Tag: Sadler’s Wells

Frankel: The Best Just Got Better

Sadler's Wells, winner of the G1 Eclipse S. during a tough campaign as a 3-year-old in 1984, didn't take long to establish himself as an outstanding stallion (siring two Dewhurst Stakes winners, ie dead-heaters, in his first crop and thus swiftly making his aptitude for his second career clear) but for quite a long time the jury was out as to his effectiveness as a sire of sires. Ultimately, though, any such doubts were utterly dispelled. His best son on the racecourse, Montjeu (Ire), became a terrific stallion and then the horse who won the Derby, Irish Derby and King George And Queen Elizabeth S. two years after Montjeu won the Prix du Jockey-Club, Irish Derby and Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, Galileo (Ire), became an even greater one. Galileo, born when Sadler's Wells was aged 17, truly became his father's heir. The consequence of this was that the question of who would become Sadler's Wells's heir was replaced by a next-generation query as to who would become Galileo's heir?

Galileo, like his father, was an immediate star at stud, notwithstanding that his first juveniles did not make anything like the impression that had been created by Sadler's Wells's first bunch of 2-year-olds. By the time that Galileo's first crop had been racing for two seasons, he had sired two Classic winners, Nightime (Ire) having won the Irish 1,000 Guineas and Sixties Icon (GB) having taken the St Leger, as well as a Dewhurst Stakes winner (his second-crop son Teofilo (Ire)). In retrospect, Sixties Icon's St Leger can be said to have foretold the subsequent changing of the guard which would later see Galileo inherit his father's mantle: Galileo sired the first three colts across the line while the fourth and fifth place-getters were sons of Sadler's Wells.  

Things progressed nicely from there, with Galileo's third crop headed by New Approach (Ire) who became his father's second Dewhurst winner and the first of his five (so far) winners of the Derby. With such a galaxy of stars, for a few years it seemed as if it would be hard to provide a definite answer to the identity of Galileo's best son or daughter, never mind his best sire-son.  However, a member of Galileo's sixth crop provided so clear-cut an answer to that one that we knew that, however many crops the great horse went on to produce afterwards, Frankel (GB) was and always would remain the best racehorse sired by Galileo. As Sir Henry Cecil, a man whose natural modesty had led him spend his career shying away from superlatives and avoiding making extravagant claims on behalf of his charges, was eventually forced to concede after Frankel's final race, that Frankel wasn't just the best horse whom he had ever trained nor even the best horse whom he had ever seen, but “probably the best horse anyone has ever seen”.

That was all well and good, of course; and Frankel's flawless 14-from-14 racing record certainly ensured that he was given every chance when he retired to stud by virtue of stellar early books of mares. But when any horse ceases racing and retires to stud, the clock is turned back to zero. Success as a racehorse implies a strong possibility of success at stud, but it certainly doesn't guarantee it, irrespective of how well supported a young sire may be. In fact, there can be an element of tall poppy syndrome when people contemplate the likelihood of a great racehorse excelling at stud. One will always find people ready to peddle the myth that top-class fillies/racemares are unlikely to become good broodmares, and one can always find people who will brush an outstanding colt off as having been 'a freak', unlikely to display similar excellence as a stallion. In Frankel's case, of course, an element of that is inevitably true because it is nigh on impossible that he could sire a horse as talented a racehorse as he himself had been. But, even so, in retrospect it was folly to predict anything but stardom for Frankel the stallion.

We do, of course, have the benefit of hindsight, but now that we have had time to digest the evidence of the 2021 racing season (which ended with Frankel as champion sire of Great Britain and Ireland, relegating Galileo to the runner-up position) the conclusion is inescapable: Frankel has stepped into his father's shoes as seamlessly as Elisha took up Elijah's mantle. If only the correlation between racing ability and success at stud was always so strong! It is going to be very interesting to see how things go from here, not least because, although Galileo may have died in July, there remains a handful of seasons in which he will still be sufficiently well represented to have a realistic chance of increasing his haul of General Sires' Championships.

Sadler's Wells holds the record for the most British/Irish sires' titles. His final year as champion sire, 2004, saw him take the title for the 14th time, passing the record of 13 (which he had equalled the previous year). The magnitude of the achievement is shown by the fact that he was breaking a record which had stood for over 200 years, the previous record-holder Highflyer (GB) having won his 13th and final championship in 1798. Galileo's total of championships currently stands at 12, courtesy of his being champion sire in 12 of the 13 seasons from 2008 to 2020 inclusive. (The sole interruption in his reign came in 2009 when his fellow Coolmore resident Danehill Dancer (Ire) topped the table).

Many of us had blithely assumed that Galileo would remain as champion sire for the next few seasons, would equal Sadler's Wells's total in 2022 and would pass it in 2023. The season just ending has blown that assumption out of the water, with Frankel winning the sires' championship almost as emphatically as he used to win his races. He will end the current season with progeny earnings in Great Britain and Ireland in excess of £5.25 million, not far off £1.5 million clear of the sum earned by Galileo's offspring. In fact, third-placed Dubawi (Ire), fourth-placed Sea The Stars (Ire) and fifth-placed Dark Angel (Ire) are all set to finish considerably closer to Galileo than Galileo will finish to Frankel. Looking ahead, it is, of course, very possible that Galileo could regain his crown in 2022, although the current ante-post market for the Derby is not encouraging in that respect: five horses, including two trained by Aidan O'Brien, are at odds shorter than 25/1 for the great race and none is a son of Galileo, which by recent standards is an almost unthinkable situation.

