Oaks Winner Talent Foals Too Darn Hot Colt

The stakes-producing Talent (GB) (New Approach {Ire}), winner of the 2013 G1 Investec Oaks, foaled a colt foal by Too Darn Hot (GB) at 5 a.m. on Saturday morning at Luke Lillingston's Mount Coote Stud in Co. Limerick, Ireland. Bred by Ashbrittle Stud and Mark Dixon, he is the first foal of the season at Mount Coote.

“He is very nice,” Lillingston told the TDN. “He looks like a strong foal. He was only born at 5 a.m. this morning but he's good-looking and strong, and I can say both of those things with a degree of confidence.”

Talent, who was also runner-up in the G1 St Leger and third in the G1 British Champions Fillies & Mares S. during her Classic campaign, has got off to a strong start as a broodmare, her first foal being Ambition (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}), who won at pattern level each of the past three seasons. Ambition beat the future Group 1 winner Grand Glory (GB) (Olympic Glory {Ire}) when she won the G2 Prix Corrida in 2020 for trainer Xavier Thomas-Demeaulte, after which she was second in the G1 Prix Jean Romanet. Ambition won the G3 Prix Fille de l'Air on Nov. 11 in her final start, and she will be covered by Frankel (GB) this year.

Talent's newly turned 4-year-old Pretty Fair (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) won at second asking last year for Simon and Ed Crisford, while her 3-year-old colt Aerospace (Ire) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) is in training with John and Thady Gosden for Godolphin. Talent produced a Lope De Vega (Ire) colt last year and will visit that Ballylinch sire again in 2022.

European champion 2- and 3-year-old Too Darn Hot's first crop are yearlings this year.

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Dubawi At Twenty

Strip away the brass name plates, parade the Darley stallions in front of seasoned horsemen and ask them to pick the horse who last year sired three Breeders' Cup victors among 38 stakes winners and was the broodmare sire of the Derby winner. Of those who haven't seen him before, it is unlikely that many would choose Dubawi (Ire).

Unlike his sire, the brilliant but ill-fated Dubai Millennium (GB), he is not a horse who 'fills the eye' with those long classic lines and fluent stride. On the short side and fairly close-coupled, with a habit of growing a coat as thick as a native pony in midwinter, Dubawi is not your archetypal elegant Thoroughbred. But those same seasoned horsemen will doubtless have seen enough in their time to know that when it comes to racing and breeding, handsome is as handsome does. And Dubawi does it all.

That started on the racecourse. An unbeaten juvenile who became his sire's first stakes winner in the G3 Superlative S. and went on to land the G1 National S., Dubawi then graduated to his Classic season with a warm-up fifth in the 2000 Guineas before winning the Irish equivalent. The Derby distance proved too much for him, but he was not disgraced when third to Motivator (GB) and Walk In The Park (Ire). Dubawi then emulated his sire by winning the G1 Prix Jacques le Marois, and signed off by finishing second to Starcraft (NZ) in the G1 Queen Elizabeth II S.

Since then, he has spent all bar one of the Northern Hemisphere seasons at Dalham Hall Stud in Newmarket, while he also made three visits to Darley Australia in the early years of his second career. As his 20th birthday approaches on Feb. 7, Dubawi is rightly revered as an outstanding stallion, a burgeoning sire of sires and broodmare sire, and the main conduit of the Mr Prospector line in Europe, making him a more-than-useful mate for mares from the dominant Northern Dancer lines. For four years, he was accompanied on the Darley roster by another son of Dubai Millennium, the €1.2 million yearling purchase Echo Of Light (GB), who died in 2012.

“With one of his two stallion sons, the great Dubai Millennium has delivered for us, and that means everything,” says Sam Bullard, Darley's director of stallions.

“Now we want sons of Dubawi to be successful. Night of Thunder has got off to such an incredible start, and Time Test, Zarak and others doing so well is testimony to the horse. We are very fortunate that we've got horses like Ghaiyyath, Space Blues and Too Darn Hot all coming through on the roster.”

The first foal of his dam, the Italian Oaks winner Zomaradah (GB) (Deploy {GB}), Dubawi was born at Kildangan Stud, where he later stood one season, and he hails from the same family as a sire who was already ensconced in the Kildangan stallion unit at that time, the Breeders' Cup Turf and Coronation Cup winner In The Wings (GB). More pertinently, though, he was also one of a small number of foals expected that year by Dubai Millennium.

