Galileo, Frankel Setting The Standard

It's not just the number of stakes winners; it's also the quality and the rate at which they're sired that determines the best stallions in the land.

In the modern world of breeding with larger books, 10% stakes winners from runners has perhaps become the new norm for greatness, rather than the 10% stakes winners to foals of yesterday. It is interesting to note that the great Northern Dancer sired 23% stakes winners from foals and 29% stakes winners from runners in an era when 40 mares in a book was the norm. Today, his outstanding grandson Galileo (Ire) manages 17% stakes winners from runners, widely and rightly acknowledged as an extraordinary achievement.

But if we just choose his best 40 mares at the time of covering each year and look at what they've achieved, we get a truer picture of how Galileo stacks up against Northern Dancer. In these circumstances his percentage of stakes winners to runners climbs to 23%. And that doesn't account for all the factors that may draw the top 40 or 50 mares in the land to the best sire. It's clear that if we applied the same principle to most of today's elite sires, we would get the same result–much higher rates of stakes winners.

Galileo is perhaps the best sire Europe has ever seen both in terms of stakes winners sired (285) and the rate at which he produces them (17.2%). There are a handful of stallions that can almost match his rate of producing stakes winners, none more so than his best-ever son Frankel (GB), whose first 46 stakes winners have come along at an excellent rate of 16.3%.

The challenge for Frankel is to stay in the game for as long as his sire has managed to. Of course, Frankel's early career has been blessed with the help of some of Europe's finest broodmares, unlike Galileo's initial crops. But given continued support plus the requisite amount of time Frankel ought to become one of best stallions of the new decade.

Dubawi (Ire), with 159 stakes winners from his Northern Hemisphere crops, is the most accomplished sire to have ever stood in Britain. He too sires a very high percentage of stakes winners (15.9%), an even more commendable achievement considering his early mares were well below the standard he's now attracting. Like Galileo, his percentage of stakes winners from elite mares is well into the 20s.

Sea The Stars (Ire) is another that retired to stud with a sky-high reputation and it's very hard to argue that he's not up to getting the best from his mares, particularly with the likes of Stradivarius (Ire), Crystal Ocean (GB), Harzand (Ire), Sea Of Class (Ire) and Taghrooda (GB) among his elite performers–the precise type of Classic horses everyone wants to see on our racecourses.

Among the leading sires, there's always a familiar pattern of stallions that can produce top-class staying stock ruling the roost in Europe. In fact, it's almost impossible for a speed bias sire to get anywhere near the top of the leading sires' lists, particularly by percentage of stakes winners to runners. Sires that produce horses capable of winning stakes races at a mile and a quarter or more have almost twice the black-type opportunities as their speed-oriented counterparts, due in part to the speed end of the spectrum being currently overloaded with fast 'commercial' stallions.

One young sire bucking the trend though is No Nay Never, whose 12% score is outstanding for a stallion that looks very much like a speed influence. That said, he'll do very well to stay above 10% unless some of his stock stay a mile and beyond. It's worth remembering that one of Europe's premier sources of speed, Invincible Spirit (Ire), gets stakes winners at a rate of around 9%. He's pretty much the standard setter for sires of sprinter-milers.

Galileo's counterpart in North America has to be War Front, a sire who has reaped the benefits of his association with the Coolmore group. He owes plenty of his success to his European runners in that 34 of his stakes winners–an excellent 15.4%–came from Europe, compared to the 58 (14%) in North America. He is perhaps the only sire of the modern era capable of consistently delivering top-class Thoroughbreds on either side of the Atlantic, just like his brilliant sire and grandsire did in years gone by. And it is that versatility that has him a full three percentage points ahead of his nearest pursuers.

It's a close run race between Speightstown, Tapit and Distorted Humor for second position on our leader board. Speightstown's 109 stakes winners make up 12.1% of his runners, which is currently just ahead of the rate that Tapit produced his 132. But the plaudits must go to Tapit when it comes to the quality of stakes winners produced, his stakes winners posting an average rating of 114.5, compared to Speightstown's 112.5. Distorted Humor, meanwhile posted an average rating of 111.8 for his 146 stakes winners, which were produced at a rate of 11.6% from starters.

Next on the list is Medaglia d'Oro, who has sired plenty of top-class colts, but it is his fillies that underpin his 11.1% stakes winners. His gender split of 69 stakes-winning fillies and mares compared to 43 colts and geldings is further accentuated by the percentages–13.9% stakes-winning fillies and mares to the 8.3% stakes-winning colts and geldings.

Of the other 10 percenters on our leader board, Uncle Mo is definitely the newest kid on the block. His early achievements have guaranteed outstanding future prospects from some of the best mares in the land. And from the elite mares he's had runners from so far, no fewer that 20% of them are stakes winners. His future looks assured.

The same can be said for another rising star in Into Mischief, currently producing stakes winners at a rate of 10.5%. He too has caught the imagination of breeders and has some very well-bred crops to come. His batting average is already way ahead of expectations. What might it be in five years' time?