What the next 12 months will bring for Frankel is also, of course, impossible to predict. But the one thing which we can say is that, if the past is any guide to the future, his career will continue to thrive. What he has achieved so far, even allowing for the fact that he was blessed with first-class support from the outset, has been phenomenal.

Frankel's achievement which has been given the most air-time is perhaps the fact that this year he became the fastest sire to reach 50 Group winners in history. Obviously this record is meaningless compared to what stallions achieved up to and including the 1980s, when it was still the norm for stallions to cover no more than 45 mares each season and to be restricted to one stud season per year (because dual-hemisphere shuttling had not yet become an accepted practice). However, the explosion in the size of stallions' books and the widespread acceptance of shuttling took place over 30 years ago now, and there have been a lot of good sires, including Galileo obviously, whose stud careers started in the last 30 years. Furthermore, Frankel has never shuttled, although obviously he has been able to gain extra representation by covering a limited number of mares at Banstead Manor to southern hemisphere time to produce progeny to race in the Antipodes or South Africa.

An obvious example of this type of mare is Harlech (GB) (Pivotal {GB}) whom he covered in the late summer of 2016 and who produced Hungry Heart (Aus) in August 2017. Hungry Heart did plenty to boost Frankel's worldwide progeny earnings in 2021, taking the G2 Phar Lap S. at Rosehill in March, then both the G1 Vinery Stud S. at Rosehill and the G1 ATC Australian Oaks at Randwick in April. These were the first two of the 14 Group/Grade 1 races won by sons and daughters of Frankel in 2021, won by eight individual horses and spread over six countries. In fact, it is a remarkable aside to Frankel's sires' championship that fewer than half of the top-level triumphs recorded by his progeny during the year actually counted towards the title. In fairness, it has obviously helped that his two brightest stars this year have both been trained in England: Adayar (Ire) and Hurricane Lane (Ire), whose wins between them have included the Derby, Irish Derby, King George And Queen Elizabeth Stakes and St. Leger.

Overall, one has to say that Frankel's concentration of top-level triumph is remarkable. For a stallion who has recently recorded his 50th individual Group winner, to have sired as many as 20 Group 1 winners (as he has) shows an abnormal concentration at the elite level of the stakes programme. But that's Frankel: his statistics go way beyond what in the modern world is regarded as an achievement. Historically, it used to be the case that a figure of 10% stakes winners to foals was the benchmark of a very good stallion, but the onset of big books meant that reaching the 10% mark came to be regarded as more or less unattainable. Frankel, though, has reached it comfortably. At the time of writing, and including only horses currently aged two or more, Frankel has sired 777 foals, 548 runners, 361 winners of 896 races, and 83 stakes winners of 154 stakes races, including 57 Group winners of 95 Group races. These statistics produce some stunning percentages: 10.7% stakes winners to foals, 7.3% Group winners to foals, 15.1% stakes winners to runners, 10.4% Group winners to runners. Ultimately, of course, the percentages for these crops will be even higher than this as plenty of the current two-year-olds who will turn out to be stakes performers have not yet run, never mind won at stakes level.

It would be premature to say that Galileo's ultimate total of sires' championships has been reached, or that Frankel's progeny achievements over the next, say, three seasons will outshine what the sons and daughters of Galileo will achieve in the same period. However, we can say that Frankel's annus mirabilis in 2021, following on from the very successful seasons which he had enjoyed in every year from 2016 (when he was represented by his first crop of 2-year-olds) onwards, an heir apparent to Galileo has definitely emerged. The fact that that horse happens to be the one who was himself the best racehorse ever sired by Galileo merely adds a further layer of quality for lovers of top-class thoroughbreds to savour.

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Taking Stock: Galileo, Coolmore, O’Brien and the Derby

By now you've read some of the many excellent remembrances and obituaries of Galileo (Ire), who was euthanized at Coolmore on Saturday at age 23. Any way you look at it, the son of Sadler's Wells was one of the greatest stallions of all time, as were his sire and and grandsire Northern Dancer. This dynastic sequence is now in its fourth generation with Galileo's outstanding son Frankel (GB), who is well on his way to matching the iconic status he achieved on the racetrack as a stallion, and history will note that in the year his sire died, Frankel got his first G1 Epsom Derby winner, Adayar (Ire). Frankel also happens to be responsible for the 2021 G1 Irish Derby winner Hurricane Lane (Ire), but for the scope of this piece, I'm limiting all discussion through the prism of the Epsom Classic to which all Derbys around the world trace. It is the oldest and most hallowed of them all, and Frankel's breakthrough in it seems only right, because Galileo has sired more winners of the race than any other stallion in its 240-year history.