Sheikh Mohammed's pride in his homebred so prophetically named to win the Dubai World Cup of 2000 was renowned. Dubai Millennium's racing record was hugely impressive. He was beaten only once in ten starts when finishing ninth behind Oath in the Derby, and on what would transpire to be his final performance in the G1 Prince of Wales's S. at Royal Ascot, the applause started ringing out when he was only halfway up the straight, so emphatic was the manner of his victory. But a little over six weeks later his racing career was over when he suffered a hind-leg fracture on the gallops. Brutally, Dubai Millennium's stud career was even more brief when, during his first covering season, he was struck down with grass sickness and died on Apr. 29, 2001.

“The whole stallion operation at Darley was set up on the back of Dubai Millennium really,” recalls Bullard. “We had this wonderful racehorse, the greatest horse that Godolphin had ever had, and when he retired to stud that was the catalyst really for the stallion operation that is here now, and always the number one goal was to get the top stallions of tomorrow.”

Clearly, those mares to have visited Dubai Millennium before his untimely death were of a decent calibre, but the odds were stacked against him making a meaningful impression on the breed when the foaling season of 2002 was complete and his sole crop numbered just 56. Sheikh Mohammed set about buying up a number outside those bred by his operation, but ultimately it was a homebred who would become not only Dubai Millennium's best son, but one of the best stallions in the world.

Most importantly, Dubawi's influence is now growing through his sons. He stands alongside five of them on the Darley roster: Ghaiyyath (Ire), Too Darn Hot (GB), Night Of Thunder (Ire), Postponed (Ire) and the recently retired Space Blues (Ire). And up to 20 sons of Dubawi are at stud around the world, including in America, Japan and India. 

Night Of Thunder, his second 2000 Guineas winner, was the champion first-season sire in Europe in 2019, while the Aga Khan Studs' Zarak (Fr) led the French freshmen last year, and the National Stud's Time Test (GB) was another young son to make a favourable impression with his first runners in 2021.

A top-five finisher in the stallion table in each of the last nine years, and on four occasions runner-up to Galileo (Ire), Dubawi had to settle for third in 2021 when Frankel (GB) nudged his own sire down a slot to second. But Dubawi's 54% winners-to-runners strike-rate was higher than both Frankel and Galileo, and was a figure that only his son New Bay (GB) could match in the top 50 stallions in Britain and Ireland. On worldwide earnings for last year he was at the top of the table, those lucrative Breeders' Cup victories no doubt helping in this regard.

In his 39 years with Darley, head stallion man Ken Crozier has worked with both Dubai Millennium and Dubawi and describes the horse now regarded as the king of the stallion yard as “straightforward, uncomplicated, a hard, gutsy horse”.

He continues, “When Dubawi first arrived here, he's obviously physically a very different animal to his father, but he was coming in as a Classic winner with a high profile and I guess we had high expectations given that, sadly, Sheikh Mohammed and Darley had lost Dubai Millennium so young.”

While Dubai Millennium's short stud career was beset with illness from an early stage, the only concerns Dubawi ever gives those looking after him is how to keep him trim. 

Crozier adds, “We have him on shavings. He would eat everything in sight. He gets fed a little and often. He will get fed hay three times a day because he would eat a bale of hay in a half an hour. So that's the only problem we have with Dubawi, keeping the weight off him.”

Even within the sons of Dubawi just on the Darley roster, it is easy to see that he is not a horse who stamps his stock in the manner of his old friend and rival Shamardal.

“They come in all shapes and sizes,” agrees Bullard. “You can't look at them and say, 'I can see Dubawi in that'. But what you can't see is what's between their ears, and that is consistent with all of them. They just have these extraordinary temperaments, he really does pass that on.”

Darley's head of nominations Dawn Laidlaw has, like Crozier and Bullard, worked with Dubawi throughout his stallion career and has witnessed the change in attitude towards him. 

“I think every breeder, agent and ourselves would be honest enough to say that we probably didn't see the success of Dubawi coming in those early days,” she says. “Obviously he was a great racehorse by a fantastic stallion, so he had a special place in our hearts from the beginning. But I think it would be fair to say that people didn't necessarily take to his early progeny. I mean, everybody's seen him and he's a little bit on the short side, a little bit dumpy, not the greatest walker. I think initially that's what people thought about his yearlings. I think right until they started running, and it was when they started winning that people very quickly realised he was a special stallion.”

