John Ingles looks at some of the pedigree talking points from York, including a very good week for Night of Thunder.
Night of Thunder - champion sire elect?
Results at York this week may well have been decisive in determining who will be come this season’s champion sire. At the start of the week, Darley stallion Night of Thunder held a lead of less than £200,000 over closest pursuer Wootton Bassett, but a very successful Ebor meeting for the 2014 2000 Guineas winner means he could now prove very hard to catch in the last few meaningful months of the season, having opened up a lead of more than a million pounds.
Night of Thunder’s biggest winner of the week was Ombudsman in the Juddmonte International, appropriately enough in the Godolphin colours, who added to his earlier Group 1 success this summer in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes.
Earlier on Wednesday’s card, Distant Storm, another Godolphin-owned son of Night of Thunder, started favourite for the Acomb Stakes, but while he could finish only third, the race was another success for his sire whose other runner Gewan took his record to two out of two and is potentially another big earner in Night of Thunder’s title bid going into the autumn.
Night of Thunder was responsible for both the joint favourites in Thursday’s Galtres Stakes, Rainbows Edge and Charlotte’s Web, and it was the latter who became his third winner of the meeting.
The excellent prize money on offer at York means that second places for two more of Night of Thunder’s runners, Estrange in the Yorkshire Oaks and Rock On Thunder in the Gimcrack, were other notable contributions to their sire’s title bid.
It has been quite a week all round for Night of Thunder as it had begun with one of his daughters breaking the sale record at the Arqana August Yearling Sale when going to Amo Racing for three million euros.
Juddmonte winner from a Juddmonte family
The sponsors were not represented in this year’s Juddmonte International, but they played a large part in the pedigree of winner Ombudsman who is Juddmonte through and through on his dam’s side. However, he’s not from one of Juddmonte’s most successful families which explains how his dam Syndicate, who was barely above-average herself with a Timeform rating of 81, wasn’t retained by her breeders for broodmare duties.
Dansili’s daughter Syndicate won a maiden at Southwell as a two-year-old for Ralph Beckett, but after six runs for her original trainer, she was sold for 25,000 guineas at the end of her three-year-old season. Bought by Irish trainer John Feane, she then had seven more starts in handicaps at four, winning one of them at Ffos Las.
Syndicate’s first foal, American Belle (by Starspangledbanner), was a fairly useful handicapper, winning a couple of races over seven furlongs for James Fanshawe, with Ombudsman – who fetched 340,000 guineas as a yearling – coming along next. A full sister to Ombudsman fetched 900,000 guineas as a yearling at Tattersalls last year.
While Syndicate was a full sister to a couple of geldings who were listed/Group 3 winners, you have to go back to her great grandam All At Sea to find the last Group 1 winner before Ombudsman in this branch of the family.
Trained by Sir Henry Cecil, All At Sea won the Musidora on the way to finishing second to stouter stayer User Friendly in the Oaks and eventually dropped back to a mile to win her Group 1, the Prix du Moulin. But that year, 1992, she also contested the Juddmonte International where she ran a fine race to finish a length second to Rodrigo de Triano - 33 years later, her great great grandson would go one better.
Incidentally, two more broodmares who had been Juddmonte cast-offs were responsible for the first two in the Yorkshire Oaks where Coolmore’s Minnie Hauk got the better of Cheveley Park Stud’s Estrange. After Ombudsman, Minnie Hauk was also the second Group 1 winner of the week out of a daughter of Dansili.
One, two for No Nay Never in the City of York
While Night of Thunder had three winners over the first two days of the meeting, another five sires struck twice over the four days.
Golden Horn's winners came in the two longest races of the meeting, with Gold Cup winner Trawlerman following up in the Lonsdale Cup and Santorini Star landing her third handicap of the year in Wednesday’s two-mile contest.
As well as Minnie Hauk in the Yorkshire Oaks, Frankel’s other winner was St Leger entry Tarriance in the Melrose Stakes in the Juddmonte colours. He’s out of the smart filly Visit (Timeform rating 116) who won the Princess Margaret Stakes and Oak Tree Stakes and twice made the frame in the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf.
Kingman landed a double in heritage handicaps on Friday with the John & Thady Gosden-trained pair Cape Flora and Fifth Column. Achieving some black type is doubtless a priority now for progressive three-year-old filly Cape Flora who boasts a fine pedigree as she’s out of Prix de Malleret winner Waldlied, a close relative to 2019 Arc winner Waldgeist. Mehmas also notched his double in heritage handicaps with sprinters Star of Mehmas and Northern Ticker.
No Nay Never didn’t get on the board until the penultimate contest on Friday when his two-year-old Frescobaldi won the Convivial Maiden for Aidan O’Brien who won the same race with another son of No Nay Never two years earlier, Battle Cry.
However, the highlight of No Nay Never’s week came in Saturday’s City of York Stakes where he sired not only the winner Never So Brave but also runner-up Lake Forest in the newly upgraded Group 1 contest.
The same feat was then achieved by Irish 2000 Guineas winner Awtaad in the following Ebor where his Royal Ascot handicap winners Ethical Diamond and Ascending took the first two places.
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