An Epsom Derby winner himself, Galileo entered stud at four in 2002, and his first 3-year-olds raced in 2006. His five Epsom Derby winners through 16 crops of 3-year-olds are New Approach (Ire) (in 2008), Ruler of the World (Ire) (2013), Australia (GB) (2014), Anthony Van Dyck (Ire) (2019), and Serpentine (Ire) (2020).

In addition to Adayar for Frankel this year, New Approach's Masar (Ire) won in 2018, giving the Galileo branch of Sadler's Wells seven winners in the 16 years that Galileo has had foals old enough to contest the Derby.

New Approach is an accomplished sire, but Frankel, already with 17 Group/Grade 1 winners, is an exceptional one, and he's creating some history because it's a long-held view among pedigree historians that exceptional sire sequences last at most three generations before hegemony crumbles.

We're possibly witnessing this phenomenon in real time with the sequence of Northern Dancer/Sadler's Wells/Montjeu (Ire), for example. Like Galileo, Montjeu was a top-class racehorse and a great stallion in his own right, and with four winners of the Epsom Derby, he's tied with several others in second place. Had he not died early at 16, it's possible he'd have had more and been able to compete with Galileo, but to date he hasn't had a sire son like Galileo of the caliber of Frankel, though Camelot (Ire) is good.

Coolmore's Derby Dominance…

Sadler's Wells was raced by Robert Sangster and stood at Coolmore, and as outstanding as he was as a stallion, he didn't get his first Epsom Derby winner until he was 20, and that horse was Galileo. He did get a second winner in High Chaparral (Ire) the next year, but that was it.

Northern Dancer had three: Nijinsky (1970), The Minstrel (1977), and Secreto (1984). All of them were trained at Ballydoyle, the first two by Vincent O'Brien, and Secreto by Vincent's son David O'Brien. Secreto, who raced for Luigi Miglietti, famously upset his father's highly fancied Northern Dancer colt El Gran Senor, flying the Sangster silks, in 1984.

At that time, Coolmore boss John Magnier, whose wife Sue is Vincent O'Brien's daughter, was the junior partner in the Sangster/O'Brien group, but after O'Brien, who trained six Epsom Derby winners, retired from training in 1994, Magnier installed Aidan O'Brien (no relation to Vincent) as trainer at Ballydoyle in 1996. Two years later Galileo was born to the G1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe winner Urban Sea. He was bred on a foal share between David Tsui, who owned and raced Urban Sea, and Magnier's breeding entity Orpendale. The colt initially raced in Sue Magnier's colors and later in partnership with Michael Tabor. Derrick Smith arrived a few years later and together they comprise what we now call the Coolmore racing partners, with John Magnier the senior member.

The arrival of Galileo at the races coincided with the retirement of Montjeu and reignited the Derby fortunes of both Coolmore, where Sadler's Wells was aging, and Ballydoyle, which had gone through a dry spell between the two O'Briens. Montjeu had raced in Tabor's colors and had been trained by John Hammond, but from Galileo onwards, most of the Coolmore partners' big guns have been trained by Aidan O'Brien, including all the top Galileos–and there have been many.

Because of Galileo, Sue Magnier and Michael Tabor have been recognized as the owners with the most number of Epsom Derby winners, with nine–a mind-boggling achievement. Aside from Galileo (2001) and High Chaparral (2002) by Sadler's Wells, their winners (the later ones in partnership with Smith and others) are four by Galileo referenced earlier–Ruler of the World, Australia, Anthony Van Dyck, and Serpentine; two by Montjeu–Pour Moi (2011) and Camelot (2012); and one–Wings of Eagles (Fr) (2017)–by Pour Moi (Ire).

In the broader picture, each Derby winner is a member of the Sadler's Wells sire line, and keep in mind that these nine Epsom Derby wins have come over a period of 21 years, essentially meaning one every other year.

Aidan O'Brien…

Aidan O'Brien is the leading trainer of Epsom Derby winners with eight. He trained all of the above except for Pour Moi, who was trained by Andre Fabre, and he makes no secret of the fact that Galileo is the racehorse and stallion he holds well above any other.

Galileo gave O'Brien his first Derby and has supplied him as a sire with four others, so he knows what he's talking about.

In November of 2018, I made a trip to Ireland to specifically pay homage to Galileo and to speak to O'Brien, who at the time had won the Derby six times. The year before, O'Brien had won a record 28 Group 1 races, many of them with sons or daughters of Galileo, and I needed an explanation from the trainer to digest the sheer volume of gaudy numbers.

The first thing that struck me when I saw Galileo in the flesh was his size. He'd been listed at 16 hands but looked more like the 15.2 of his grandsire, whom he resembled in shape as well, if not as robustly made. But, even as an old man, he had a swagger to him and an intelligent eye that suggested a sound, bomb-proof constitution.

Meanwhile, Aidan O'Brien, who'd been at Ballydoyle for 23 years, still had a youthful appearance to him that belied his own experienced wisdom from learning about and training the great horse and his progeny for almost two decades. He's also unfailingly pleasant and polite and never fails to mention your name frequently in conversation.

When I asked him what is it about the Galileos, he said, “Sid, It's not about the exterior with them. It's not physical. It's a mental trait, Sid.”

