The recently concluded British and Irish NH sires’ season ended up as a repeat of 2021-22, at the top of the sires’ table anyway, with the Coolmore stallion Yeats leading home the late Fame And Glory.
There was a slightly diminished difference in prize-money terms between the two falling from over £300,000 in 2021-22 to £220,000, but Yeats did not have the significant additional benefit of Grand National-winning prize-money to add to his cause. Instead, the son of Sadler’s Wells had to make do at Aintree with Noble Yeats’s fourth place National prize-money of £65,000.
Both sires also had slightly less winners than the previous season – Yeats bagging 101 compared to 112, and Fame And Glory with 99 compared to 124.
Fellow Coolmore sire Walk In The Park is surely a champion sire in waiting and this season he made considerable progress to that goal finishing third and with seven-figure progeny earnings for the first time. His number of winners also nearly doubled rising from 43 to 90.
He finished with a flurry at Punchestown with Walk Away Harry taking the Avison Young INH Flat race, the Sean Doyle-trained Monbeg Park impressive in the 2m novice hurdle, which produced a one-two-three for the sire with Spillane’s Tower, trained by James Joseph Mangan a two and a half-length runner-up, while Uncle Phil came home 11l behind in third. Uncle Phil is likely to be kept over hurdles as he needs to learn to settle, while the winner and runner-up are due to go chasing in the autumn.
Broomfield Bijou took the 2m handicap hurdle after a dramatic race which saw three runners carried out by a loose horse before the third last. The filly could be one to give her sire an early-season prize money haul as trainer JP Dempsey reported that the five-year-old is to be kept in training through the summer and will be targeting the Galway Festival.
Walk In The Park’s biggest end-of-season earner, though, was Facile Vega who added the KPMG Champion Novice Hurdle (G1) to an excellent record that has only seen defeat in two starts from seven outings when fifth in the Grade 1 novice hurdle at Leopardstown in February and then took second in the Supreme Hurdle (G1).
He is another exciting prospect for the sire with a career in offing over the bigger obstacles this winter.
Walk In The Park was easily the season’s most successful sire in bumpers with 31 winners in the division and a 32 per cent strike rate. He also had 32 five-year-old winners of hurdle races, earning over £500,000 and was the leader by earnings and numerically.
Getaway’s fourth placing in the sires’ table (111 winners and £2,032,000) was nearly a mirror image of his 2021-22 result when he finished third with 108 winners and prize-money earnings of £2,167,042.
He was the season’s leading sire by numerical number of winners and with the most runners – 348 compared to Fame And Glory’s next best of 301.
Getaway is another stallion to have finished the season with a rattle, the Emmet Mullins-trained Feronily becoming the son of Monsun’s fifth Grade 1 winner when taking the Dooley Insurance Group Champion Novice Chase beating Appreciate It with Classic Getaway, also by the sire, in fourth.
Feronily only graduated from point-to-points last December, but he put in an accurate round of jumping and he has already been talked about as a Gold Cup contender.
He was bought by Hughes / Smith / Stokes for owner Paul Byrne for just £45,000 at the Tattersalls Cheltenham November Sale from Ellmarie Holden after winning his autumn point at Rathcannon.
The Getaway bumper runner Farland, a Monbeg Farm £100,000 purchase from Oak Tree Farm at the Goffs Land Rover Sale, looked promising in the Goffs Defender Bumper when fourth having taken a little while to get going. As a half-brother to the Grade 1 hurdler Minella Cocooner and from the Doyle connections, he has plenty more to come.
Through the season, Getaway had 20 five-year-old hurdling winners with earnings of £240,000 and 12 six-year-old chasing winners achieved at a 48 per cent strike rate. He was leader numerically in that division of young chasers ahead of Shirocco’s 10 winners from 32 starters.
Glenview Stud’s Shirocco, another son of Monsun, had a best season to date and at Punchestown his winner Brideswell Lad, who started life in handicaps at the beginning of the season off 102, won at the seasonal finale off 129, while Shewearsitwell took third in the mares’ champion hurdle (G1) behind Echoes In Rain (Authorized) and Anna Bunina (Poet’s Voice).