Dubawi's first crop included the 2000 Guineas winner Makfi (GB), who, in an example of the blossoming of the line, sired the G1 Poule d'Essai des Poulains winner Make Believe (GB) in his first crop, who in turn is the sire of G1 Prix du Jockey Club winner Mishriff (Ire) from his first crop. Along with Makfi in the class of 2007 were the Group 1 winners Lucky Nine (GB), Poet's Voice (GB), Dubawi Heights (GB), Monterosso (GB) and Prince Bishop (GB), as well as the Group 3 winner and Irish 1000 Guineas runner-up Anna Salai (GB), who would later become the dam of Adayar (Ire) (Frankel {GB}).

Among his 142 Group winners, Dubawi is now the sire of 48 Group/Grade 1 winners–six of those having come from his three stints down under–with the group including the 2020 Horse of the Year Ghaiyyath. From an opening fee of £25,000, he stood his fourth season at £15,000 before gradually climbing to his fee of £250,000 for the last six years, making him the most expensive stallion in Europe.

“It's very typical in a stallion, and his third and fourth years were a little bit more difficult to sell,” recalls Laidlaw. “Even the best of stallions usually go through that dip. Then as soon as he had his winners, he just absolutely took off. One of the most difficult things since then has been selecting the mares. There's always an upper limit on the numbers he'll cover, so unfortunately every year there have been mares that we would have loved to have that haven't always been able to come to him. The quality of mare that comes to him every year is fantastic. It's like a who's who of the broodmare band in Europe and beyond. We're lucky to have him and I say that every day.”

The sense of pride in their star stallion is quite clear at Dalham Hall Stud, where they have now had many years to bask in the reflected glory of Dubawi. Now entering his third decade and about to embark on his 17th stud season, he fortunately shows no waning in enthusiasm for his main task.

“When covering season comes, he will go down to that barn roaring and shouting, whether it's at the 8am covering session or the fourth session at midnight,” says Crozier. “You'll hear him coming. You know, if he was a human, he would have his neighbours round knocking on his door.”

With a reputation so hard earned, Dubawi has every right to shout about it.

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Value Sires Part III: First Yearlings

In the latest edition of our Value Sires Series, we arrive at stallions with their first yearlings in 2022. The Darley duo of Too Darn Hot (GB) and Blue Point (Ire) retired as the two breakout horses of this group on fees, and that is how they wound up their first sales season. Too Darn Hot, the beautifully bred son of Dubawi who was a champion at two and three, retired at £50,000 at Dalham Hall Stud, and his 11 foals sold last year averaged €131,148/£111,964-the best foal sale average achieved by a first-season sire since 2017. Blue Point-the triple Royal Ascot Group 1-winning sprinter-meanwhile, got going at Kildangan Stud for €45,000, and his 18 foals sold came in at an average of €98,366/£83,980.

Both of these sires are incredibly deserving of the top of the table. By sire of sires Dubawi and out of the triple Group 1-winning mare Dar Re Mi (GB) (Singspiel {Ire}) from the incredibly deep family of the influential sire Darshaan (GB), Too Darn Hot always had high hopes riding on his shoulders and he delivered from the outset. A 'TDN Rising Star' when winning by seven lengths on debut, Too Darn Hot went on to sweep the G3 Solario S., G2 Champagne S. and G1 Dewhurst S. on his way to champion 2-year-old honours. Too Darn Hot endured a rather not straightforward beginning to his 3-year-old campaign; after a setback caused him to miss the G1 2000 Guineas he was briefly set on the Derby trail, but then re-routed again after he was eclipsed in the G2 Dante S. After placed efforts in the

G1 Irish 2000 Guineas and G1 St James's Palace S., Too Darn Hot put it all back together again for wins in the G1 Prix Jean Prat and G1 Sussex S., which earned him divisional honours once again. Too Darn Hot's first crop contains 124 foals and 163 mares returned last year when his fee dipped to £45,000. That is where it stays this year.

