By John Berry
Notwithstanding the first-season Royal Ascot hat-tricks of New Approach (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) and Zoffany (Ire) (Dansili {GB}), it is hard to name a horse in recent years who has made as impressive a start to his stud career as Frankel (GB) (Galileo {Ire}). He was, of course, an outstanding champion on the track, but that guarantees nothing as the score-board goes back to zero when a stallion starts out at stud. Frankel's early figures, however, are already excellent: 10 individual winners from 16 individual runners including two stakes winners: G2 Lowther S. heroine Queen Kindly (GB) and G3 Princess Margaret S. victrix Fair Eva (GB).
Obviously we cannot say how things will go for Frankel in the future, and there is much more to a top-class stud career than the ability to sire plenty of precocious first-crop 2-year-olds. In fact, instant success and long-term achievement are not necessarily one and the same thing, as Frankel's sire himself has proved. Galileo's first juveniles collectively won no pattern races in 2006, but the races won by his offspring in 2007 included the G1 Irish 1000 Guineas, G1 St Leger (in which he sired the trifecta), G1 National S., G1 Dewhurst S., G1 Breeders' Cup Turf, G2 Lancashire Oaks, G2 Futurity S. and G2 Prix Chaudenay. Since then, of course, Galileo has gone from strength to strength.
It is easy, though, to believe that Frankel will eventually establish himself as the complete stallion, an influence for class in general rather than merely for achievement at a specific distance or age. Any such speculation inevitably invites comparison not only with Galileo but with the great sires of the past–and in particular it prompts reflection on how other stallions have fared after making a meteoric start.
Perhaps the most impressive start to a European stud career in recent years was made by Kendargent (Fr) (Kendor {Fr}). While that admirable grey horse did not come up with any Group 1 winners in his first crop (in fact, he has yet to sire one) he over-achieved (and is still doing so) to an extent rarely witnessed. Having failed to score in stakes company in his three-season racing career, he retired to stud with no fanfare whatsoever, covering tiny books at a fee of €500. The percentages from his first-crop of 2-year-olds were almost unimaginably good. From a crop of 19 foals, he sired seven juvenile runners and four juvenile winners, two of whom scored in pattern company. Kendargent's career has continued in similar vein and, having started to cover big books of good mares at a five-figure fee in 2014, it is surely only a matter of time before Group 1 success ensues.
While Kendargent has clearly over-performed to a remarkable extent, perhaps the bar at which Frankel should be aiming is an even higher one: that set by Adraan (Fr) (Zedddaan {Fr}). Sadly, Adraan sired merely one incomplete crop, dying from skin cancer at Narrung Stud in South Australia on Dec. 1, 1982, having covered the majority, but not all, of his small first book of mares.
The following spring, 27 Adraan foals were born. Of these, 23 got as far as being named, and 22 of them raced at least once. Twenty of these 22 runners won. Of these 20 winners, 15 scored in town and seven were stakes winners. He actually ended up with nine stakes performers because two of his lesser winners were stakes-placed. Remarkably, three of Adraan's 2-year-olds earned a start in the 1986 Golden Slipper: Magic Flute (Aus), Bataan (Aus) and Khaptivaan (Aus). Another of his 2-year-olds, El Vaquero (Aus), landed South Australia's premier juvenile race, the G2 SAJC Sires' Produce S.
The following year proved that Adraan had not merely been an influence for juvenile precocity. Having scored in Group 2 company as a 2-year-old, Magic Flute won four pattern races at three including the G1 VATC Thousand Guineas and the G1 AJC Doncaster H. In the same season, Khaptivaan landed the G2 AJC Surround S., in which Magic Flute finished third, the pair split by the Golden Slipper winner Bounding Away (Aus) (Biscay {Aus}). Bataan, Adraanito (Aus), Adraanette (Aus) and Aussie Consul (Aus) also landed pattern wins aged three or more.
