanese Oaks) winner Stars On Earth (Jpn).

Having covered for just five seasons, Duramente leaves 725 registered offspring. His sire King Kamehameha was just behind him in sixth, and the influence of the former champion, who died in 2019, will start to wane in this table, though he will likely remain dominant through his daughters for a good while, and he was champion broodmare sire for 2022, ahead of Deep Impact, Kurofune (Jpn), and Sunday Silence.

The brilliant Triple Crown and dual Arima Kinen winner Orfevre (Jpn) managed a top-10 finish for the third year running from a personal best of fourth in 2020. On the international stage, he is best known for his 2021 GI Breeders' Cup Distaff winner Marche Lorraine (Jpn), one of his four Group/Grade 1 winners, including recent Tokyo Daishoten winner Ushba Tesoro (Jpn). That latest top-level winner came a day after he had notched a first Group I winner as a broodmare sire through the aforementioned Dura Ede.

Rulership (Jpn), too, is a perennial top-10 dweller and is the third of King Kamehameha's sons towards the top of the list. He appears to work well with mares by Sunday Silence and his sons–though they are not exactly in short supply–with all three of his Group 1 winners and 12 of his 16 group stakes winners having been bred on variations of this cross.

Maurice (Jpn), who spilt his six Group 1 wins equally between Japan and Hong Kong, has a similar record with his best runners. Having shuttled to Australia, he had two Group 1 winners there in 2022–Australian Derby winner Hitotsu (Aus) and Doomben 10,000 winner Mazu (Aus), along with two Group 1 winners in Japan. Arguably the most significant of these is Geraldina, the aforementioned daughter of Gentildonna.

Completing the top 10 is the veteran Daiwa Major (Jpn). The big success of 2022 for the 22-year-old son of Sunday Silence came through G1 Mile Championship winner Serifos (Jpn), giving Le Havre (Ire) a second top-level victory as broodmare sire, following his European strike in that category via Pyledriver (GB) (Harbour Watch {Ire}).

Biscuits Best Of The Youngsters

Three of the four leading first-season sires in Japan in 2022 were bred in America, though two of them, Shanghai Bobby in third and Declaration Of War in fourth, are only freshmen in Japanese terms, having started their careers in the US and Ireland before being exported.

Leading the group was Mind Your Biscuits, the dual G1 Golden Shaheen winner who also landed the GI Malibu S. and joined the Shadai Stallion Station upon retirement. From 76 runners last year, the son of Posse was represented by 28 winners, including the listed scorer Dermo Sotogake (Jpn) and the Group 2-placed Shomon (Jpn). Mind Your Biscuits is a great grandson of Deputy Minister, whose line has been ably represented in Japan, particularly by his son French Deputy and grandson Kurofune.

Of the homegrown young stallions in Japan, the G1 Dubai Turf winner Real Steel (Jpn) was best, finishing second behind Mind Your Biscuits with 21 winners from 67 starters but with an important Group 2 winner to his credit in All Parfait (Jpn). By Deep Impact, Real Steel owns a pedigree that will be all too familiar to breeders beyond Japan: his Niarchos-bred dam Loves Only Me (Storm Cat) has also produced Real Steel's treble Group/Grade 1-winning full-sister Loves Only You (Jpn). Their dam was unraced, but as a granddaughter of Miesque and half-sister to Group 1 winner Rumpelstiltskin (Ire) (Danehill), she was always going to be a valuable broodmare prospect and has already more than proved her worth at stud. Though the Niarchos family sold her for $900,000 to Katsumi Yoshida, their own support of Deep Impact through the same brilliant equine family was rewarded with a Classic winner in Study Of Man (Ire), who is out of Miesque's Storm Cat daughter Second Happiness and has his first-crop runners in Europe this year.

With this family also boasting Kingmambo, whose international influence stretches to Japan, largely through King Kamehameha, it is fair to expect to hear more of Real Steel and Study Of Man as the years progress.

The post Eleventh Japanese Title for Deep Impact appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

No Deep Impact But JRHA Select Sale Still Set To Make Its Mark

There are bloodstock sales and then there's the JRHA Select Sale. The premier sale for Thoroughbreds in Japan, held at Hokkaido's Northern Horse Park, is truly out of the ordinary as far as these events go.