Blue Point carries the hopes of Team Kildangan that he will be his sire, Shamardal's, heir apparent at the stallion yard Shamardal called home for 14 years. Shamardal's fastest son, Blue Point was a good 2-year-old, winning the G2 Gimcrack S. and placing in the G1 Middle Park S. and the Dewhurst. He was good, too, at three, winning a pair of Group 3s and finishing third in the G1 Commonwealth Cup. He got quite good at four, winning the G1 King's Stand S. over Battaash. But at five he was exceptional, winning all five starts including the G1 Al Quoz Sprint and the G1 King's Stand-once again beating Battaash-and the G1 Diamond Jubilee S. four days apart. Blue Point's first season resulted in 154 foals, and 183 mares returned last year, giving him the biggest book of any second-season sire. Blue Point stays at €40,000 for the second straight year.

Blue Point is not alone as a top-class sprinter in this sire crop: Advertise (GB) (Showcasing {GB}) won the G2 July S. and G1 Phoenix S. at two before adding the G1 Commonwealth Cup and G1 Prix Maurice de Gheest at three, and he has held his £25,000 fee through his first three seasons at the National Stud. Coolmore's Ten Sovereigns (Ire) (No Nay Never) won the G1 Middle Park S. at two and was fourth behind Advertise in the Commonwealth Cup before running a career-best race to beat that rival in the G1 July Cup. Ten Sovereigns started at €25,000 but is this year down to €17,500. He was third on first-crop sire averages at the foal sales, his 30 sold averaging €59,137/£50,422.

Coolmore also has Calyx (GB), the first son of Kingman (GB) to retire to stud, in this cohort. The Juddmonte homebred won on debut to earn 'TDN Rising Star' status 10 days before beating Advertise in the G2 Coventry S. at Royal Ascot. After missing the remainder of the season, Calyx roared back with a four-length win in the G3 Pavilion S. at three but retired after being upset by the future dual Group 1 winner Hello Youmzain (Fr) (Kodiac {GB}) in the G2 Sandy Lane S. Calyx started at €22,500 and drops to €12,500 this year.

There is quality speed available, too, in the four-figure price range in this sire crop, like Yeomanstown Stud's four-time six-furlong Group 3 winner and Group 1-placed Invincible Army (Ire) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}) (€7,500); Tally-Ho Stud's Inns Of Court (Ire) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}) (€5,000), also a four-time group winner and Group 1-placed; Highclere Stud's G2 Richmond S. winner Land Force (Ire) (No Nay Never) (£5,000); Shadwell's G1 Commonwealth Cup winner Eqtidaar (Ire) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}) (£5,000); and Haras d'Etreham's Group 3-winning, G1 Diamond Jubilee-placed City Light (Fr) (Siyouni {Fr}) (€7,000).

The highest-rated member of this sire crop stands at Ballylinch Stud for €15,000 (down from an initial €17,500), and that is the four-time Group 1 winner and Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe scorer Waldgeist (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}). A Group 1 winner at two who was at his best at five, Waldgeist is by the sire of sires Galileo and from an incredibly stout German family. He kicked off his final campaign in 2019 with a defeat of Study Of Man (Ire) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) in the G1 Prix Ganay, and that rival is also in with a great chance at stud. Study Of Man won the G1 Prix du Jockey Club in 2018 and is a grandson of Miesque, and is therefore from the immediate family of sires Kingmambo and Karakontie (Jpn) as well as many, many other Group 1 winners. Being by the great Deep Impact out of a Storm Cat mare, Study Of Man will be easy to mate with much of the European broodmare population. He is down to €12,500 from €15,000.

The Irish National Stud stands the Group 3-winning 2-year-old and G1 Irish 2000 Guineas winner Phoenix Of Spain (Ire) for €12,000, down from an initial €15,000. Phoenix Of Spain was the most represented of this group at the foal sales, with 45 going through the ring. Thirty-six sold for an average of €30,713/£26,177.

VALUE PODIUM

Bronze: Soldier's Call (Ire) (Showcasing {GB}) (Ballyhane Stud, €7,500) – Soldier's Call was a top-class, Royal Ascot-winning

2-year-old who trained on at three to mix it with the best older sprinters. He ran eight times at two, with wins in the Listed Windsor Castle S., G3 Prix d'Arenberg and G2 Flying Childers S. the highlights before he ran third, beaten a neck, in the G1 Prix de l'Abbaye against older horses. In his second start at three, Soldier's Call found only the excellent older sprinters Blue Point and Battaash too tough in the G1 King's Stand S., with his Abbaye conqueror Mabs Cross (Ire) (Dutch Art {GB}) among those in arrears.

