Dubai rules 2022 Royal Ascot with Black-Type winner

This article was first published in June Bluebloods. SUBSCRIBE here to get articles like this sooner!

There were 35 races run at Royal Ascot – the number one race-meeting in the world, hands down, no debate (don’t fret, Drew, the Breeders’ Cup is number two) – June 14-18, with over 273,000 souls in attendance over the five days as most of us returned for the first time since 2019.

Of the 35 races, 22 were Black-Type races, with 294 declared runners (before scratches), and we thought it might be instructive to look at the sires and damsires of those 294. Not that the 13 Handicaps and Condition races, most of which were run for £100,000 purses, are to be sneezed at, but handicaps are handicaps and black type is what we see on the catalogue pages.

Dark Angel actually had the most declared runners in the 22 back-type races, with 12, though his two wins at the meeting were both in handicaps. Dubawi and Kodiac had 11 black-type runners each but it was Dubawi who claimed the number one spot by black-type sire performance with four black-type winners, all 3yo’s+, but significantly at distances of 6f (Naval Crown nipping Creative Force, also by Dubawi, in the G1 Diamond Jubilee), 8f (Coroebus in the G1 St James’s Palace), 10f (Dubai Future in the Listed Wolferton S.), and 14f (Eldar Eldarov in the G2 Queen’s Vase). That’s versatility. He added a Handicap winner for good measure.

Dark Angel’s 12 black-type runners included four 2yo’s (one placing) and eight 3yo’s+ (one placing) but noted 2yo sire Kodiac proved that point as nine of his eleven runners were 2yo’s (one placing, plus 4yo filly Campanelle dead-heating for third in the G1 Diamond Jubilee). But the point of this compilation is as much to see which sires are getting the runners good enough to merit just competing in Royal Ascot black-type races. Nine 2yo black-type runners is a pretty big statement.

Though he only had six black-type runners over the four days, Galileo showed he is still a force to be reckoned with as he supplied three black-type winners: the filly Magical Lagoon and the colt Changingoftheguard won two 12-furlong G2 races for 3yo’s, the Ribblesdale and the King Edward VII, and of course the 4yo Kyprios captured the storied G1 Ascot Gold Cup over two colts by Galileo’s half-brother Sea The Stars, Mojo Star and Stradivarius. Sea The Stars tied Dubawi with the most Ascot black-type placegetters, with five, including the unbeaten G1 Queen Anne winner Baaeed. Interestingly both Galileo and Sea The Stars averaged 13.0 furlongs for their Ascot black-type placegetters, not entirely surprising as between them they had the 1-2-3 in the 20-furlong Gold Cup.

Two other sires had 10 black-type runners each: Galileo’s best son Frankel, who like Sea The Stars had his sole Ascot 2022 black-type win in a 1m G1 (the deeply impressive Inspiral, in about the hottest running of the Coronation S. ever), though the average distance for his four placegetters was 10.5 furlongs; and the rapidly-improving F2018 sire New Bay, whose 10 runners yielded two black-type winners, the 4yo filly Saffron Beach in the 1m G2 Duke of Cambridge and the 3yo Claymore, who won the G3 Hampton Court. Big shout out for trainer Jane Chapple-Hyam, who trained both winners and is probably going to have a yard-full of New Bays any minute now. New Bay nearly had a big breakthrough moment when the 4yo Bay Bridge added a G1 second in the Prince of Wales’s, won by the now 4-time G1 winner (n four different countries) State of Rest (by Starspangledbanner).

The only other sire to register two black-type winners at Royal Ascot was No Nay Never, appropriately both 2yo’s trained by Aidan O’Brien, Meditate in the G3 Albany and Little Big Bear in the Listed Windsor Castle. Through the end of 2021 No Nay Never had sired two G1 winners and eight G2 winners. Our figures show that about 20% of G1G2 winners do so as 2yo’s; No Nay Never has eight out of ten (80%) who did it as 2yo’s, and though he is demonstrably a superior sire of 2yo’s the good news is they do train on – both of his G1 winners, Ten Sovereigns and Alcohol Free were G1 winners at both two and three.