The yearling section of the sale, which this year features 234 entries taking into account withdrawals at the time of writing, follows a fairly traditional format (though the sale's website does include a document noting the yearlings' heights, girth and cannon bone measurements, vices, and any surgical intervention), but it is the following day's session of foals that gives the JRHA Select Sale its unique feel. The foals arrive with their dams at Northern Horse Park early on the morning of the sale, though potential buyers have already visited the individual consigning farms for yearling and foal shows prior to auction. On sale morning, there is a two-hour window for further viewing, with several hundred foals and their usually fairly illustrious mothers standing in lot order among the trees in the park for the fanciest mass line-up of Thoroughbred stock in the world. They then proceed to the ring in tandem, and the foals, once sold, return to their original farm until they are weaned.

During the first year of the pandemic, figures dipped slightly from the then-record-breaking year of 2019, but by 2021, more records were set, with the highest turnover ever seen across the two-day sale of ¥22.5 billion (€163m/£138m) for 226 yearlings and 213 foals sold. Covid restrictions are now more relaxed in Japan and the JRHA's international representative Naohiro Goda says they they expect to have more trainers, owners, agents and media returning to the sale this year, with some American and Australian agents having already arrived in Hokkaido.

For the first time, and in a move which has proved highly effective in other jurisdictions, the JRHA will be accepting online bidding from international buyers.

Japanese bloodstock continues to advertise its merit on racecourses around the world, and inspection of the Select Sale catalogue demonstrates just how highly prized top-class international form is for Japanese breeders when it comes to assembling broodmare bands. Whatever your nationality, there will be mares throughout the pages who are instantly memorable, usually because of their Group/Grade 1 racing form.

For the first time since he arrived on the scene as a stallion of note, there will be no Deep Impact (Jpn) yearlings on offer in Hokkaido, the great sire having died in 2019, leaving a small final crop born in 2020. Poignantly, his 31-year-old dam Wind In Her Hair (Ire) (Alzao) still resides within sight of the sale at the Northern Horse Park with her pony companions.

Deep Impact does still have the edge in Japan's leading sires' table so far this season, but his lead over the former leading first-crop sire Lord Kanaloa (Jpn) is slim. The latter, also a Shadai stallion, is represented by 11 yearlings and nine foals in the JRHA Select catalogue, including a yearling filly (lot 14) out of the G1 Prix Marcel Boussac winner Lily's Candle (Fr) (Style Vendome {Fr}), who was bred in Normandy by Monique Lepeudry at Elevage de Tourgeville. Her close family also includes the former Japanese Horse of the Year and G1 Cox Plate winner Lys Gracieux (Jpn) (Heart's Cry {Jpn}).

Homecoming Queen (Ire) (Holy Roman Emperor {Ire}) and Jet Setting (Ire) (Fast Company {Ire}), 1000 Guineas winners in England and Ireland respectively, are each represented by yearlings in the sale. The former, a half-sister to Arc winner Dylan Thomas (Ire) and champion 2-year-old filly Queen's Logic (Ire) (Grand Lodge), has a colt by Maurice (Jpn) catalogued as lot 55, while Jet Setting's Frankel (GB) colt is slated as lot 23.

Another close relation to a European Classic winner can be found as lot 16, who is the half-brother to Irish Oaks winner Covert Love (Ire) (Azamour {Ire}) and by the current first-crop sire Satono Diamond (Jpn).

G1 VRC Oaks winner Mosheen (Aus) (Fastnet Rock {Aus}), whose other top-class victories included the G1 Australian Guineas and G1 Royal Randwick Guineas, is another to have visited Maurice in 2020, and her yearling colt is consigned by Northern Farm as lot 76. The 14-year-old mare is already the dam of treble Group 3 winner Primo Scene (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) and she is doubly represented in the sale as her Epiphaneia (Jpn) colt foal is due to sell on Tuesday as lot 367.

Yoshida is a name which will be oft-heard through the sale: the brothers Teruya and Katsumi are the most dominant breeders and consignors represented, each with sizeable drafts in both sectors, while another brother, Haruya, will also play a part via his Oiwake Farm. But Yoshida (Jpn) also appears on the sires' list through one of his first crop of American-conceived yearlings. The son of Hearts's Cry (Jpn) stands at Winstar Farm and is the sire of lot 77, a granddaughter of the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies and GI Matron S. winner Folklore (Tiznow).