And this is what he told me, which I'd published in this space two years ago but will reproduce again as it is poignant in remembering Galileo:

“Galileos are, like, very strange horses, meaning that they try so hard. And always with the Galileos, all you're trying to do is slow them down and relax them. With most other horses, it's the complete opposite. But Galileos, they never remember what happened yesterday. Say they got really tired–and when a horse gets really tired, they feel a bit of pain–some horses get very clever to that and they don't want to go back there anymore. So what happens is that when they start controlling that, you can only train them to a certain level because they won't let you push them any further. But with Galileos, they will give their absolute 150% every day. It's very strange. It's a mental trait, not a physical trait. Of all the horses we've ever trained, we've never seen it in another horse before. It's a gene that will carry on. It's a pure remind of him.”

That “try” that O'Brien described is a rare attribute that needs careful handling and development, something that could go awry without proper recognition and training. A lesser trainer, or one without an understanding of the Galileos, might squander what they see too early and overcook a horse before he's had a chance to show his potential, but O'Brien is meticulously patient in his handling of the Galileos, whom he oversees from as early as the time they are sent to Ballydoyle as yearlings in the autumn to be readied to race at two.

His is the type of symbiotic horsemanship that has brought out the best in the Galileos, and together they've had a mutually beneficial run that has lit up the record books.

O'Brien has won two more Derbys with sons of Galileo since my visit, and I wouldn't be surprised if he attempted to win a Gl Kentucky Derby with a colt from one of the stallion's remaining crops. It's something he mentioned to me, and as one of the architects of Galileo's success, he knows that it's a prize he'd like next to the great horse's name.

And, of course, the trainer will be looking to share a few more Derby wins at Epsom, too, with Galileo.

Sid Fernando is president and CEO of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc., originator of the Werk Nick Rating and eNicks.

The post Taking Stock: Galileo, Coolmore, O’Brien and the Derby appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Breed-Shaping Sire Galileo Dies

Galileo (Ire) (Sadler's Wells-Urban Sea, by Miswaki), the brilliant winner of the Derby, Irish Derby and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth S. and revolutionary 12-time British and Irish champion sire, was euthanized on Saturday at Coolmore Stud at the age of 23 after battling a chronic, non-responsive, debilitating injury to the left fore foot.

Galileo is the sire of 92 worldwide Group 1 winners-more than any other stallion in history and with the latest poignantly coming on Saturday evening courtesy of Bolshoi Ballet (Ire) in the Belmont Derby-and he has arguably had a greater influence on the breed than any sire since his own grandsire Northern Dancer. Galileo has sired 338 stakes winners and 228 group winners, for earnings of over $285-million and counting.

Galileo's flagbearers have included Frankel (GB), who many consider the greatest racehorse of all time; the $10-million globetrotter Highland Reel (Ire); seven-time Group 1 winning-fillies Magical (Ire) and Minding (Ire); and a record five Derby winners, including the successful sire New Approach (Ire).

“It is a very sad day, but we all feel incredibly fortunate to have had Galileo here at Coolmore,” said Coolmore's John Magnier, who co-bred and raced Galileo and stood him at stud. “I would like to thank the dedicated people who looked after him so well all along the way. He was always a very special horse to us and he was the first Derby winner we had in Ballydoyle in the post M V O'Brien era. I would also like to thank Aidan and his team for the brilliant job they did with him. The effect he is having on the breed through his sons and daughters will be a lasting legacy and his phenomenal success really is unprecedented.”

Bred by David Tsui and Coolmore under the Orpendale banner, Galileo entered the world on Mar. 29, 1998 with a heavy burden of expectation on his shoulders, being impeccably bred as he was. By the Irish 2000 Guineas, Eclipse S. and Champion S. victor Sadler's Wells–who had just earned his sixth straight champion sire title in a run that would eventually extend to 13 consecutive and a record 14 overall–Galileo was the third foal out of Urban Sea, who was already famed as a Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe victress but who would go on to outdo herself as a broodmare. John Magnier's wife Susan is known for adorning Coolmore's bluebloods with the most discerning of names, and her choice for the Sadler's Wells/Urban Sea colt indicated the stratospheric hopes that they harbored for him: he was named in honour of the famed Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, whose discoveries revolutionized his field.

Galileo was placed into training with the then 31-year-old Aidan O'Brien during the fledgling trainer's fourth season at Ballydoyle, he having taken over from the legendary Vincent O'Brien in 1996. In an interview with the TDN's Emma Berry earlier this year, O'Brien recalled the aura surrounding Galileo in his early days.

“Unusually with him, before he came to Ballydoyle the world was thought of him and I suppose that was because he is out of an Arc winner and he's by Sadler's Wells,” the trainer said. “Sue named him Galileo very early.”

Galileo's debut was delayed by a cough plaguing the O'Brien yard that season, but he eventually made his keenly anticipated first trip to post at Leopardstown on Oct. 28, 2000 under the ownership of Sue Magnier, going off the even-money favourite under Mick Kinane and obliging with a 14-length victory over heavy ground.

