Another Frankel Fest
The second crop of the 2016 class of First Season Sires has finished its second year and this analysis attempts to identify trends and stallions outperforming in terms of their progeny performance and in relation to the quality of mare covered. Each stallion has the following information after his name on the charts for the first two years of this crop below:-
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preferred distance as a racehorse
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height in hands
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% of potential runners who raced
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Number of potential runners (may change slightly from one year of analysis to another as potential runners are identified and/or those who have died without running have been removed)
- Number of black type winners & placed
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Covering fee in 2014 in £000
As usual, the first thing that jumps off the page is the dominance of Frankel. As two year olds his offspring were some 7lbs ahead of the trendline and that superiority has now been extended to 8lbs with his 2nd crop progeny improving their ratings on average by 5.5lbs. His second crop is slightly ahead of his first crop in terms of racecourse performance ratings from a marginally superior class of mare although his first crop did get more black type winners at this stage. Whatever, he is proving to be consistently improving his mares even though his mare cohort is by far the best around. This is impressive and illustrates that he is worth every penny of his nomination fee even though that fee is well beyond the grasp of most breeders.
Mayson has done well with this second crop and they are performing on a par with his first crop but from a quality of mare on average 5lbs lower. Stakes wise, his first crop had 8 compared to 6 for this crop but he is proving himself to be another who so far has consistently improved his mares although in a much more modest way than Frankel. Having said that, his cover fee was only 5% of Frankel's so he is proving very good value.
Nathaniel showed a similar strong improvement in his 2nd crop in the second year as his 1st crop did, improving by 9lbs on average. However, his 1st crop are proving superior at this stage of the game being 4lbs superior after two years and having a couple of stakes placed horses more than his 2nd crop. He has yet to get his nose above the trendline in either of his first two crops and, as I have noted before, is not producing consistently enough high level runners considering he always has the second best bunch of mares to cover. Of course Enable and a few other top performers are keeping him in the limelight to some extent and justifying his fee hike to £22.5k for 2019 but I see better value in others.
Sir Prancealot is another who is showing consistent results from this analysis of the 2nd crop with the 7th best average runner rating garnered from the 14th best bunch of mares. He was slightly above the trendline after one year but is now around 4lbs higher and this follows on from a similar performance with his 1st crop. He has been acquired by Cornerstone Stud in Australia and they may shuttle him back to Europe or the USA where his progeny like Madam Dancealot and Beau Recall have done very well. An undervalued stallion from my perspective.
Requinto, Elzaam, Bated Breath and Dragon Pulse also finished north of the trendline although only the progeny of Requinto showed any significant improvement moving up 4.5lbs and the same improvement could be seen in those of Harbour Watch. Nothing else impressed although note that Casamento got three black type winners in Communique, Princess Yaiza and Frutireu.
In summary, the second year of this 2nd crop was another Frankel Fest with him clearly confirming his overwhelming superiority as the best stallion of this 2016 class and likely to be the only one to make a serious impact on the breed long term.
Please see the tab 2016 First Season Sires for my overall analysis and comments regarding this stallion class for its first three crops.
Jim Atkinson
James Ortega Bloodstock Ltd
1st February 2019