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galileo as a national hunt sire

National Hunt Sire Lines- 1st Monsun, 2nd Montjeu, 3rd Galileo

With the world in the grip of a pandemic, it may seem crass to write about something as trivial as horse racing, but we all need our distractions.

I was asked via Twitter to look at the overall performance of grandsons of Galileo in National Hunt Racing (I recently wrote about their performance at Cheltenham). As the overuse of sons of Galileo is a bugbear of mine, I didn’t take much persuasion to accept the challenge.

To make a meaningful comparison, I looked at the performance throughout the 2019/2020 season of sire sons of Galileo, Montjeu and Monsun. The numbers confirm that sire-sons of Galileo are nothing special in the world of National Hunt racing. In fact their performance is inferior to that of sires by Montjeu and especially by Monsun.

Methodology:

I looked at the sire standings for National Hunt in 2019/2020 for the top 550 sires from the Racing Post website. I then extracted and aggregated the results for the sons of Galileo, Montjeu and Monsun. The summary results are shown below:

SIRELINEWnrsRnrsW/R %WinsRuns%Stks Wnrs
GALILEO SIRES TOTAL12752224.3%174172110.1%11
MONSUN SIRES TOTAL22479728.1%322263712.2%15
MONTJEU SIRES TOTAL16561326.9%235202311.6%13

Summary of Findings:

Sons of Galileo fare poorly in terms of winners to runners and wins to runs compared with sons of Montjeu and especially sire sons of Monsun. There may be some reasons to account for the difference such as a younger age profile of the representatives of the Galileo tribe but there is nothing in the figures to suggest that National Hunt breeders should be flocking to sons of Galileo…

Blindly believing in sire lines on the flat or in National hunt racing will lead to lots of disappointments. There are individual sons of Galileo who could be promising jumps sires (Nathaniel especially) but overall the figures suggest that most sons of Galileo are not that welcome an addition to National Hunt pedigrees. The real concern is that sending one third of mares to sons of Galileo may eventually cause long term damage the National hunt breed by narrowing the gene pool. National Hunt breeders may feel reassured in using sons of Galileo ( everyone else is doing it) , but as the Corona virus has shown, being part of the crowd isn’t always such a good idea….

Detailed Workings: Stallions listed by their placing in the sires table by earnings- figures as shown on Racing Post website on 28/03/2020 and referring to UK and Irish earnings for 2019/2020 season

RankStallionWnrsRnrsW/R %WinsRuns%Stks WnrsEarnings £
13Mahler5321325%7275210%2£949,163
49Nathaniel173944%2211719%4£328,541
98Sixties Icon53415%71216%0£146,624
114Rip Van Winkle102934%1410114%0£121,731
135Sans Frontieres64115%91178%1£98,224
141Teofilo83921%91257%1£92,078
148New Approach72429%98211%0£87,972
164Soldier Of Fortune31127%64513%1£71,857
240Cima De Triomphe11100%2450%1£42,105
246Imperial Monarch21613%4469%1£40,774
253Australia3933%32811%0£37,282
255Heliostatic3560%41233%0£36,694
259Battle Of Marengo2633%42615%0£35,329
294Finsceal Fior21217%32811%0£27,716
390Vendangeur1425%1205%0£14,971
435Frankel090%0240%0£11,521
444Noble Mission1333%2633%0£11,039
451Roderic O’Connor1714%1157%0£10,552
465Intello090%0190%0£9,464
485Feel Like Dancing11100%1520%0£8,178
512Ruler Of The World1425%11010%0£6,607
529Cape Blanco030%060%0£5,688
537Red Rocks030%0120%0£5,478
GALILEO SIRES TOTAL 12752224.3%174172110.1%11


RankStallionWnrsRnrsW/R %WinsRuns%Stks WnrsEarnings £
11Getaway7525829%9886611%5£1,100,603
16Network216134%3219616%3£845,837
29Arcadio3014121%454819%1£541,960
30Shirocco3914826%5543613%2£531,547
57Schiaparelli105020%141549%1£283,101
63Gentlewave61250%83921%1£233,923
72Samum4667%81942%1£201,211
82September Storm93327%1714911%0£181,315
133Salutino51436%116517%0£102,638
149Aizavoski93030%127915%0£87,690
167Manduro51436%84916%0£69,827
220Noroit31619%4557%0£48,225
254Lauro3560%41429%0£37,087
264Axxos2367%21513%0£34,877
303Ocovango1425%2825%1£26,632
367Speedmaster22100%21217%0£17,480
MONSUN SIRES TOTAL 22479728.1%322263712.2%15