Recalling what set Galileo apart from the many champions he has trained, and what star power he has imparted to his numerous high-class progeny, O'Brien said, “He didn't walk, he prowled. It was a very unusual thing with a horse. Horses usually come up to walk but when he used to walk, he would get down to walk. When you'd ask him to go forward the first thing that would go out and down was his head. Most horses when you ask them to go forward, up goes the head and they walk up, but he used to walk forward and walk out. His walking stride was so long and there was so much power from his front and back.”

Galileo made two starts in the run up to the Derby in the spring of his 3-year-old campaign, starting favourite both times and winning the Listed Ballysax S. over stablemate and eventual G1 St Leger scorer Milan (GB) (Sadler's Wells) and subsequent four-time G1 Irish St Leger victor Vinnie Roe (Ire) (Definite Article {GB}), and the G3 Derrinstown Stud Derby Trial with Michael Tabor joining the ownership line.

The stage was set at Epsom on June 9, 2001 for a showdown with Lord Weinstock's G1 2000 Guineas winner Golan (Ire) (Spectrum {Ire}), and those two were dispatched as 11-4 joint favourites. Poised two lengths off the lead and in the clear in the three path under Mick Kinane with Golan racing on his heels, Galileo loomed ominously rounding Tattenham Corner. Put to a drive by Kinane upon straightening, Galileo inhaled the front-running Mr. Combustible (Ire) and Perfect Sunday in a matter of strides and was never in danger thereafter, drawing clear to win by 3 1/2 lengths eased down as Golan closed in vain to take second. It was a monumental first Derby win for O'Brien, who in the 20 years since has racked up a record eight victories in the blue riband, all of whom descend from Sadler's Wells via Galileo or Montjeu (Ire). It was also an important first for Sadler's Wells, who by that stage had collected 10 champion sire titles and counted four Oaks winners and two 2000 Guineas winners among his honor roll, but who had not yet had a son take the Derby. Sadler's Wells would double up the following season with the O'Brien-trained High Chaparral (Ire).

Galileo was, naturally, made the heavy favourite for the G1 Irish Derby off his scintillating Epsom score. The bay was stationed slightly further back at The Curragh and pinned down on the fence, but that proved to be no problem. Creeping ominously closer to the frontrunners rounding the turn, he split rivals at the top of the straight and hit the front under a mere hand ride from Kinane, sprinting clear with one reminder of the whip and winning again eased down by four lengths.

With superiority among his generation firmly established, Galileo headed to Ascot in late July for the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth S. and a date against elders, chief among them Godolphin's four-time Grade/Group 1-winning 5-year-old Fantastic Light (Rahy). Sitting a similar trip to the Irish Derby, Galileo got first run on Fantastic Light in the lane and, despite his rival soon escaping from a pocket and coming to eyeball him in the final quarter-mile, turned him back to post a two-length victory. The King George proved to be Galileo's highest-rated victory, and placed him among an elite group to have done the Derby double and the King George, the others being Nijinsky, Grundy (GB), The Minstrel, Troy (GB), Shergar (GB) and Generous (Ire).

The stage was set for the continuation of a budding rivalry at Leopardstown in September in the G1 Irish Champion S., and Galileo and Fantastic Light didn't disappoint. This time, Galileo spotted Fantastic Light a length in midpack. He was forced wide by a tiring Give The Slip (GB) turning for home, which may have left him at a disadvantage as Fantastic Light ducked through an opening on the rail, but it is anyone's guess as to what the outcome may have been otherwise, with each horse incredibly game as they battled down the stretch. Fantastic Light held on to his narrow advantage and handed Galileo his first ever defeat.

Though races like the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe or Champion S. would have served as a fine conclusion to Galileo's glittering racing career, connections again advertised their lofty opinion of the colt by taking a highly unconventional route and signing him up for the GI Breeders' Cup Classic at Belmont Park. Galileo proved flat footed after chasing a hot pace on the dirt that day, coming home sixth behind the epic battle of defending winner Tiznow (Cee's Tizzy) and Arc winner Sakhee (Bahri).

“With the benefit of hindsight it was an unrealistic target to ask him to do that after having such a tough season and racing against the older horses, but it was the belief that was in him, the belief that everyone had in him, that we thought it could be possible that it could happen,” O'Brien recalled. “I remember when he came in, he was after trying so hard he was almost crying. He was so genuine.”

An important chapter at Ballydoyle came to a close thereafter, as Galileo retired with six wins from eight starts, earnings of £1,621,110, a Timeform rating of 134 and European champion 3-year-old honours. But for all he accomplished in his own right from the world's most famous yard, what he has given back to it in the ensuing years has been simply transcendent.

By the time Galileo went to stud, Sadler's Wells's champion sire title count had extended to 11, and Urban Sea's half-brother King's Best (Kingmambo) had done his part to boost the pedigree in winning the millennium G1 2000 Guineas. Galileo entered stud at Coolmore in 2002 for 50,000 Irish Pounds, and had dipped to €37,500 by the time his first runners hit racecourses in 2005.