Though Soldier's Call didn't win at three, he put up another excellent performance against elders when second to Battaash in the G1 Nunthorpe S. Out of the listed-winning and Group 3-placed Dijarvo (GB) (Iceman {GB}), Soldier's Call has been popular at Ballyhane Stud; he covered 159 mares in his first season and one more than that last year. He debuted for €10,000 and after standing for €7,500 last year, remains at that fee in 2022.

Silver: Masar (GB) (New Approach {Ire}) (Darley Dalham Hall, £14,000) – A Group 3 winner at two who trained on to win the Derby and from the family of Galileo (Ire) and Sea The Stars (Ire), Masar packs a lot of value into a €14,000 package. Precocious enough to beat Invincible Army to win on debut in May of his 2-year-old season, Masar was third in Royal Ascot's Listed Chesham S. before beating future Classic winner Romanised in the G3 Solario S. and was third in the G1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere. The runaway nine-length winner of the G3 Craven S. at three, Masar finished third in the G1 2000 Guineas before stepping up in trip to win the Derby. Masar, by Galileo's high-class son New Approach, is inbred 3×4 to Galileo's blue hen dam Urban Sea, and is therefore from the female family of Galileo himself as well as Sea The Stars and many other Group 1 winners. Masar is the second foal out of Godolphin's dual UAE Classic winner Khawlah (Ire) (Cape Cross {Ire}), who was also third in the G3 Oh So Sharp S. at two. Khawlah has since produced the Group 3-placed Sayyida (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}), and she is herself a granddaughter of Galileo and Sea The Stars's listed-winning and dual Oaks-placed half-sister Melikah (Ire) (Lammtarra). Masar covered 138 mares in his debut book at £15,000 and 98 last year at £14,000, the fee at which he remains this year.

Gold: Magna Grecia (Ire) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}) (Coolmore Stud, €17,500) – Down to €17,500, St Mark's Basilica's Classic-winning brother, Magna Grecia–who was also a Group 1-winning 2-year-old–looks excellent value. While St Mark's Basilica fills the spotlight on a debut fee of €65,000, it is worth remembering that not only does Magna Grecia bring sparkling racecourse credentials, but is by proven sire of sires Invincible Spirit. Raced by the Coolmore partners in partnership with the Niarchos Family's Flaxman Holdings, Magna Grecia won at first asking at two and finished second to Persian King (Ire) (Kingman {GB})-beating his stablemate and fellow Value Sire Circus Maximus-in the G3 Autumn S. before beating Phoenix Of Spain in the G1 Vertem Futurity Trophy. Magna Grecia was a decisive first-up winner of the 2000 Guineas at three, and retired after running twice more with a rating of 120. Magna Grecia and St Mark's Basilica are out of the precocious G3 Silver Flash S. winner Cabaret (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), who is herself a sister to black-type 2-year-olds Ho Choi (GB) (Pivotal {GB}) and Drumfire (Ire) (Danehill Dancer {Ire}). After covering 159 mares in year one at a fee of €22,500, Magna Grecia covered 127 last year at €18,000 and is available for €17,500 this year.

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The Next Generation Of Darley Sires

For any breeder of Thoroughbreds, the opportunity to watch one's carefully cultivated lines thrive across generations must be one of the greatest rewards that can be derived. The team at Darley can take pride, then, in fact that it has three Group 1-winning stallions by its own sires with their first crops to sell at the upcoming foals sales.

Masar (Ire) will be remembered as a true game-changer for Godolphin on the racecourse. By emulating his sire New Approach (Ire) in winning the G1 Derby, Masar became the first blue riband winner to wear the Godolphin silks. Sheikh Mohammed purchased New Approach from Jim Bolger after he had won the G1 National S. and G1 Dewhurst S., and New Approach raced in the colours of Princess Haya. Bred by Godolphin, Masar is from New Approach's seventh crop, and he is out of the dual UAE Classic winner Khawlah (Ire), who is out of Villarrica (Selkirk), a granddaughter of Urban Sea purchased by Sheikh Maktoum from the Tsui family. Khawlah is a daughter of Sheikh Mohammed's homebred stallion Cape Cross (Ire), who stood at Kildangan Stud his entire career.