The dual Dubai World Cup winner Thunder Snow (Ire) is another with first yearlings and he has two catalogued, lots 192 and 203.

The foal section includes lot 314, an Epiphaneia half-brother to Japanese Derby winner Roger Barows (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}), whose dam Little Book (GB) (Librettist) is a half-sister to Group 1 winner Donna Blini (GB) (Bertolini), later better known as the dam of dual Japanese Horse of the Year Gentildonna (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}). Three of the first crop of foals of Juddmonte's G1 Irish 2000 Guineas winner Siskin will also make an appearance.

Looking ahead to the start of the sale on Monday, Naohiro Goda said, “The quality of the catalogue this year is the best I have seen. This is first JRHA catalogue which does not include Deep Impact, and we understand that it is impossible that one single stallion plays his role. Instead, however, the variation and depth of stallions we have in this year's catalogue is amazing, as there are so many young proven stallions, such as Lord Kanaloa, Epiphaneia, Duramente (Jpn), Maurice, Kizuna (Jpn), Drefong, and so on. In addition, hugely exciting unproven stallions will be represented by their young crops, such as Rey De Oro (Jpn), whose first foals made such a big splash last year, Bricks And Mortar, Suave Richard (Jpn), New Year's Day, Siskin, Nadal, Admire Mars (Jpn), Le Vent Se Leve (Jpn), and Saturnalia (Jpn).”

Goda added, “It will not be easy to break last year's new record but we hope the market at the 2022 Select Sale is as active as it was last year.”

The JRHA Select Sale starts on Monday with the yearling session, followed on Tuesday by the foals.

The post No Deep Impact But JRHA Select Sale Still Set To Make Its Mark appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post

Deep Impact: Gone But Certainly Not Forgotten

The death of Deep Impact (Jpn) in July 2019 may have robbed Japan, and the wider breeding industry, of a phenomenally successful stallion but his dominance persists for now, with a tenth Japanese sires' championship going his way in 2021.

The most prolific son of Sunday Silence, who was just 17 when he died a few months after covering a final book of 24 mares, has held the title consecutively since 2012, the year in which his eldest runners were 4-year-olds. He had hit the ground running as the champion first-season sire in 2010.

From that final crop, members of which have just turned two, seven foals are listed as having been born in Japan, and another seven in Europe. As would be expected, they belong to some high-end breeders, and include the Aga Khan's half-sister to the five-time Group 1 winner and young stallion The Autumn Sun (Aus) (Redoutes's Choice {Aus}); Godolphin's half-sister to Prix Marcel Boussac and Breeders' Cup winner Wuheida (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}); a full-brother to Saxon Warrior (Jpn), and a filly out of the seven-time Group 1 winner Minding (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), whose first foal born the previous year was a colt by Deep Impact. Also among the Galileo mares sent to Deep Impact in his final year by the Coolmore partners were the multiple Group 1 winners Hydrangea (Ire) and Rhododendron (Ire), both of whom foaled colts.

The Niarchos family, whose early patronage of Deep Impact resulted in his Classic-winning son Study Of Man (Ire), who is now his sole representative at stud in Britain, have a 2-year-old filly out of Malicieuse (Ire), a Galileo half-sister to Bago (Fr) and Maxios (GB).

With Snowfall (Jpn) having enhanced Deep Impact's record in the European Classics last year with her victories in the Oaks and Irish Oaks, it is not unreasonable, from this select clutch of youngsters, to imagine that his tally in this part of the world could be extended further still by his final two batches of 3-year-olds this year and next.

Deep Impact's progeny earnings for 2021 stood at ¥6,978,499,500 (approximately £44.5m/€53.3m) from 205 winners, led by Contrail (Jpn), who bowed out of his own magnificent racing career with victory in the Japan Cup the year after he completed the Triple Crown. Deep Impact was also represented by his seventh (and fourth consecutive) Japanese Derby winner in Shahryar (Jpn).

At a fee of ¥12 million (approximately £76,300/€91,500), Contrail is now one of six sons of Deep Impact at Shadai Stallion Station, where their sire stood his entire career and was routinely graced with big books of high-class mares. In all bar one of Deep Impact's full covering seasons he was sent in excess of 200 mares, reaching a high of 262 in 2013. Unsurprisingly, he is also an accomplished broodmare sire, a sphere in which his name will loom large for a good while to come, and was runner-up in that division in 2021.

