John Ingles casts his eye over this year's Ballydoyle two-year-olds sired by American-based stallions.
Dan Briden’s recently published two-year-old stable tour of Aidan O’Brien’s youngsters makes for fascinating reading. I wonder how other trainers might react to seeing the latest intake of top talent to Ballydoyle. An amount of dread at what they’re going to be up against over the next couple of seasons, I would think, and probably a bit of envy too at the pedigrees of this two-year-old crop.
Many of the sires of the two-year-olds listed are well-established. As well as Coolmore’s own stallions such as No Nay Never or the late Wootton Bassett, who seems sure to provide further reminders of what a loss he was when he died in Australia last year, the likes of top Newmarket-based pair Dubawi and Frankel are well represented too.
What struck me most, though, on an initial reading of this year’s Ballydoyle two-year-olds, was that many are also by American sires. Best represented among those is Justify, the 2018 US triple crown winner by Scat Daddy who is standing at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky for $200,000 this year.
O’Brien has already trained top winners by Justify, notably Timeform’s 2024 Horse of The Year City of Troy, top-class winner of that season’s Derby, Eclipse and Juddmonte International, having also been Timeform’s leading two-year-old the year before when he won the Dewhurst Stakes. Also from just the second crop of their sire came the filly Opera Singer, winner of the Prix Marcel Boussac and the Nassau Stakes.
Their trainer made no secret of how highly he regarded Justify as a sire, claiming in the aftermath of City of Troy’s Epsom victory ‘For us, Justify is the most incredible horse we have had. The great stallion we had was Galileo. Justifys are Galileos with more class, which is a very hard to thing to say, but we see it every day. The stride, the minds, the movement of them, they are quicker than Galileos, which makes them unbelievably exciting for us.’
Justify came up with another classic winner for Ballydoyle last year when Scandinavia won the St Leger (Godolphin’s 2000 Guineas winner Ruling Court was also by Justify), but he had just one two-year-old runner for O’Brien last year. That was the filly Moments of Joy who was placed in the Chesham Stakes and a Group 3 at the Curragh and was fifth in the Fillies’ Mile.
This year, though, Justify has ten two-year-olds listed at Ballydoyle, so he should have more opportunity to live up to O’Brien’s glowing reports. Several of them are colts bred on the same cross as City of Troy, being out of daughters of Galileo. HMAS Perth is a half-brother to smart miler Poker Face out of a half-sister to 1000 Guineas and Irish/Yorkshire Oaks winner Blue Bunting, Kris Kringle is out of Group 2 Kilboy Estate Stakes winner Lily Pond, a half-sister to last season’s Queen Mary and Cheveley Park winner True Love, Palazzo Serristori is out of a listed-winning sister to the Irish 2000 Guineas and Breeders’ Cup Turf winner Magician, while The Transvaal Blue is out of Group 3 winner Magical Dream, a sister to Breeders’ Cup Turf and Arc winner Found.
Others by Justify include an unnamed colt out of high-class French miler Immortal Verse which makes him a half-brother to the Cheveley Park and Prix Jean Prat winner Tenebrism and to last year’s Poule d’Essai des Poulains winner and St James’s Palace Stakes runner-up Henri Matisse. There’s also a full brother to Opera Singer. These colts by Justify therefore come from a variety of families, some with stamina and others speedier, so it will be fascinating to see how they develop.
A relatively new sire, at least to Ballydoyle, in this year’s intake is Gun Runner who was US Horse of The Year at four when his wins included the Breeders’ Cup Classic. Rated top-class by Timeform at 134, Gun Runner, who stands for $250,000, has sired multiple Grade 1 winners, including a Breeders’ Cup Classic winner of his own in Sierra Leone. Whilst principally a dirt sire, Gun Runner did have a winning three-year-old for Ballydoyle on turf last year in Gun Carriage, successful in a maiden at Killarney, and who has since shown useful form, albeit on dirt, in Dubai.
