Belardo

Royal Applause (GB), a stalwart of the Royal Studs who has been retired from covering duties since 2014, has enjoyed something of a renaissance in recent years largely thanks to his son Acclamation (GB) and grandson Dark Angel (Ire). Numerically, Gutaifan (Ire) led the first-season sires' list last season and he is one of at least eight sons of Dark Angel at stud in Europe. In 2020, two of those will have their first runners, but it is a son of Dark Angel's sire Acclamation who is tipped for the...

In this TDN series we ask a group of experts for their predictions for the 2020 flat season in Europe. Today we hear from Sophie Buckley. TDN: Who do you think will be the leading first-season sire this year? SB: When I think about who might be leading first-season sire I try and go for one whose stock I think that I will be able to afford to buy. I like the idea of Belardo (Ire) on paper. His dam Danaskaya (Ire) was a top 2-year-old and Belardo himself won...

For the stallions with first-crop 2-year-olds of 2020, the guessing game is effectively over. The market has offered up its opinions at the foal and yearling levels--for some, reputations have been enhanced even before their firstborns bore tack. For others, the market has nearly already decided their fate. Irrespective of what happened in the ring, however, a great many first-crop 2-year-olds are now in the hands of their trainers, and we have just mere months to wait before the most precocious of those begin to show their hands. In the...