New Bay had a whopping 3.72 APEX A Runner Index at the end of 2021, with 121 year-starters by the end of last year, when his first 3yo’s ran, and combined with 10 Royal Ascot 2022 black-type runners including two winners and a second, we’re prepared to declare him about the hottest young sire on the planet. He stood this year for €37,500 but he’ll never stand for so ‘little’ again. But he’s not the only F2018 European sire, now with first 4yo’s, to scale the heights. Mehmas, who broke the world record for 2yo winners (56) with his first crop in 2020, hasn’t slowed down either. He had a 2.38 A Runner Index at the end of 2021 with 273 year-starters – more than twice as many as New Bay – and he had nine Royal Ascot black-type runners (four 2yo’s and five 3yo’s+), including G1 second Lusail and G1 third Acklam Express, plus 2yo G2 second Persian Force. When you see young sires putting up these kinds of numbers you don’t need to go searching for any more evidence: New Bay and Mehmas are top young sires, period. Take the hint.

We’ve talked before about Mehmas’s race record – he only ran as a 2yo, like Dark Angel, who is also by Acclamation out of a Machiavellian mare – and it seems relevant to repeat that, as a 2yo, Mehmas was second to Caravaggio in the G2 Coventry, then won the G2 July S. and G2 Richmond S., both also at 6 furlongs, and was second to Churchill in the G1 National S. at seven furlongs. Both Coolmore sires, Churchill and Caravaggio were the top F2019 sires (1st 3yo’s) by number of black-type runners at Royal Ascot 2022, with four each. Churchill’s Grand Alliance probably should have won the 12-furlong G2 King Edward VII, while Caravaggio had two very good one-mile G1 fourths, Maljoom in the St. James’s Palace and Tenebrism in the G1 Coronation. Churchill’s three 3yo Ascot black-type runners averaged 9.7 furlongs (clearly they are better as 3yo’s), Caravaggio’s three averaged 7.3 furlongs. Another second-crop sire, Cotai Glory, had three black-type runners, all 2yo’s.

The two leading first-crop sires, Havana Grey and Sioux Nation, were all over the place in the 2yo races, with seven and six black-type runners each. Havana Grey had two 5-furlong placegetters; Sioux Nation had the third in the 7-furlong Chesham. Four other F2020 sires (1st 2yo’s) had three black-type runners each: Tasleet had the winner of the G2 Coventry (Bradsell); James Garfield had the third in the G2 Queen Mary (Maria Branwell), while US Navy Flag and Kessaar also had three black-type runners each.

LEADING BROODMARE SIRE – PERHAPS YOU’VE HEARD OF HIM? GALILEO

F2003 Galileo has broken all the records as a sire and no doubt in time he’ll do the same as a broodmare sire. He was not surprisingly the leading broodmare sire of black-type runners at Royal Ascot 2022, with 11. But he was only narrowly in front of F2005 Oasis Dream and F2007 Shamardal, with 10 each, although none of them was actually the damsire of a 2022 Royal Ascot black-type winner. But that’s not really the point here: this is the toughest race meet in the world, and they’re supplying the most runners out of their daughters. Five sires each had seven black-type runners: F1998 Pivotal; F2002 Dansili; F2004 Street Cry and Invincible Spirit; and F2009 Teofilo, who’s looking like an especially promising ‘young’ broodmare sire. All five of these except Invincible Spirit had a black-type winner, and he had two black-type placegetters. Acclamation and Dalakhani had six black-type runners each as broodmare sires; Exceed And Excel had five, and relatively younger sires F2007 Dubawi, F2008 Raven’s Pass and Kodiac, F2010 New Approach, F2011 Sea The Stars, and F2012 Showcasing had four each. Interestingly, all four black-type runners out of New Approach mares were 2yo’s.