All Equine All The Time

One of the biggest weeks on the racing calendar has come and gone with the five day Royal Ascot meeting concluding on Saturday after 30 entertaining – and interesting – races. From stallions dominating throughout the week to broodmares making their mark on the meet and racehorses running more than five miles, Royal Ascot had a little bit of everything for both racing and pedigree fans. By The Numbers – Over the five day, 30 race Royal Ascot meeting, 157 stallions had at least runner entered in a race during the final entry stages over the week. Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) led all sires with 26 runners, while Scat Daddy (Johannesburg) led all sires by winners with four. Forty-eight stallions had at least one horse finish in the top three with 21 having at least one winner. The average age of those winning sires is 16 years of age with an average stud fee of £50,741. Breeders can still breed to all but three of the winning sires with the most expensive advertised fee being Dubawi (Duba...

Frankly Speaking, a 2-year-old colt by Frankel Every spring as racing ramps up in the Northern Hemisphere, trainers prepare 2-year-olds for their new careers as racehorses. For some of those 2-year-olds, they aren’t just carrying the hopes of what they may become on their backs, they are also carrying the hopes of breeders who t ook a chance on their sires in their first year at stud .  This year, expectations will be high for those first-crop sires with a lot of big names having their foals hit the track . Here are five stallions in Europe who we may see battling it out at the top of the First-Crop Sire list in the com ing months . One of two Juddmonte stallions with first foals hitting the track this year, Bated Breath (Dansili) is a Group 2 winning half-brother to Group 1 winner Cityscape (Selkirk). As normal for Juddmonte horses, he has family class behind him for generations with his fourth dam also the dam of champion Xaar (Zafonic). Bated Breath didn’t hit the t...