Shirocco had six bumper winners through the winter season and winning prize-money in the division of £118,443. He had 14 five-year-old hurdle winners, a figure matched by Westerner.
Blue Bresil was the season’s second-most successful living bumper sire behind Walk In The Park by number of winners on 13, though his NH Flat runners prize-money earnings was just £66,000. That will surely be a figure set to rise in future as the progeny by his better and improving books of mares start to hit the track.
Although Blue Lord, one of the sire’s leading older runners, failed to add to his Dad’s Grade 1-winning scoresheet at Punchestown when third in the William Hill Champion Chase (G1) to Energumene and Chacun Pour Soi, Blue Bresil did get a new Grade 1 performer at the meeting – the seven-year-old gelding Indiana Jones finishing third in the Barberstown Castle Novice Chase (G1).
A previous Grade 3 winner, this was a first try for the horse at the top level and, although no match for the exceptional winner El Fabiolo (Spanish Moon), Indiana Jones acquitted himself with honours.
Camino Rock, also by the sire and also trained by Morris, finished third in the Adare Manor Series Opportunity Final on just a second start in a handicap. He could be a type to step up to a valuable opportunity – as could the race winner Ballybawn Belter, a daughter of the 13-year-old Whytemount Stud sire Valirann (Nayef), who is quietly putting together a useful resume headed by the Sandown end-of-season Grade 2 winner Knappers Hill.
Trainer Liz Doyle reported that Ballybawn Belter, who is just a five-year-old, will be heading across the country later this summer for a Galway Festival opportunity.
Further down the sires’ table, Masked Marvel, a son of Montjeu, had a good season with four bumper (all-aged) winners and his NHF runners earned him over £100,000. He had two bumper winners at Punchestown, both trained by Willie Mullins – Predators Gold took the Goffs Defender Bumper and Junta Marvel was successful in the EBF mares’ bumper (G3). She is unbeaten in two such races and looks a bright prospect for mares’ hurdle this season.
The sire’s leading performer Teahupoo took fourth in the Ladbrokes Champion Stayers Hurdle (G1) despite the ground being too quick for his liking.
The leading British or Irish-based stallion in the four-year-old hurdling division was Golden Horn with five winners from 16 runners, he was behind the French-based trio of Great Pretender, Doctor Dino and Galiway by prize-money earned.
Alongside Golden Horn with a quintet of four-year-old hurdling winners was Camelot, Vadamos and Walk In The Park.
The Gurkha, Churchill, Westerner all produced four apiece, while Authorized, Free Eagle Jukebox Jury, Harzand, Malinas, Buratino, Yeats, Fascinating Rock, Sea The Stars and Getaway had three.
Other sires with statistics to note are the 13-year-olds Leading Light and Ocovango, both of whom had seven five-year-old chase winners, the latter getting his first Grade 1 winner Champ Kiely, who went on to show that victory was no fluke with third-placed efforts in Grade 1 novice hurdles at the Cheltenham and Punchestown Festivals.
Telescope is also beginning to make a mark and his five-year-olds won four bumpers and six hurdle races. He has also had six Irish point-to-point winners, while the Kim Bailey-trained I Spy A Diva collected a third place in the Cheltenham Mares’ Novice Hurdle (G3).
The leading Irish point-to-point sire by numbers this season is Mahler on 26, just heading up Walk In The Park on 23, Getaway on 22 and Soldier Of Fortune on 21. Ask has done particularly well in the division this season on 19, Shirocco is on 17, Martaline, Ocovango and Westerner on 12, and Court Cave just sneaks into double figures on 11.
The 2011-born sires Vadamos and Kingston Hill, both ex-Flat sires and both with Coolmore connections, the former having started at Tally-Ho Stud and joined the Tipperary outfit, while Kingston Hill started career there and is now standing at Nunstainton Stud in Britain.
Both are getting some useful results in the bag – Vadamos’s King Of Kingsfield claimed a Grade 3 bumper third at Punchestown behind A Dream To Share, while Kingston Hill has had six Irish point winners and the Grade 3 hurdles winner No Looking Back, who was also third to Facile Vega in the Champion Novice Hurdle (G1).