From a first crop of 126 foals, Galileo got off to a solid start in his first season with runners, with 13 winners headed by the listed-winning Innocent Air (Ire) and the stakes-placed Galileo's Star (Ire) and Global Genius (Ire). While his debut season was promising, Galileo's potency was a secret no more by the end of his second, with Nightime (Ire)-now the dam of multiple Group 1 winner Ghaiyyath (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) and Grade I winner Zhukova (Ire) (Fastnet Rock {Aus})-becoming his first Classic winner in the G1 Irish 1000 Guineas, Sixties Icon (GB) his second in the G1 St Leger and Teofilo (Ire) his first 2-year-old champion on the merit of victories in the G1 Dewhurst S. and G1 National S. Teofilo's Jim Bolger-trained stablemate New Approach mirrored that juvenile Group 1 double the following season, just months after Galileo's Soldier Of Fortune (Ire) won the G1 Irish Derby, and New Approach would the following year go on to emulate his sire in the Derby and take the Irish Champion and Champion S. en route to a successful stud career that has included his own Derby winner in Masar (GB). From the same crop as New Approach and likewise trained by Bolger–who continues to be rewarded by a significant early investment in Galileo–Lush Lashes scooped the G1 Coronation S., G1 Yorkshire Oaks and G1 Matron S. in 2008.

By the time New Approach and Lush Lashes were doing their best work, Galileo's fee had been switched to private, having been listed at €150,000 the season prior, which is the way it remained for the rest of his stud career. By the end of 2009, Galileo had sired 63 stakes winners, 12 of those at the highest level. His flagbearer that season was Rip Van Winkle (Ire), who had to settle for second behind Galileo's Guineas, Derby, and Arc-winning half-brother Sea The Stars (Ire) (Cape Cross {Ire}) in the G1 Coral-Eclipse but who went on to win the G1 Sussex S., G1 Queen Elizabeth II S. and the following year's G1 Juddmonte International.

And just when it became apparent that Galileo's progeny could do it all, from champion 2-year-olds to brilliant milers, hard-knocking stayers and everything in between, along came the colt that would outshine them all, and now, in the stud barn, appears poised as his sire's heir apparent.

By the time Frankel (GB) appeared on race day for the first time at Newmarket on Aug. 13, 2010, word was out on Khalid Abdullah's homebred who, like his sire, has been bestowed with the name of a legend in his field, this time the American Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel. Frankel's victory that day over Nathaniel (Ire)-also by Galileo and the subsequent winner of the King George and Eclipse S.-kicked off a procession of 14 wins from 14 starts for trainer Sir Henry Cecil, from seven furlongs to a mile and a quarter and encompassing 10 Group 1s. Frankel's six-length front-running blitz of the 2011 2000 Guineas was one of the most visually astonishing performances in the race's history, while his highest-rated victories came courtesy of his 11- and seven-length scores in the G1 Queen Anne S. and G1 Juddmonte International the following season. Frankel's Timeform rating of 147 is the highest ever assigned to a flat horse, and he has continued to build on a quick start at stud, with shades of his sire in his accomplishment of siring both this year's English and Irish Derby winners.

Though he was doubtless the star turn, Frankel was far from a one-horse show for Galileo at the turn of the decade, other standouts including the Irish Derby, Irish Champion S. and triple American Grade I-winning Cape Blanco (Ire); dual French Classic victress Golden Lilac (Ire); Irish Derby and GI Secretariat S. winner Treasure Beach (GB); Oaks and Irish Oaks winners Was (Ire) and Great Heavens (GB); and Irish Guineas winners Misty For Me (Ire) and Roderic O'Connor (Ire).

In 2013 Galileo provided his second Derby winner when Ruler of the World (Ire) obliged in just his third start for Aidan O'Brien, the day before Intello (Ger) gave their sire another Derby double when taking the G1 Prix du Jockey Club. Australia (GB) made it back-to-back blue ribands for Galileo in 2014, and emulated his sire with the double in the Irish Derby before dropping back in trip to take the Juddmonte International.

Gleneagles (Ire) was the headline act in 2015, doubling up in the 2000 and Irish 2000 Guineas in addition to victory in the G1 St James's Palace S. Found (Ire) became her sire's third winner of the GI Breeders' Cup Turf in 2015 before leading home a trifecta for her sire in the following year's Arc, while Highland Reel became his fourth Breeders' Cup Turf winner the following season in the midst of a career that would see him win seven Group 1s in three countries, becoming Galileo's highest-ever earner. Minding (Ire), likewise, won seven Group 1s across 2015/16, and her full-sister Empress Josephine (Ire) took the latest renewal of the Irish 1000 Guineas in May.

Other standouts in the latter half of the decade included dual Group 1-winning juvenile and dual Guineas winner Churchill (Ire); multiple Group 1-winning stayer Order Of St George (Ire); Arc winner Waldgeist (Ire); four-time Group 1 and Classic winner Winter (Ire); triple Group 1 winner Decorated Knight (GB); multiple Group 1-winning sisters Magical (Ire) and Rhododendron (Ire); Oaks winner Forever Together (Ire) and dual Guineas winner Hermosa (Ire). Anthony Van Dyck (Ire) and Serpentine (Ire) became Galileo's fourth and fifth Derby winners in 2019 and 2020 for O'Brien, and last June Peaceful (Ire) became Galileo's record-breaking 85th Group 1 winner, with the baton passed from Danehill. This year, the standard-bearer is champion 3-year-old filly Love (Ire), who made a belated return worth the wait with a stirring victory in the G1 Prince of Wales's S. last month at Royal Ascot. The aforementioned Empress Josephine is one of two filly Classic winners this year for Galileo, the other being the G1 Prix de Diane scorer Joan Of Arc (Ire).

