The way I look at it is this: if I publish my prognostications for the stallion ranks in 2024 now, nice and early in the new year, by the time they're shown to be complete bilge in a few months' time you'll have forgotten all about them.
Here, then, are the results of peering into my crystal ball. This email will self-destruct in your memory in five weeks. That's the hope, anyway, unless any of my predictions miraculously turn out to be correct, in which case you'll be reminded about them.
Ending a Jinx?
Dubawi's curriculum vitae is overflowing with achievements: a British and Irish sire championship; 57 group 1 or grade 1 winners and counting in all sorts of races over a wide range of trips; a thriving sire line that includes New Bay, Night of Thunder, Too Darn Hot, and Zarak; and a useful roll of honor as damsire, thanks to Adayar, Mostahdaf, and Without A Fight.
However, it still contains a glaring omission, one that even his most ardent supporters have to admit will take a little shine off his legacy if it isn't filled. Not only has he not yet sired the winner of the Derby (G1) or Oaks (G1), but his overall record in the Epsom classics is frankly woeful. From 14 crops to have competed as 3-year-olds, his only top-three finishers in either race are Oaks second Wild Illusion and third Lady Of Dubai.
Dubawi's brilliance as a sire and his blank sheet at Epsom are hard to reconcile, really.
Granted, he obviously didn't stay 12 furlongs himself, as he demonstrated when fading to third behind Motivator in the Derby, but he has sired more than his fair share of top-drawer middle-distance horses when mated with a mare who brings sufficient stamina to the genetic mix—not least Postponed, the impressive winner of the Coronation Cup (G1) over the Epsom classic course and distance.
Perhaps his staying offspring tend to need more time, and aren't ready to roll in the June of their 3-year-old seasons, or maybe he has just been unlucky to operate in the same era as Derby hero Galileo, whose descendants seem to be tailor-made for Epsom.
Either way, 2024 could be the year Dubawi finally lays his Epsom classic hoodoo to rest. (I've definitely expressed the same sentiment in other years, but hopefully you'll have also long forgotten that by now.)
He is responsible for the second, third, and fourth shortest-priced colts in ante-post betting lists for the Derby, behind champion 2-year-old City of Troy.
National Stakes (G1) scorer Henry Longfellow, around a 6-1 chance, is out of an Oaks winner by Galileo in Minding, who in turn is a full sister to another Oaks winner in Tuesday, all of which should be more than enough to counteract the sire's apparent Epsom curse.
Futurity Trophy victor Ancient Wisdom, also as low as 6-1, has no Galileo in his pedigree, nor even Galileo's sire Sadler's Wells or dam Urban Sea. But before putting a line through the €2 million ($2.18 million/€1=$1.09) Arqana August yearling, bear in mind that he is out of Golden Valentine, a group 3 winner over 12 1/2 furlongs, and that she is by the late, leading stamina influence Dalakhani.
Dubawi's third leading Derby hope—wide-margin Zetland Stakes (G3) winner Arabian Crown, who is 8-1 in places—has no Sadler's Wells or Urban Sea in his pedigree, either. But he is a half brother to dual Prix de Royallieu (G2) winner The Juliet Rose out of 12-furlong listed scorer Dubai Rose, by Dubai Destination, and is thus bred on the same cross as Postponed.
Ancient Wisdom and Arabian Crown have history to overcome if they are going to break that new ground for their sire, though. Golden Horn in 2015 is the last colt not descended from either Sadler's Wells or Urban Sea to strike in the Derby at Epsom. A potential first Oaks winner for Dubawi isn't quite so clear at this stage, although Oh So Sharp Stakes (G3) winner Dance Sequence and exciting maiden scorers Elizabeth Jane and Ezeliya, all three of whom are naturally exceedingly well bred, could quickly develop into leading candidates.
a Sleeping Giant
Mehmas was a little quiet by his own quickly established high standards in 2023. Chez Pierre and Quattroelle flew the flag for him in grade 1 company in North America, and Circuit Stellar and Taj Dragon advertised him to good effect in Hong Kong, but group 3 winners Believing and Power Under Me were his only pattern scorers on the home front.