Time proved that the loss to Australian breeding in general and South Australian breeding in particular when Adraan died was immense. Even with so few foals, he still managed to leave a legacy. Bataan became a decent stallion, while Wham (Aus) (Adraan {Fr}) left the NZ Group 1 winner Captain Cook (NZ) and the multiple Australian stakes winner Corregidor (NZ) from limited opportunities in New Zealand. Stardraan (Aus) (Adraan {Fr}) also made his mark as a sire, leaving the dual stakes winner Ashaard (Aus) from even scantier patronage.
Khaptivaan proved the best of Adraan's daughters at stud, breeding G1 VATC Oakleigh Plate winner Khaptingly (NZ) (Bletchingly {Aus}) as well as listed winner Khaptrist (NZ) (Sir Tristram) and three-time winner and successful South Australian-based stallion Devaraja (NZ) (Sir Tristram). Snow Wonder (Aus) (Adraan {Fr}) also excelled, breeding G1 MVRC Manikato S. winner You Remember (Gold Carat); while Adraanito produced G2 VRC Ascot Vale S. winner Spargo (Aus) (Rory's Jester {Aus}).
While the full extent of Adraan's success could not have been predicted, he had gone to stud entitled to be an excellent sire of sprinters. Trained for his owner/breeder HH Aga Khan IV by Francois Mathet, he had been one of Europe's fastest colts of 1980, when he broke Longchamp's 1000-metre record in taking the G3 Prix de Saint-Georges and also won the G3 Prix du Gros Chene over 1000 metres at Chantilly. He ended his career by starting favourite in the G1 Prix de l'Abbaye de Longchamp, in which he finished fourth to the British champion Moorestyle (GB) (Manacle {GB}).
The source of Adraan's speed is easy to identify, as he was an archetypal product of the Aga Khan's studs in the era when HH Aga Khan III's dictum of “speed, speed and more speed” still held sway. Along the bottom line of his pedigree he came from HH Aga Khan III's brilliant foundation mare Mumtaz Mahal (GB) (The Tetrarch {GB}), 'The Flying Filly' from whom so many of the stud's champions have descended. Along the top he came from the line of Mumtaz Mahal's outstanding grandson Nasrullah (GB) (Nearco {Ity}) via the 1950 Richmond S. winner Grey Sovereign (GB). The Grey Sovereign line has yielded many great racehorses and stallions over the years–usually short-distance horses, often grey and sometimes feisty–and is best represented nowadays by Uncle Mo (Indian Charlie) as well as the aforementioned Kendargent.
The start at stud made by Adraan was the most impressive made by any stallion in Australia since the first Baramul Stud-conceived sons and daughters of Star Kingdom (Ire) (Stardust {GB}) began racing in the 1954/55 season, in which term the first juvenile race, the AJC Breeders' Plate, fell to the only Star Kingdom colt to have been sold from Baramul as a yearling, Kingster (Aus). Star Kingdom's first crop contained 20 registered foals, 18 runners and 16 winners. His figures for his second crop (22 registered foals for 21 runners, 18 winners) and third crop (20 registered foals, 19 runners, 18 winners) were similarly good. His feat in producing the first five winners of the STC Golden Slipper S. set the tone for a career which marked him down as Australia's most successful and influential sire of the pre-Danehill era.
Frankel has already lived longer than Adraan and it must be hoped that he can live at least as long as Star Kingdom, who died on Apr. 21, 1967 at the age of 21. In fact, it would be lovely to think that he could emulate the longevity of Hyperion (GB) (Gainsborough {GB}), grandsire of Star Kingdom and ancestor of Frankel through his daughter Lady Angela (GB), the dam of Northern Dancer's sire Nearctic (Can) (Nearco {Ity}).
When Newmarket's initial batch of 'Legends of the Turf' were inducted in 2014, the first two horses to be thus celebrated were Hyperion and Frankel. The former, winner of the Derby and St Leger in 1933, proved himself Britain's greatest stallion of the 20th century before dying in 1960 at the age of 30. Frankel has yet to prove that he can be ranked in the same class (as a stallion, anyway) as either Hyperion or Star Kingdom, or that he can compile statistics to rival those put together by Adraan (and it will, of course, be two or three years before we know whether Frankel's first crop contains the 100 or so individual winners and approximately 35 stakes winners necessary to match Adraan's figures). But the early signs for Frankel are very promising.
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