Godolphin purchased Blue Point (Ire) for 200,000gns at Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale in 2015. The three-time Royal Ascot Group 1-winning sprinter is by Shamardal, the breed-shaping sire that Sheikh Maktoum purchased from Tattersalls as a yearling for 50,000gns in 2003. With the exception of one season at Dalham Hall, Shamardal likewise stood his entire career at Kildangan until his death last year.

Too Darn Hot (GB) is a champion 2- and 3-year-old bred by the Lloyd-Webbers' Watership Down Stud. He is by Sheikh Mohammed's second-generation stallion Dubawi (Ire) who, bar one season, has stood his entire stud career at Dalham Hall Stud. Dubawi will stand for the sixth consecutive year at £250,000 in 2022, and will be the most expensive sire in the world. Too Darn Hot is out of the three-time Group 1-winning Dar Re Mi (GB), who is by Singspiel, another of Sheikh Mohammed's influential homebred sires who stood at Dalham Hall until his death in 2010.

Masar and Too Darn Hot are preparing to stand their third seasons at Dalham Hall Stud in Newmarket, while Blue Point holds court at Kildangan Stud in Kildare.

Masar is about as blueblooded as they come, being inbred 3×4 to Urban Sea, and he offers breeders a highly progressive profile, being an early, Group 3-winning 2-year-old who trained to win the Derby and finish third in the G1 2000 Guineas. He was full in year one with 146 mares bred at a fee of £15,000, and covered 99 this year for £14,000.

“I think we pitched him at a good fee; he [has been] competitively priced,” said Dalham Hall nominations team member David Appleton. “We've been really happy with Masar's foals. There are some that look precocious and early and others that will need a bit of time and will be yearling prospects. They're generally nice horses with enough bone, a bit of quality about them, much like him. He tends to stamp them in terms of his colour and his make and shape, so it's exciting.”

Liam O'Rourke, Darley's director of studs, stallions and breeding based in the UK, was particularly enthusiastic about a handful of Godolphin's homebred Masars at Dalham Hall.

“We have a very nice filly out of a mare called Golden Globe,” he said. “She has a lot of quality. She's maybe not quite as big as the others but she has loads of size nonetheless, and presence. She's a very correct walker and looks like she's going to be a really nice yearling.”

Golden Globe (Jpn) is by Shamardal, as is Kazziana (GB), the dam of another standout Masar filly.

“We have another excellent filly out of Kazziana,” O'Rourke said. “She's an exceptionally good-looking foal. She's very strong and the point I'd make about her is that she exemplifies what Masar seems to be doing with his foals, which is putting a lot more substance into them than we may have expected. She has very good bone on her.”

“We have a colt out of Lady Marian (Ger) who is very well related,” O'Rourke added. “Her best foal is Loxley, who is by New Approach, and she is a Nayef mare. He is a really high-quality foal, very correct and very refined with tons of quality. He's been really nice from the time he was born and has developed through those summer stages into a lovely weanling at present. I think he'll be a really lovely yearling too.

“Beneath that we have some others that are improving all the time, and they'll probably be better yearlings than they are foals, which is an exciting thing to be able to say because often times if a foal is really nice initially it can often be plain as a yearling. Masar was a slow burner himself and I think he'll imprint that on his foals; they'll become really good-looking yearlings. The signs are very good.”

Appleton said Masar has myriad qualities that should stand his foals in good stead.

“Masar had speed, which every good horse needs,” he noted. “You speak to the likes of John Gosden and he'll tell you even horses that stay a trip have to have speed. He had that in abundance. He also has an incredible temperament. He's a very nice horse to be around. He's a very relaxed horse and that comes through the pedigree. He's by New Approach out of a Cape Cross mare. The temperament, the precocity and speed–he has everything you'd want.”

Masar will once again stand for £14,000 in 2022. His Dalham Hall studmate Too Darn Hot likewise remains unchanged at £45,000, down slightly from the £50,000 he commanded in his debut season. The champion 2- and 3-year-old of his generation thanks to victories in the G1 Dewhurst S., G1 Prix Jean Prat and G1 Sussex S., Too Darn Hot covered 172 mares in his debut season, and this year covered the best book of mares ever served by a European sire in his second season at stud bar Frankel (GB).

