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Good to see a degree of realism and balanced appraisal appearing on this thread now.
Notwithstanding the stats, this year, I think, has been a major disappointment. Yes, there have been the plus points – notably Royal Ascot and Cracksman’s second Champion. But, there have been a lot of disappointments too. The chief one for me is the ‘progression’ of Crop 1 from 3 to 4. Much was made early on of the Frankel’s needing time, and of them making up into much better 4yos than 3yos. Cracksman and Eminent were the two flag bearers here, but there were others (e.g. Monarch’s Glen, Mirage Dancer, and lesser lights like Atty Persse). In all honesty, none of them has gone on as many might have hoped, and temperament seems to have been a big issue with at least the first two, and – I think – Monarch’s Glen as well (even though he was gelded!). The lack of European classic winners after two crops is another major issue. As is the small number even running in classics this year (Elarqam & Rostropovich were both placed but Zabriskie and Ejtyah hardly did much to advertise their sire). Personally, I don’t buy the ‘early days’ argument here. Two classic crops is c. 220 foals (about half of the entirety that a great sire like Mill Reef sired in a life time, and he had two classic winners from his second crop of about 40 foals). Then there is the current 2yo issue. My own view on the relative lack of 2yo runners is that trainers have worked out not to push Frankel’s progeny too hard too soon. The evidence of what happens when you do that is there with the first crop – none of the 2yos that were exciting folk and winning group races as 2yos went on. Much more likely, imv, is that the best ones from Crop 3 will appear as per Without Parole – on the A/W sometime in the winter. My final concern from this season on the track is what has gone on with Nelson, who has been used as the chief pacemaker for Kew Gardens. In other words, the capacity of many of Frankel’s stock to gallop, and keep on galloping, but without a turn of foot, has not gone unnoticed. This is the horse that ran Roaring Lion so close in the Royal Lodge, but the difference in their 3yo careers is striking. I see Nelson is entered in the Tatts HiT Sales. I just hope someone buys him who will race him on merit, so that we can see what level of horse he really is.
Joni mentions the yearling sales. I thought this year was decidedly ‘mixed’. Yes the average is still OK – albeit a long way ‘south’ of Dubawi and Galileo. But, it is the lowest average yet achieved and there were distinct signs at Tatts Book I of a cooling market (not only in relation to the Big Two but also Kingman). Nothing sold (i.e. excluding vendor buy-backs) made over a million, but there were several that were really struggling to attract bids. With one the auctioneer was pretty much despairing – ‘a Frankel, but sell him I do, sold at 85 …’ . I found it highly instructive that MJR went home with 3 from Book 1, none of them costing over 200k. A fee of 175k looks inflated to me currently, both in terms of track performance and sales results.
Superb horse, and a great jumper of a fence. Of course there was that epic QMCC with Direct Route and Deep Sensation, but a close second for me was his KG, at the age of 12, and the sight of HK cheering him on from the rails. That was certainly one of those ‘yelling to wake the neighbours’ moments! Good to see he had a proper retirement, and longer than the years he graced the track.
I agree Tonge. I saw the same report and thought the same as you. I am minded of the British Athletics Champs this w/e past in Birmingham, where the water tables were out for all the longer distance races (3k and over), and which were being used by most athletes in the fields after only a couple of laps. No surprises there for anyone who has tried running more than a short sprint in such temperatures (let alone jumping as well).
I have never been a fan of summer jumping and don’t watch it or engage with it (ground reasons). But excessive heat brings a totally different dimension to it. It is one thing asking a flat horse to run a 5-6f sprint in these temperatures. It is totally another to ask a (usually much heavier) jumps horse to lump a much bigger weight at a gallop for 3 miles and to jump 18-20 substantial fences in 25 degrees plus. The evening fixtures are less of an issue – at least for races after 7-8pm. But what I would like to see is a maximum temperature threshold for staying chases, above which the races are abandoned on welfare grounds.