For the second year running, fellow Shadai stallions Lord Kanaloa (Jpn) and Heart's Cry (Jpn) filled the second and third places on the Japanese sires' list. The former, a 14-year-old son of the late King Kamehameha (Jpn), has five Group 1 winners to his credit, including the outstanding Almond Eye (Jpn), and his leading performer last year was the 6-year-old Danon Smash (Jpn), whose top-flight wins have come in both Japan and Hong Kong. Lord Kanaloa also had a smart juvenile in 2021, the Group 2 winner King Hermes (Jpn), among his 247 winners overall–the highest number recorded by any of the stallions on the list.

Heart's Cry, another son of Sunday Silence and racing contemporary of Deep Impact, had the champion back in second when winning the G1 Arima Kinen in his final season on the track, and he has compiled his own impressive record at stud, albeit always in Deep Impact's shadow. Now 21, Heart's Cry is the sire of the globetrotting Lys Gracieux (Jpn) and Japan Cup winner Suave Richard (Jpn) among his 11 Group I winners.

Recording his highest place on the sires' list to date was Deep Impact's 12-year-old son Kizuna (Jpn), who was the leading first-season sire of 2019 and is looking a proper force to be reckoned with after just three crops of racing age. Kizuna was the second of his sire's Derby winners in 2013 and he ventured to France that same year to win the G2 Prix Niel before finishing fourth behind Treve (Fr) in the Arc.

With 155 winners in 2021, Kizuna was also represented by his first top-level winner in Akai Ito (Jpn), victrix of the G1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup in November. His first-crop son Deep Bond (Jpn) won the G2 Hanshin Daishoten and G2 Prix Foy at Longchamp as well as finishing runner-up in both the G1 Tenno Sho and G1 Arima Kinen.

King Kamehameha (Jpn) died only a fortnight after a Deep Impact so his is another name who will gradually disappear from the stallion tables, if not from pedigrees. He was fifth overall in 2021, but he got the better of Deep Impact in one regard when finishing at the top of the broodmare sires' list.

Another of King Kamehameha's sons, the 15-year-old Rulership (Jpn), was just below him on the table, while with five crops of racing age under his belt, the former Japanese Triple Crown winner and dual Arc runner-up Orfevre (Jpn) was seventh.

The handsome Epiphaneia (Jpn), a son of Symboli Kris S and a contemporary of Kizuna, is doing well from his first three crops to be eighth overall. He is ahead of his young rival in one regard, however, as Epiphaneia is already the sire of three Grade I winners, including last year's Arima Kinen winner Efforia (Jpn) and this season's Classic prospect Circle Of Life (Jpn).

Drefong Leads The Japanese Freshman

Gio Ponti's multiple Grade I-winning son Drefong took up residence at the Shadai Stallion Station in 2018 and the Breeders' Cup Sprint hero is already making a mark on his adopted country, having claimed the first-season sires' championship in 2021.

He covered 207 mares in his first book, and of his 92 starters last year, he notched 31 winners, six clear of his nearest rival in that regard, Copano Rickey (Jpn), by Sunday Silence's son Gold Allure (Jpn), who was sixth overall. Drefong's leading runner was Northern Farm's Geoglyph (Jpn), whose two wins included the G3 Sapporo Nisai S.

Deep Impact's son Silver State (Jpn), who stands at the Yushun Stallion Station, was runner-up in the table with 22 winners, including the Group 3 winner Water Navillera (Jpn). The Japanese 2000 Guineas winner Isla Bonita (Jpn), by Fuji Kiseki (Jpn), also recorded 22 winners to be third.

The hugely talented Kitasan Black (Jpn), the leading son of Deep Impact's full-brother Black Tide (Jpn), was a seven-time Group 1 winner on the track and he is off to a decent start at stud, finishing fourth in the table with 13 winners from 44 starters.

Darley Japan's Grade 1-winning son of War Front, American Patriot, was fifth, represented by 18 winners, including the Group 3 runner-up Be Astonished (Jpn).

The post Deep Impact: Gone But Certainly Not Forgotten appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

Source of original post