“Too Darn Hot has been incredibly well received for the two seasons we've had him,” said Dawn Laidlaw, Darley's head of nominations in the UK. “I could run through a list of the who's who of European breeders that have all used him, as well as our partners Watership Down and our own mares. He has covered mares from all the top breeders in Europe.”

“Right from the get-go with the first foals, the reports were really positive,” Laidlaw added. “We've been out looking at them and I can honestly say I've consistently seen some of the nicest foals by any of our stallions ever. They have a lot of Dubawi about them in the fact that they can be quite compact, but they probably have a bit more of that Singspiel quality and a bit of Too Darn Hot's own quality. When you have all the top breeders telling you they have nice foals at home, it's really positive and that certainly helped him with his second book. A lot of the breeders came back and will also be using him again next year.”

Too Darn Hot's momentum will also be aided by Dubawi's continued ascent as a sire of sires, with Time Test (GB) and Zarak (Fr) getting off to strong starts this season to join the likes of Night Of Thunder and New Bay as exciting young sons of Dubawi to watch.

Of Too Darn Hot, Laidlaw added, “he has a lot of quality, and he's the most athletic horse. He's a great walker and very agile. He probably has more quality than some of Dubawi's other sons, but Dubawi's sons are now doing exceptionally well-you have the likes of Night Of Thunder, and Time Test has made a great start this year with his first runners. Hopefully Too Darn Hot will follow in their footsteps. He has great potential.”

Darley Ireland Nominations Manager Eamon Moloney said star sprinter Blue Point was “heavily oversubscribed” in his first season, covering 180 mares.

“He has a huge level of fertility and covered some very nice mares,” he said. “I suppose the standout mare that comes to mind is the dam of Palace Pier, who has a fantastic-looking colt on the ground. There are 17 Blue Points coming to [Tattersalls December] and the pedigrees are strong. People stepped up and sent him a really nice, high-quality mare.”

Moloney said Blue Point was equally popular with breeders in year two, when he covered a similar number at €40,000, down from €45,000 in 2020. He remains at €40,000 for 2022.

“He's in a very healthy position, so it's all about the foals now,” Moloney said. “We've seen foals that have the kind of Shamardal qualities that we're used to seeing at Kildangan; people will describe a Shamardal head and they do have a bit of that. But what they have is the great shoulder and hip that Shamardal had, and a great movement.”

Moloney admitted to a bit of friendly competition between Teams Kildangan and Dalham.

“In the early part of February and March we were looking at the Too Darn Hots and were kind of looking on a bit jealous,” Moloney said. “These Too Darn Hots were amazing-looking, but the Blue Point foals have started to catch up. They're on a constant improve. We always think our Shamardals constantly improve throughout their foal and yearling year and we're finding that with Blue Point as well. So it's nice to see those similarities coming through.”

After Blue Point beat Battaash (Ire) (Dark Angel {Ire}) to win the G1 King's Stand S. at four, the Darley team resisted the temptation to ship him off to stud and, on the recommendation of Charlie Appleby, kept him in training at five. That paid dividends, with Blue Point winning all five starts that season including a repeat in the King's Stand before adding the G1 Diamond Jubilee S. four days later to become the only horse to win three Group 1 sprints at the Royal meeting. That achievement, combined with the fact that he won the G2 Gimcrack S. at two, is a reflection on his toughness and constitution.

Blue Point stands alongside another young Group 1-winning son of Shamardal, Earthlight (Ire), at Kildangan, and another, Pinatubo (Ire), was foaled at Kildangan before going on to be champion 2-year-old and entering stud at Dalham Hall. The pride in Moloney's voice when topic of Shamardal and his sons is broached is palpable.

“It's fantastic to have a son of Shamardal in Kildangan,” he said. “It's building a legacy, and that's what it's about. Shamardal was so good for Kildangan for so many years, and when Blue Point came along it was just the satisfaction of so much hard work that had gone into developing the lines and breeding horses like that. Blue Point was bought, but he was very well bought and he was bred by a very good Irish farm [Oak Lodge Stud] and it was a fantastic effort by them. For us, having Shamardals, that's what we want. We want to bring the lines through. For Pinatubo and Earthlight to follow so quickly behind [Blue Point] is just fantastic as well.”

Masar, Too Darn Hot and Blue Point all have first-crop foals on offer at the upcoming Goffs November and Tattersalls December foal sales.

The post The Next Generation Of Darley Sires appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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