All four Gun Runner colts listed are out of mares who won in Europe, so there’s every chance they’ll be effective on turf too. They include Kensington Oval who’s from a family that has had sustained success for Ballydoyle and was the subject of this column last month. His dam Butterflies (by Galileo), runner-up in the Group 3 Munster Oaks, as well as being a half-sister to Giant’s Causeway, is a sister to Scandinavia’s dam, while Kensington Oval is himself a half-brother to the dam of Albert Einstein.
Also out of a Galileo mare is True Sovereign. His dam Lovelier, a listed mile winner for Ballydoyle, is a half-sister to Winter, who completed the 1000 Guineas double at Newmarket and the Curragh, as well as winning the Coronation Stakes and Nassau Stakes. A Gun Runner colt with a very speedy pedigree on his dam’s side is Ile de France, the first foal of Wesley Ward’s smart filly Campanelle who won the Queen Mary and Prix Morny at two and was awarded the Commonwealth Cup at three.
Talking of Wesley Ward sprinters, Egyptian Cross is a son of Golden Pal, a high-class performer trained by Ward for the Coolmore partners. Golden Pal was runner-up in the Norfolk Stakes at two, and while he disappointed in his two other visits to Britain for the Nunthorpe at three and the King’s Stand at four, he showed his abundant speed to much better effect when winning the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint in 2021. Coming from Golden Pal’s first crop, Egyptian Cross was a $275,000 yearling. He’s a mix on pedigree, though, as his dam was runner-up in Grade 3 contests in the States over a mile and a half.
Into Mischief was champion sire in North America for the seventh year running in 2025, having sired last year’s Kentucky Derby winner Sovereignty, and stands for $250,000. For all his success across the Atlantic, as a dirt sire (he won the Grade 1 CashCall Futurity on a synthetic surface at two) Into Mischief has had very few runners in Europe, though his handful of winners over here include Bernard Shaw who won a two-year-old maiden for O’Brien on the polytrack at Dundalk.
Ballydoyle’s Into Mischief two-year-old this year is the filly Exceptionally, another example of a mating between a dirt sire and a Galileo mare. Not just any Galileo mare either, as Exceptionally is out of the Fillies’ Mile winner Together Forever, making her a half-sister to City of Troy and to three-year-old filly Together Now (by Dubawi) who was a promising second at the Curragh on her only start last year. O’Brien also trained Into Mischief’s half-brother Mendelssohn, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf and UAE Derby.
Another of the leading sires in North America and very much on the up is Not This Time, sire of last month’s Dubai World Cup winner Magnitude. Another with a current fee of $250,000, Not This Time raced only at two and was runner-up in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, but he has sired Grade 1 winners on turf as well as dirt as might be expected of a son of Giant’s Causeway.
Not This Time has already advertised himself in Europe with a Royal Ascot winner, Wathnan Racing’s Shareholder winning the Norfolk Stakes in 2024, so it will be interesting to see how Ballydoyle’s as yet unnamed colt by Not This Time gets on. He too is out of a daughter of Galileo, and from a family of classic winners from Ballydoyle as his dam Madonna is a sister to Moyglare Stud Stakes winner Maybe, the dam of 2000 Guineas winner Saxon Warrior, as well as to the dam of St Leger winner Continuous.
Finally, Magna Cum Laude is one to look out for from the first crop of the 2022 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Flightline. His sire raced just six times but showed an outstanding level of form in remaining unbeaten, earning the highest Timeform rating ever given to a horse trained in North America of 143. Only last week, a two-year-old colt from Flightline’s first crop fetched the second-highest price ever at a breeze-up sale in North America when joining Bob Baffert’s stable for an astonishing $10.5m at the Ocala Sale in Florida.
Magna Cum Laude cost a tidy sum himself, fetching $950,000 as a yearling. Whilst hailing from a mainly dirt family, his dam’s half-sister Arabian Hope was a smart miler in Europe for Godolphin, winning a listed race at York and a Group 3 in Turkey and finishing third in the Falmouth Stakes.
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