Interesting views on a horse who is now definitely in the ‘interesting’, as opposed to hyped, category. For me, JG is always worth listening to and – in retrospect – the comment that if neither Calyx nor Without Parole had gone in then it was going to be a long week says it all about the doubts in his head over Cracksman. Although I do think it was always going to be asking a lot to pull him back to 10f on good/firm, my sense is that temperament/attitude is the root of the problem. You could see that before the start of the Coronation. Frankie was also engaged in mild cajoling there, of the sort that you sometimes see with NH horses that might be thinking of not starting. By all accounts (although I have only seen the final two furlongs), he was worse yesterday. Anyone who has ridden will know that you cannot make horses do anything – they have to want to do it. For me, Cracksman isn’t sure he wants to put it all in anymore. What we are seeing is what he’s prepared to do (B+, not A grade, by his standards). If he were mine, I’d put him away till the autumn and hope that the change in seasons brings a change in approach. I wouldn’t bring him back for what will inevitably be another hard race (probably on summer ground) at the same track and in a relatively short space of time. Maybe he’ll win pulling the proverbial, but there’s also the risk of totally souring the horse. What’s for sure is that any more performances like this one and his stallion value will be heading way south. Jack Hobbs Take 2?
Here is the Punchestown update (a little late!):
556 runners; 540 individual horses (16 ran twice, including one horse that had fallen on the first run). 201 sires were represented (a larger n than at the other festivals). Nonetheless, the runners were dominated by a narrow range of sire lines. Of the 556 unique runners, 335 (58%) are direct descendants of Northern Dancer, with 35% of the total runners from the Sadler’s Wells line. 47% of the runners (~ half of the entire Punchestown field) descend from Sadler’s Wells or Danzig line sires.
26 individual sires had winners. But, unlike the other festivals, Punchestown had more sires with multiple winners (5 in total). 2 sires had 3 winners a piece (Flemensfirth , Great Pretender). A further 3 sires had 2 winners (Fame and Glory, King’s Theatre and Shantou).
21 sires had a single winner but, whereas 6 of these came from their only runner, some high profile (big books) stallions had just one winner from a large number of runners. Some big books stallions with a large number of runners had no winners (> 20 runners: Beneficial, Presenting; > 10 Getaway). Flemensfirth’s 3 winners came from 21 runners. Great Pretender, by contrast, had just 4 runners, 3 of whom won – including two G1s.
As at other festivals, the Sadler’s Wells and Danzig sire lines performed well, supplying 15 and 6 winners respectively ( 56% of the winners). But, once again, other sire lines, with much lower numerical representation, performed well. Notable here are Nasrullah (especially Red God and Mill Reef) and Ribot (Flemensfirth, Shantou). The Djebel line is also represented amongst the winners, from extremely small numbers. As before, a headline conclusion is that diversity is no barrier to racecourse success.
As noteworthy is the under-performance at Punchestown of other sire lines. Monsun’s sons stand out here. Although with identical numerical representation to Ribot’s line, and with 10 sires with runners (c.f. 4), this line produced not a single winner.
The epitome of what we all desire from a top, top staying chaser – from the RSA and the raw power of that GC, that showed him at his absolute best, through to his last GC. Both Hennessy’s are right up there in my memory, though for different reasons. The first was the confirmation that here was a real beast of a staying chaser; the second was the weight carrying performance of recent times, and the performance that really showed he was back. For me, though, it was the last GC that summed him up the best. I will never forget the approach to the third last. The sight of those top staying chasers going at it hammer and tongs, and none of them wanting to lose, was NH racing at its very best. He may not have won, but boy oh boy did he enjoy that race. The reception he got when he came back in was as if he had won.
I loved hearing about him in his retirement too. The pictures of him out hunting as well as team chasing showed a very happy horse, even if one who was a tad erratic in the brakes department! Thoughts with Charlotte Alexander too – who has lost both Conti and Big Den in the same year. It’s a shame he didn’t have longer back at Ditcheat in full retirement but, sad though it is, it’s been good to hear that he was allowed to go out when and as he did. It’s always a hard decision to take but it sounds absolutely the right one.
Agree 100% Joe & Tonge – it certainly wasn’t just the track, neither was it his flat spots. The horse was being niggled from the off (which climbs steeply uphill). This is not just a matter of a big, heavy-topped horse, who hits the ground hard and with a wide action, not handling the downhill and camber. Something else was afoot.
Frankie described him as ‘sleepy’ – and that’s what he raced like. Maybe it was the humidity/stuffiness of the day? Some big horses don’t go well in such conditions (breathing?). Maybe, as Tonge suggests, he’s had the fizz taken out of him (JG’s ‘He’s more professional’ comment). Maybe something else wasn’t quite right (I am remembering how Mill Reef struggled to beat Homeric in the Coronation, but turned out to be harbouring a virus and also thinking Lah Ti Dah). Whatever, he had a hard race there for something that was supposed to be a ‘how far’ job.
I can’t help thinking that they should have stuck to their guns with his original planned programme and not tried to make hay whilst Enable was away.