Most unusually of all for Tally-Ho Stud's outstanding source of precocity: He put just a single 2-year-old stakes winner on the board, and that was Amorevole, who collected a couple of listed victories in Italy.
However, a short-term flatline in Mehmas' steep upward curve at stud was to be expected, as last year's juveniles were the result of him covering one of his smallest books (118 mares) at his lowest fee (€7,500) in the difficult fourth season at stud, which coincided with Covid to boot.
We should hear an awful lot more about him this year, as his crop that has just turned 2-years-old was conceived at an increased fee of €25,000 in the afterglow of him supplying a record 56 winners during his freshman season, including Middle Park Stakes (G1) hero Supremacy.
Mehmas covered a staggering 296 mares that year, including 68 stakes performers, giving him a bumper crop of 242 foals.
There should be a beanfeast of 2-year-old winners by this sleeping giant of the stallion ranks this season, then. In fact, with those sorts of numbers, he really ought to be challenging his stablemate Kodiac's record of 61 individual juvenile scorers from a single crop.
By my reckoning, Mehmas has operated at an average of 68% runners to foals and 45% winners to runners in Europe in each of his first four crops of 2-year-olds. If you apply those stats to that enormous 2022-foaled generation, he should have 164 2-year-old runners this year—crikey—and there should be 73 winners among them. Double crikey.
Of course, forecasting stallion performance isn't quite that easy. When a sire like Mehmas receives a much improved book at a higher fee, more classically-bred mares come into his orbit, and so the resultant offspring might be a little slower to come to hand. For instance, his 2021 dates included eight daughters of Galileo, four by Sea The Stars, a couple each by Montjeu and Nathaniel, and one by Golden Horn.
All the same, he ought to do something extraordinary with the chances he has been granted this year. It might seem unfair to hold a stallion to such a high standard, but when he has covered such a huge individual book, it's really only reasonable to demand a proportionate level of success.
Anyway, I think he'll break the record. I'm a Meh-liever.
Soaring Stock
I won't win any prizes for saying it's a big 12 months ahead for Wootton Bassett. You'd have to have been living in a cave to have missed the fact that the rags-to-riches son of Iffraaj was bought by Coolmore in a megabucks deal in 2020 and subsequently covered a sizeable, star-studded book of mares in his first season standing at Fethard in the following year.
To be precise, he received 238 mares at a fee of €100,000 for outside breeders, and they included top-level winners and the dams of top-level scorers. The reason I'm so excited about this precious outcross for all those descendants of Sadler's Wells and/or Urban Sea in the equine dating pool is that his juveniles can usually be relied upon to train on, and he got lots of highly talented ones last year from his final crop conceived at Haras d'Etreham in Normandy.
So I reckon one or more of his seven 2021-foaled black-type winners or the National Stakes and Criterium de Saint-Cloud (G1) runner-up Islandsinthestream will extend his tally of classic winners.
There are also the sire's older runners to look forward to, of course.
The charismatic Champion Stakes (G1) winner King of Steel should have more group 1s up his sleeve, while former National Stakes scorer Al Riffa is still lightly raced but showed he retained bags of ability when finishing second, hard on the heels of Ace Impact, in the Prix Guillaume d'Ornano (G2) in August.
Wootton Bassett managed to finish 11th in last year's British and Irish sire table, relying only on stock conceived in France, so a higher position looks assured by the end of 2024.
His sky-high fee—€200,000 this season—shows no signs of sagging in the near future.
While I'm making myself a hostage to fortune in such spectacular fashion, I might as well add that I think Frankel will gain a third sire championship but not as easily as he got his second last year, as several of his high earners have been retired and Dubawi and Wootton Bassett are on the march.
I also suspect that Blue Point and Too Darn Hot will dominate the sophomore sire table, just as they did the freshman charts last year, while Study of Man will quietly gain more respect as his progeny improve at 3.
And finally, I think that the losses incurred by breeders who used the seemingly larger than usual number of well-supported young sires whose early runners didn't come up to scratch last season will prompt many in the industry to rethink the blind faith they place in unproven names, and gravitate toward established sources of talent instead.
Who am I kidding? I've really strayed from reasonable predictions into the realms of fantasy now. I might as well express a belief that the Royal Mail will commission a set of stamps to commemorate Havana Grey's success in 2024.