Galileo has been champion sire in Britain and Ireland all bar one year since 2008 and earned his first champion broodmare sire title in 2020, a category in which he is way out in front currently in 2021.

Aidan O'Brien said on Saturday, “He was an unbelievable horse for everybody involved with him. What he did was exceptional. John [Magnier] did an incredible job managing him and recognised the mares that were going to suit him. He recognised how good he was very young, and he was always so highly thought of before he even came to Ballydoyle. He was our first Derby winner from Ballydoyle, and we were so fortunate to have him. It's an incredible story, and obviously we'll probably never see it ever again. What made him very special was the attitude that he put into his stock. We'd never seen anything like that.

“He looked different as well going through his races–he didn't look like any other Thoroughbred. He had loads of genuine power. His stock had that as well, and the determination to put their heads out the same way he galloped. He'll be sorely missed by us all.”

Sorely missed, indeed, but not soon forgotten, with a legacy sure to shine bright for generations to come through his sons and daughters.

The post Breed-Shaping Sire Galileo Dies appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Mourning a Kind of Immortality

Thanks to advances in obstetrics, our own species is blessed to no longer confront quite so frequently the awful paradox that routinely confronted our ancestors: the death of a mother, as the cost of new life. And, of course, even a Thoroughbred as precious and cherished as Kind (Ire) (Danehill) is ultimately always livestock, prone to the kind of mishaps that tend to school the stockman in understatement whether facing triumph or disaster. But the consolation that we can seek, on their behalf, is the same: legacy.

Undoubtedly there will have been Victorian scientists who owed their own existence to the loss of a mother. But sometimes that cruel trade-off might be redressed by another: having survived, the infant could be raised to contribute to the sum of human knowledge; could even improve our understanding of why these things happen, and how to make them happen less often.

A similar calculation applies to our quest for greatness in Thoroughbreds. We know that these animals are fragile, that their very existence—being predicated on exercise, competition and breeding—will inevitably expose them to a degree of risk. But we also know that we can proceed with a clear conscience, when our management of the breed can yield a champion as glorious as Frankel (GB). So while there will doubtless be grief among those who have tended this venerable mare for many years, they must console themselves that her service to the breed amply redeems the relatively marginal risk it entailed.

That comfort, moreover, will be shared by all those who lavish no less care—in all weathers, 365 days a year—on Thoroughbreds that contribute nothing to the breed, other than a hint as to the kind of breeding formula to avoid in future. Because all these endeavours share the same purpose; and we all need the example of a freak like Frankel to make sense of the collective enterprise.

Many of us will have shared the same immediate reaction, on hearing that Kind had succumbed to complications arising from the delivery of a Kingman (GB) colt last week: how poignant, that one of the pillars of this extraordinary breeding empire should have crumbled so soon after the loss of its founder. And not only how poignant but also, on some inexpressible level, how apt. But you can be sure that Prince Khalid Abdullah himself would be anxious to share the credit, for Kind, with those who had cultivated her family with the same far-sighted principles that characterised his own intervention.

The Prince welcomed his first homebred winner in 1982, a thrill that sustained a period of around 15 years during which—with the particular assistance of James Delahooke—he targeted well-bred, well-shaped females from various sources: at auction, both as yearlings and broodmares; in private deals with other breeders; and absorbing such carefully curated herds as came with Belair Farm and Ferrans Stud.

Then, in 1983, came the mares kept by John Hay 'Jock' Whitney at Mount Coote Stud in Ireland. These famously included Rockfest, the granddam of Kind. But the line had passed relatively briefly through Whitney's hands, Jeremy Tree having bought him Rockfest's dam Rock Garden as a yearling in 1971. (Tree had meanwhile become The Prince's first trainer and was instrumental in securing the Whitney herd.) Kind's family had much deeper roots in the Oxfordshire stud of Lady Wyfold, whose father-in-law had bought a pregnant mare at a dispersal sale in Berkshire, in the last weeks of peace before World War I. The filly she delivered in the spring of 1915 was the first in a chain of half a dozen Sarsden graduates extending to Rock Garden.

These included the 1942 Queen Mary winner Samovar, who incidentally produced two highly accomplished siblings in Zabara (GB) (1000 Guineas) and Rustam (GB), a sharp juvenile who stood at Mount Coote for a while. Samovar is the sixth dam of Kind.

Rock Garden, a Chepstow maiden winner, had delivered Rockfest after Whitney sent her to his homeland for a date with Stage Door Johnny, whose success in the 1968 Belmont S. defused one of the most explosive Triple Crown series in history. That's another story, but I think Stage Door Johnny is close enough in Frankel's pedigree to be credited with some role in the hard-running style we often see in his stock. He's a tremendously wholesome influence, for sure: his sire Prince John was by Princequillo and proved a particularly effective broodmare sire; and his dam was by Ballymoss (GB), that deep well of stamina.

