All Equine All The Time

Fastnet Rock (Coolmore photo) After staying in Australia and skipping the 2015 northern hemisphere breeding season, Fastnet Rock seems to be making sure he won’t be left off the shuttle plane in coming years. A number of Fastnet Rock’s runners won at least one stakes race in Europe in 2015 while he was taking the season off, headlined by Group 1 Investec Oaks winner Qualify and QIPCO Champion Stakes winner Fascinating Rock. This year, Fascinating Rock gave him his first Group 1 winner of the flat racing season when winning last weekend’s Tattersalls Gold Cup. Four fillies are trying to set him up to become the first stallion to sire back-to-back Investec Oaks winners since Diesis in 1999/2000 (Ramruma and Love Devine). Not surprisingly, three of the Fastnet Rock runners are owned by at least one Coolmore partner, including Qualify's full sister who is partially owned by Mrs. Richard Henry, and are out of mare by their flagship sires Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer) and...

Fast Company (Overbury Stud photo) The 2016 Irish 1,000 Guineas seems to be a sort of ushering in of a new era of stallions with four of the nine stallions’ first European foals being aged six or younger. While there are no first crop stallions represented in this year’s race, second-crop sire Fast Company is looking for a victory in this race after he found moderate success here last year when his daughter Devonshire finished third behind Teofilo’s Pleascach. Fast Company’s sire Danehill Dancer was given one win in this race with his daughter Again in 2009, the same year his son Mastercraftsman won the Irish 2,000 Guineas. In some ways it may be hard to believe that Galileo has the most racing aged crops any sire in the 1,000 Guineas but in other ways, his first crop being only 13 years old seems young with how much influence the stallion has had on the European Thoroughbred in that time. His success is on full display in this race with the stallion siring three of the e...

Tapit is represented by three horses Perhaps the most international event of the year in horse racing, Dubai World Cup night brings together horses from all sides of the world from Australia to England and Ireland to Hong Kong with nearly everything in between. Of course with a large group of horses running from different parts of the world also comes a wide range of sires and broodmare sires. At this year’s festival, 58 different sires and 68 different broodmare sires are represented in a variety of races from a six furlong dirt sprint to a two-mile turf race. Showing the versatility of some of the bloodlines represented, some sires and damsires can be seen in both sprint and route races. Meydan has been Dubawi’s (Dubai Millennium) personal playground the last few years and Saturday will be no different for the Darley stallion. The 14-year-old holds the most entries of any sire on the night with six ranging from the six furlong Group 1 Dubai Golden Shaheen Sponsored by Gulf News ...

Dubawi winning the 2005 Irish 2,000 Guineas. (Courtesy of France Sire) For Dubawi, a night in the desert on March 28 was a highlight of a spectacular season. The 14-year-old stallion, who sired Group 1 Dubai World Cup winner Prince Bishop and Group 2 UAE Derby winner Mubtaahij, led all European and North American sires in worldwide earnings on Thoroughbred Daily News’ (TDN) General Sire List . Prince Bishop and Mubtahij took home about $7.3-million on Dubai World Cup night, helping his sire end the year with progeny earnings of $22,694,299. While beat by Galileo when it came to just European earnings and by Tapit when only European and North American earnings were included, Dubawi beat both of them by over $3.6-million (Tapit was second with Galileo $4.9-million behind Dubawi) in worldwide earnings. But Dubai World Cup night was only a fraction of what made Dubawi the leading sire in 2015. The fastest Thoroughbred to ever sire 50 group winners, Dubawi’s list of achi...