The Black Type Digest - sire lists and young sires special

In 2020 we ran an analysis of first and second crop sires from the previous season and produced a list of six young sires to follow. That list highlighted sires including Night Of Thunder, whose fee has risen to £75,000 after siring 15 first crop stakes winners; Sea The Moon, sire of G1 winner Alpine Star; Make Believe, sire of French Classic winner Mishriff; and Australia, sire of St Leger winner Galileo Chrome.

We have repeated the analysis this year and have produced a list of eight young sires to consider for 2021, listed on page 2, along with a table of young sires from previous years identified by the algorithm. The algorithm looks at the racing statistics for each sire and examines the profile of the distribution of official ratings of all progeny.

Night Of Thunder and Gleneagles both put in strong performances in their sophomore years last season and are recommended for the second time, albeit at a justifiably higher fee in the case of Night Of Thunder.

Derby and Arc winner Golden Horn is another second season sire of 2020 to make the list. His fee for 2021 is £20,000, having entered stud at £60,000. The sire of three European stakes winners so far, he has a further four horses placed at Group One and Group Two level and makes the list with a high number of runners rated 85%, and a high proportion of those being rated above 100.

Of last season’s first crop sires, Goken, New Bay and Shalaa make the list. Mehmas was dominant on the first season sires’ table but is not highlighted by the analysis because of the ratings profile of his runners. It could be that stallions with a very large number of precocious runners are not identified by the algorithm – Dark Angel and Kodiac were not picked up in earlier years – and we will watch with great interest as Mehmas’s career develops.

Goken was the sire of two Group Three winners from just 32 runners in 2020 and has seen his fee raised to €15,000. New Bay has sired a Group Two and a Group Three winner from 35 runners and has seen his fee raised to its starting value of €20,000.

In contrast, Haras de Bouquetot’s Shalaa has seen his fee cut to €15,000, having entered stud at €27,500. He has yet to sire a European stakes winner, but he has two Group-placed runners to his name, and has recently sired in Australia Shaquerro, the winner of the valuable Magic Millions 2yo Classic, having previously won the G3 Breeders Plate at Randwick. Shalaa has a healthy winning strike rate and the high proportion of his runners rated 85+ and 100+ stands out.

We hope you find the sire lists useful and they help you in clarifying your thoughts on stallion selection for 2021.

With kind regards
Richard Wilne
Editor of The Racehorse
the-racehorse.com