Rock Garden was a fairly mediocre producer, Rockfest proving the most distinguished of her foals as runner-up in the G3 Lingfield Oaks Trial. In turn, Rockfest produced her only really worthwhile dividend as a broodmare in Rainbow Lake (GB). Being by a staying influence as thorough as Rainbow Quest (GB), unsurprisingly Rainbow Lake's keynote performance came with an emphasis on stamina, winning the G3 Lancashire Oaks by seven lengths. That qualified her as hot favourite for the G1 Yorkshire Oaks, but she ran poorly then and in her only subsequent start.

Rainbow Lake, of course, became the dam of Kind—whose own strengths, as a prolific sprinter trained by Tree's Beckhampton successor Roger Charlton—tell us much about the astounding capacities of her sire Danehill.

Frankel famously combines those twin highways to the breed-shaping Northern Dancer, Sadler's Wells and Danzig, through their most important respective sons in Galileo and Danehill. When Rainbow Lake was sent to Sadler's Wells, in 1999, she duly came up with a top-class middle-distance operator in Powerscourt (Ire), whose sustained bid for a glamorous prize over 10 furlongs eventually paid off in the GI Arlington Million but who stayed well enough to have closed to within a length of Vinnie Roe (Ire) (Definite Article {GB}) in the G1 Irish St Leger. For her next cover, Rainbow Lake went to Danehill and came up with this 103-rated, stakes-winning sprinter, Kind.

Sure enough, when Kind was herself sent for consecutive coverings by Sadler's Wells, Galileo and then again Galileo, the idea was that she might come up with the optimal equilibrium between speed and stamina. As aspirations go, pretty hackneyed. The results, as we all know, were not quite so standard.

Yes, the Sadler's Wells earned his place in the Derby by making all the Lingfield Trial: but Bullet Train (GB) bombed out at Epsom, and Sir Henry eventually decided that since all he could do was keep going, he could serve his kid brother as pacemaker. He performed this role dutifully in the last six starts of his career.

Frankel had by then become the closest many of us have seen to the grail, that elusive blend sought by so many breeders who usually end up with slow sprinters or short-winded stayers. I have always said that the way he carried his speed, once he had calmed down, would have made Frankel no less a legend on dirt. It's a shame that circumstances did not permit that experiment—nor indeed much else in the way of adventure, with maybe a crack at the Arc instead—once he had established his dominion on home soil. As a stallion, however, he has been a conduit for the trademark assets of Galileo (let-me-run-through-that-wall) to the extent of winning a Leger.

So it's been fascinating to follow Noble Mission (GB), his brother, both on the track and at stud. He never had Frankel's brilliance, but showed much of his indomitability in winning three Group 1s—notably when bowing out, just like his brother, with a slugfest in the Ascot mire. Sadly, things have not worked out for the Bluegrass farm that tried to live up to his name, even though he produced a Kentucky Derby runner-up at the first attempt. It proved as hopeless a mission as it was a noble one, trying to overcome the local commercial prejudice against turf, and the horse was recently exported to Japan. In their mutual aversion to bloodlines tested on each other's preferred surfaces, American and European breeders are vying with each other in myopia. And in amnesia, too, looking at the game-changing traffic of years past. As it is, the Japanese are picking up the pieces, and will have the last laugh.

Juddmonte did subsequently attempt to repeat the kind of twist that had paid off with Rainbow Lake, giving Kind a couple of home-farm dates with a faster stallion in Oasis Dream (GB). This was around the time Oasis Dream came up with his decoy Midday (GB), however, so possibly that was a fairly equivocal gamble. Anyhow the results were a decent handicapper at a mile and, a priceless bequest to the broodmare band, a dual stakes-winning sprinter in Joyeuse (GB).

In fairness, it's not as though Danehill was simply a conduit of Danzig speed. Certainly his versatility looks commercially vital to Frankel, given all those stamina influences loaded elsewhere: Galileo, Rainbow Quest, Stage Door Johnny. Actually it may be that Frankel tempered these with some of the dash concentrated in all those Sarsden House mares, who were by largely forgotten English stallions. Rock Garden, for instance, was by the miler Roan Rocket (GB); while her granddam was by a July Cup winner (and, as already noted, out of a Queen Mary winner).

A long game, this, after all. Genetic legacy is about accretion; about noticing the pale glimmers rising and fading somewhere within the dark tangle, and patiently working those strands closer to the surface. Some people have talked of Kind as though she were some kind of token in the nicking manual (“insert Danehill mare here”). That view is too fatuous to dignify with attention on the day when we mourn her passage from flesh and blood to a vicarious afterlife, through Frankel, Joyeuse and others, within the binding of the Stud Book.

It does sound as though age had, in recent years, increasingly recalled Kind to her mortal limitations. But who knows? Perhaps her orphaned colt will thrive for a foster mare, and someday extend the legacy anew. Regardless, the same, natural processes of maternity that have now taken her away have long since guaranteed her immortality.

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