This is indeed the same (relatively common) condition that both Sprinter and Denman were successfully treated for – and it is seemingly pretty common in all sorts of performance horses, including TBs. Sprinter ‘reverted’ pretty quickly on his own; Denman – if I recall correctly – needed the drugs treatment. Sprinter was off the track for a year, and then took from January 2015 through to the start of the 2015/16 NH season to come back to somewhere near the racehorse he once had been. Denman similarly returned to the track (I think in about 6 months), but, whilst he ran well in that year’s GC, it took him to the Hennessy of the following autumn to produce a ‘Tank’ performance. If these two are anything to go by, it’s questionable whether Eminent would be back to the same level inside a year.
Interesting that folk were saying that about his breathing at the start – that is one of the key symptoms and suggests the problem was there before the start of the race. I didn’t see the footage, but reading this I am slightly surprised that he was allowed to start. Although he was eased down, racing with this will surely not have been a good experience for him and I would expect it will have left a mental scar. Sprinter was pulled up immediately Geraghty realised something was seriously amiss with the horse.
Perhaps the biggest question is over his longer term future. It’s bad enough when the horses affected are geldings, but this one isn’t – and he has ‘the Frankel factor’ attached. From what I’ve been able to find out, there is some evidence to suggest that the condition is hereditary in horses:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1760273414000277
https://thehorse.com/137150/atrial-fibrillation-a-heritable-trait-in-standardbreds/
I’m another in the group that is enjoying this festival less and less as it goes on, questioning much of what I am seeing, and not liking what happens when trainers throw the kitchen sink and more at a trainers’ title. Team tactics is one angle on this but tomorrow’s decs are another. 7 horses that have already run at this festival are turning out again, two days later, in G1s: Blow by Blow, Cartwright, Delta Work and The Game Changer for GE; Getabird, Whiskey Sour and Min for WPM. We have already been told that some of these horses (Getabird and Blow by Blow) are ‘fragile’ and difficult to keep sound. I hope they all come back safe and sound. As for Min – how many times has NJH said that going to Cheltenham, Aintree and Punchestown in one year was too much even for Sprinter? Now Min (who laboured at Aintree, and again on Tuesday) is apparently being asked to do even more, and asked to do it again in a G1 hurdle, when he hasn’t run in a hurdle race for two years. NH racing thrives on top class horses but those horses need minding if we are to see them year on year, not used as trainers’ championship fodder.
For those of you interested in the sires data from Cheltenham, here are the headlines …
181 sires represented; 459 individual runners; 28 races; no sire was responsible for > 1 winner. So, unlike Leopardstown, there was no stand out performance.
Of the 28 sires with winners, only 4 had five or more runners. Six with double figure representatives did not have a winner and five sires with five or more runners did not have a placed runner. All of these sires would be in the ‘big books’ category. By contrast, sires with very small numbers of runners did very well indeed. 9 winners came from sires with just one runner, including the winners of the GC, the RSA, the Champion Chase and the Triumph. Sires with just two runners were responsible for the winners of the CH, the Supreme, the Arkle, the Stayers and the Ballymore. In other words, 9 of the G1 races were won by sires with a very small number of runners. So – quality is to be found well beyond the ‘big books’ stallions.
Of the 181 sires represented at Cheltenham, 111 (61%) descend in tail male from ND, but in terms of runners, 157 (34%) came from the Sadler’s Wells line and 52 (11%) from Danzig. So, approaching half of all the runners (45%) came from just these two lines. That hyper-concentration is as per the Leopardstown data. Even the other established ND NH sire lines are in retreat: Nijinsky’s line was responsible for only 27 runners and Lyphard’s for just 19. Beyond ND, Native Dancer/Mr P had 17 runners and 8 came from Native Dancer/Atan. Nearco/Nasrullah sires provided just 53 runners between them (12%). Beyond that, Ribot’s line had 30 runners, as did Blandford’s; 13 came from Nearco/Dante/High Top, and then just a smattering came from Nearco/Royal Charger/Turn-to, Hyperion, Fair Trial, Djebel and Birkhahn/Acatenango.