RankStallionWnrsRnrsW/R %WinsRuns%Stks WnrsEarnings £
17Scorpion4218922%557198%1£810,218
35Walk In The Park82730%98011%4£483,862
36Fame And Glory3313624%4938013%1£473,569
37Authorized225937%3220016%1£451,972
77Pour Moi113037%189020%0£195,358
92Montmartre72726%128814%2£155,773
96Maxios81747%115122%1£150,255
97Motivator72035%125920%1£148,850
103Papal Bull83126%101139%1£139,334
105Davidoff2540%41822%1£135,129
120Jukebox Jury61060%123139%0£114,475
153Camelot52818%5836%0£84,328
352Honolulu2450%21020%0£19,342
375Frozen Fire2633%22110%0£17,080
400Hurricane Run0110%0320%0£14,439
455Masked Marvel1250%1714%0£10,104
461Spider Flight050%0200%0£9,735
484Recital1617%1215%0£8,221
MONTJEU SIRES TOTAL 16561326.9%235202311.6%13

Galileo, Groupthink, National Hunt Breeding And A New Heresy….

Back in 1633, Galileo was convicted of heresy for his espousal of the heliocentric view of the universe. He was sentenced to house arrest which lasted until his death in 1642.

Sadler’s Wells transformed National Hunt breeding, so breeders seem to assume that Galileo will do the same. Here is my heresy; when it comes to National Hunt breeding, I don’t believe in Galileo… The Catholic Church admitted it was wrong in 1992. I wonder if it will take as long to admit to a mistake by National Hunt breeders?

Grounds for Concern:

1. Sadler’s Wells was a great sire of jumpers, Galileo isn’t.

Looking at Racing Post Ratings, from 294 runners over jumps, Galileo has sired just two runners rated over 155, Celestial Halo on 167 and Supasundae on 165 . In contrast from 362 runners, Sadler’s Wells has 11 runners including the imperious Istabraq on 181, Synchronized on 171, Pridwell on 169, Essex on 165 and Theatreworld on 164 .

Galileo also suffers in comparison with Montjeu. Montjeu had fewer National Hunt runners at 249, but has sired 8 horses rated 155 or above, headlined by Hurricane Fly on 173. To date sire sons of Montjeu have also achieved more than sons of Galileo in the National Hunt realm(eg Douvan, Min, Tiger Roll, Might Bite aka Does Bite) but that’s a discussion for another day. The fact that Galileo hasn’t sired good jumpers doesn’t mean that his sons won’t succeed, but it does create a doubt. Where there is doubt, you would expect caution but instead we have a reckless herd mentality on an almost unprecedented scale.

2. Galileo’s National Hunt Stallion Sons are unproven

Galileo has no proven, established National Hunt stallion sons. Mahler has made a good start (eg Chris’s Dream, Ornua) but not enough to warrant 227 mares in 2019. Soldier of Fortune attracted 275 mares in 2019 and 290 in 2018. That is a lot of faith to put in a stallion who still has to deliver a really top horse but who at least has Busted and Lord Gayle as his dams grand-sires.

Displaying even more faith, but without a comparable female line or any racecourse evidence, were the 275 breeders who used Order of St George, the 225 who went to Idaho and the 190 mares who went to Telescope. That is around 1200 mares from those 5 sons of Galileo. Am I the only person who thinks this might be insane?

3. The sheer scale of the problem

Next season those five stallions will be joined by Leger winners Capri and Flag of Honour, who can both expect significant books. There are a host of others including Finsceal Fior, Imperial Monarch, Proconsul, Vendangeur, Sans Frontieres, Shantaram also in the marketplace. The total foal crop in the UK (4655) and Ireland (8788) in 2019 was 13,443 foals. In Britain it is estimated that 23% of the foal crop is intended as NH or dual purpose and in Ireland it is 48%. This would equate to 5,288 national hunt or dual purpose foals. We could be looking at over 1,700 or around one third of the National Hunt crop being by sons of Galileo.

Conclusion:

I’m sure that there will be many good horses sired by the sons of Galileo. The sheer weight of numbers make that almost inevitable. However, the percentages may be less than expected.

No one is asking about the implications of having so many foals from the same sire line. Half of the foals will be fillies so we are the changing the National Hunt breed forever.

French National Hunt breeding has outperformed the UK and Irish sectors over the past two decades. There are a lot of factors at play, but a willingness to embrace diversity in sire lines and smaller books that allow more stallions a chance have an impact. Irish breeders acting individually think they are being rational but the cumulative effect of their group-think could damage everyone in the National Hunt sector…