Pedigree Insights: Polydream

How many times after a big race have we been reminded by a disappointed trainer that “horses are not machines”? The same applies to stallions. No matter how successful a stallion has been, we must accept that there is no guarantee that each of his crops will produce a similar quota of top performers.

Even in the days when the superstar stallions achieved at least 15% black-type winners, these normally highly consistent horses occasionally suffered a below-par year. For example Danzig–a horse with 18% black-type winners–sired three Group 1 winners in each of his first three crops, but his fourth contained just one Group 2 winner and one Group 3. And Nureyev–who achieved a magnificent 17%–had a blip with his 1995 crop, which produced nothing better than a couple of Group 3 winners.

Last week's Group 1 action in Europe saw winners by two sires whose lengthy careers have inevitably featured the occasional lapse. Coincidentally, both these sires at one time ranked as the highest-priced stallion in Britain. Pivotal, whose evergreen son Lightning Spear won the G1 Sussex S., held that distinction in 2006, 2007 and 2008, with his fee as high as £85,000 in 2007 and 2008. Pivotal then shared top position with Dansili in 2009 and with both Dansili and Oasis Dream in 2010. After that it was the turn of Oasis Dream–sire of the G1 Prix Maurice de Gheest winner Polydream–to be the outright highest-priced British stallion in 2011 and 2012, at £85,000.

The 2018 fees for these two stalwarts stood at £40,000 for Pivotal and £30,000 for Oasis Dream. Clearly demand has fallen, even though Pivotal, at the grand age of 25, has now been represented by 28 Group 1 winners and Oasis Dream, at 18, has been represented by 16. Part of the problem for any high-priced stallion is that sooner or later he will face competition from the sons which helped set his fee soaring. He will also face the boredom factor, where the breeders' wandering eyes turn to younger often cheaper alternatives, whose racecourse exploits are fresher in the mind. Oasis Dream, for example, is in competition at Banstead Manor with Kingman, a horse from the same sire line as Oasis Dream, and who is out of a Classic-winning half-sister to Oasis Dream.

Pivotal's fee went from £85,000 in 2008 to £45,000 four years later (Lightning Spear was conceived as a fee of £65,000 in 2010). The reduction in Oasis Dream's fee has been even more dramatic, from £85,000 in 2014 to £30,000 four years later. Oasis Dream was popular at his reduced fee, covering more than 120 mares

The latest reduction, from £50,000 in 2017, reflected a disappointing 2017 season on the home front, where Mystic Dream was his only group scorer (there were other group winners in the UAE, Italy, where Folega won the G2 Oaks d'Italia, and France, where Polydream displayed her potential with her defeat of Laurens in the G3 Prix du Calvados and her second to Wild Illusion in the G1 Prix Marcel Boussac).

But you can't keep a good stallion down. In addition to Polydream, who reminds her trainer Freddy Head of the outstanding Moonlight Cloud, Oasis Dream is responsible for 11 2-year-old winners from 19 runners in Britain and Ireland. Three have already earned black-type, notably Pretty Pollyanna, who is the highest-ranked 2-year-old filly following her clear-cup triumph in the G2 Duchess of Cambridge S.

There could easily be more black-type performers among the recent juvenile winners by Oasis Dream, which include the winning Ascot newcomers Production and Ceratonia, as well as those progressive youngsters Zander and Swiss Air, Ceratonia is a half-sister to last week's G1 Nassau S. winner Wild Illusion.

Oasis Dream, of course, was a champion 2-year-old, a winner of the G1 Middle Park S., who developed into a champion sprinter with victories in the G1 July Cup and the G1 Nunthorpe. He clearly inherited a lot of his speed from his sire Green Desert and grandsire Danzig rather than from the bottom half of his pedigree, which features three exceptional mile-and-a-half winners as the sires of Oasis Dream's first three dams.

I've heard it said that the worst thing to happen to Oasis Dream as a stallion was the emergence in his second crop of that magnificent filly Midday. A close second to Pivotal's daughter Sariska in the 2009 G1 Oaks, Midday went on to win three editions of the G1 Nassau S., as well as the G1 Yorkshire Oaks, G1 Prix Vermeille and GI Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf.

Midday's dam Midsummer won over 11 furlongs and this encouraged the belief that Oasis Dream was an ideal medium for trying to inject speed into middle-distance mares. This type of strategy has enjoyed some success with such as Lady Jane Digby, Sri Putra, Opinion (a Group 1 winner over a mile and a half in Australia), Querari, Folega, Free Port Lux and Hard Dream. The dams of this collection included daughters of such noted stamina influences as Niniski, In The Wings, Sadler's Wells, Acatenango, Monsun and Galileo.

However, Oasis Dream's overall record suggests that he is best suited by mares with speed in their background–hence the saying that Midday was the worst thing to happen to him.

He has sired winners of the G1 King's Stand S. (twice), G1 Commonwealth Cup, G1 July Cup, Nunthorpe S., G1 British Champions Sprint S., the G1 Golden Shaheen and G1Prix de l'Abbaye de Longchamp. Polydream follows Muhaarar as his second winner of the Prix Maurice de Gheest.

Oasis Dream's juveniles have also collected the G2 Coventry S., G2 Norfolk S., July S., G2 Cherry Hinton S. (now the Duchess of Cambridge), G1 Prix Morny, G2 Gimcrack S. (three times), Middle Park S., G1 National S. and the G1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere. It is worth mentioning that Pretty Pollyanna's first two dams are daughters of the unbeaten 2-year-old champions Shamardal and Zafonic.

Polydream arguably stays a bit better than Oasis Dream, who disappointed when tried in the GI Breeders' Cup Mile. Her dam Polygreen was yet another talented homebred for the Wertheimer brothers. She won the Listed Prix d'Angerville over a mile before finishing seventh to Oasis Dream's half-sister Zenda in the G1 Poule d'Essai des Pouliches. Transferred to California, she added further successes over 6 1/2 furlongs and a mile. Polygreen's best previous winner was the smart Red Ransom filly Evaporation, who did well at around a mile.

Polygreen's dam Yxenery was a listed winner over a mile at two and three for the Wertheimer brothers and the next dam, Polyxena, enjoyed listed success over a mile and a mile and a quarter.

The exciting possibility therefore exists that Polydream–like Moonlight Cloud–could be campaigned very successfully from six furlongs to a mile over the next few years.