In terms of performance, the SW and Danzig lines supplied the winners of 11 races (39%), of which 7 were hurdle races. Four of those hurdle race winners were G1s – Summerville Boy (Supreme), Benie des Dieux (Mares), Penhill (Stayers), Farclas (Triumph). Two G1 chases were won by horses from these lines – both by Sadler’s Wells line sires: the CC (Altior – High Chaparral) and the JLT (Shattered Love – Yeats). Another two chases were won by Sadler’s Wells line horses (Tiger Roll – XC, Mr Whitaker). The Danzig line sires produced one placed runner in a chase (from 18 runners). Out of interest, I then went back to reanalyse the Leopardstown data. The same pattern emerges there: Danzig line sires had 38 runners there, 6 of them in a chase, with one placed. Sadler’s Wells sires had 128 runners, 31 of them in chases. 7 of those runners won, but only one of those was a chase (Shattered Love, again). Food for thought – especially given the increasing numbers of Danzig/Danehill’s on the NH roster.
Back at Cheltenham, beyond Sadler’s Wells & Danzig, of the other ND sires represented, only Nijinsky’s and Lyphard’s line produced winners, with Nijinsky’s both being chase winners, including the GC.
As at Leopardstown, the Nearco/Nasrullah line sires did well, providing 12% of the runners, 6 winners (21%), 4 of them chases. The Mill Reef line was again the standout here – 6% of the runners, 11% of the winners (Rathvinden, Blow by Blow, Presenting Percy). But there is also Red God here, responsible for Buveur d’Air and Missed Approach, and Grey Sovereign (Blue Bresil) with Le Prezien.Native Dancer/ Mr P was responsible for Footpad; Native Dancer/Atan for Samcro and Pacha du Polder.
From Ribot (i.e. Flemensfirth and Shantou) there was Relegate and The Storyteller; Nearco-Dante-High Top, through Balko, was responsible for Balko des Flos; Nearco-Royal Charger-Turn-to (Intikhab) had Mohaayed and Blandford/Monsun (Network), Delta Work.So, in sum – as per the Leopardstown data – quality NH horses come from diverse sources. The performance data suggests that it very much matters for NH racing that that diversity is preserved.
PS @rustyrails – I haven’t done the ND duplications for this lot yet :) That may have to wait until the flat kicks in in earnest.
Jac – just for you:
https://www.racingpost.com/bloodstock/bloodstock-news/elarqam-s-dubawi-half-brother-joins-mark-johnston-s-yard/318822It’s not just me who says this is who he is! And that Frankel throws to the mare.
What is perhaps even more interesting is the observation towards the end of the piece, that MJR is confident that Attraction will soon join the ranks of G1-producing broodmares. Well, who is he talking about … I’m pretty sure that it isn’t (yet) Maydanny (her 2yo colt by Dubawi). But this is strong stuff this early from this yard – much like in 2004 when the yard were certain they had the 1000 Guineas winner.
Interesting observation Louise – let’s see.
Relatedly, the RP has an enlightening Q&A piece today discussing the French NH breeding scene, and the up and coming stallions there (none of which are from the SW male line). ‘Forward thinking breeders’ in Ireland and England are apparently sending their mares there.
Good to see this thread picking up some more interest.
Joe – the sire tables are organised by prize money and winners. So anything with a large number of runners and a reasonable number of winners of reasonable races will look good. The table (and the sales results that follow) drives the big books business that is NH – and this is why this list of names appears. It also works (conveniently I would say) to keep away from the headlines the sires who have smaller crops, fewer runners and fewer winners – even though on % terms they might do much, much better. So think, as just one example, the Sandmason’s of this world, currently running on a 100% strike rate (admittedly from only 2 runners, but one of them was Summerville Boy), or something like Vinnie Roe (sire of the late Neon Wolf). This is why I’m interested in trying to get something that is a fairer representation of sire performance at the festivals. As it is though, and as you say, your list has Robin des Champs way out at the top. Interestingly, his runners didn’t do too well at Leopardstown, but he is yet another from the Nearco/Nasrullah/Mill Reef sire line that is also behind Stowaway (see above), and which is also behind Kauto and Vautour ,and the broodmare sire of Master Minded and Best Mate (see Ex RL’s post). So, the question is why is it that this line (which has produced such stellar NH chasers – ones that we’ve all loved) and which does really well on performance stats, is only barely clinging on as a sire line in NH breeding in GB and Ireland? And why is it that the NH studs are standing more and more and more from the Sadler’s Wells’ sire line (and increasingly sons of Danehill)?
NH racing needs diversity in both sire lines and in the broodmare herd. As Louise says, the broodmare herd has been the means to that thus far, but what we currently have is a broodmare herd that increasingly has ND on one side of its pedigree (and often top and bottom) and a set of stallions that are exactly the same i.e. NH breeding has become increasingly indistinct from flat breeding. That, I think, is why we are getting more and more hurdlers and dual purpose (flat/hurdles) NH horses. I also think it’s why we are seeing more and more horses that don’t seem brave enough to jump a fence, and so are reverted to hurdles. For those of us who love NH racing, it matters that the stock that is being produced can do what we love to watch (for me, primarily 2 – 3.5m chasing) – which is why this thread matters.
ps – Ex RL, you forgot Sprinter – another who has no ND in him (AQPS dam); UDS too.
OK ‘Rusty’ – I’ll add the top/bottom ND duplications in … though tbh these will mostly be back in generations 4,5, 6 and 7 now. I suspect most of the runners will actually have him in there somewhere, with a large number with at least one duplication on the top and bottom – so, in that sense it’s probably not going to tell you much. What’s more interesting is which branches of the Nearctic/ND male line are becoming more prevalent in NH breeding (Danzig/Danehill for e.g. alongside the firm of SW and sons), and the way in which flat breeding patterns are also becoming more common( i.e. multiple duplications of ND top and bottom, based on his main sire sons, so SW, Danzig/Danehill, Lyphard, Nijinksy, Try My Best). 4-6 lines of it are normal in flat horses now and we are starting to see that in NH too, unfortunately imo – and even more so when it’s with RaN/Mr P. So I will probably do the analysis to address that.
To be meaningful though in performance terms, it’ll need to be done for the entire fields of each race. That way one will get a measure of how well those sub groups do compared to those without or with less duplications …
I will carry on with the Festivals then, Louise, and see what patterns emerge from Cheltenham and Punchestown, compared to a proper winter festival on proper jumping ground. I may do Aintree as well – we’ll see. I’ll post the summary data on this thread for anyone interested.
The Weatherby’s data you mention re starters from foals of racing age is certainly an eye opener. A far from systematic ‘dip’ suggests ~50% is doing well (so, 1:2 foals of racing age make the track), but that there are some who do very well (> 70%). Others do not – 14% (from 934) was the lowest figure I found, and that for a sire covering large books and who is one of the ‘right’ sales sires. Similarly, there are other ‘right’ sires with figures in the 20% bracket, one of whom has recently been ‘bigged up’ in the RP. I may well dig a bit more on this, but in the meantime the question that I am struggling to answer is ‘what makes a sire a ‘right’ sire in NH?’ Both you and RustyRails have flagged this issue – and its connection to reduced diversity. Somewhat naively, perhaps, I thought this, at least in NH, would be about racecourse performance – I mean, I’m not at all convinced that (assuming I had the money – LOL) I would be shelling out six figures on a store that, on the numbers, had only a 10-15% chance of making the track.
Interestingly, today has seen some activity in the RP bloodstock section re Sandmason and Summerville Boy. Not before time.
Thanks Joe – and thanks for posting that; I wasn’t aware of Horseracebase and have had a look (without taking the free trial). I’d want rather more info on pedigree than it seems is available from the screen shot, so I think for the moment I will stick with Excel. But, if it will allow that quick a calculation of the win/place SR by sire then I’d say it is probably worth writing up a breeding tutorial for the site. As your figures show, anyone who’d followed Stowaway’s progeny at Leopardstown over hurdles would have made a tidy profit. He’s not done too badly at Cheltenham either … on which, and thinking ahead, On the Blind Side (of whom I’m a massive fan) is another of his, as is the yet-to-reappear Pym (in the same ownership as Altior).
Interesting that you also picked out King’s Theatre. I did a comparative analysis on the Leopardstown data for all sires with five or more runners, ranking them by 1) Win % and 2) Win/Place %. Stowaway is, of course, head and shoulders at the top of the table (46%: 54%). He is followed by Well Chosen (20%; 40%), Yeats (20%; 20%), Presenting (18%; 18%) and King’s Theatre (14%; 43%). Some pretty big names (commanding very large books in some cases) are much further down the table.
I have always been far more interested in the ‘horse’ side to the industry than in betting, but for sure – as Mark says above – pedigrees matter in this game. When you look at the pedigrees of what’s in 7B, Ditcheat, Closutton etc. you see that in spades. Equally though, and this is a massive part of its attraction for me compared to the flat,‘difference’ is no barrier to success in NH racing, viz. my delight at watching Maria’s Benefit whiz round the other day at Taunton (only one half line of ND in 5 generations, and that’s Nijinsky).
