UK & Ireland First Season Sires 2024
It’s the time of the year for our now annual projections regarding the First Season Sires across the UK & Ireland. In 2022 we identified Havana Grey over Sioux Nation as the most likely Champion FSS and then Blue Point (with an EW on Too Darn Hot) in 2023. Here’s the 2024 edition, going for the hat trick.
(For past reference: 2023 Edition)
The betting markets have already started to form, with Pinatubo and Sergei Prokofiev generally installed as joint favourites at 6/4. Earthlight rounds out the top 3, priced at 2/1.
Racetrack Performance as 2yos
Let’s start by evaluating the performance records of the main protagonists as a 2yo themselves. It’s not a hard and fast rule that you needed to be an Elite 2yo yourself to produce 2yos but it certainly helps. Justify being the main exception to the rule at present, only having made his track debut at 3yo.
Pinatubo
European Champion 2yo in 2019, you arguably couldn’t find a stronger 2yo performance record than in Pinatubo. He was 6/6 in his 2yo campaign, earning £712,682 in the process. Flagship wins coming in the Group 1 National Stakes at the Curragh and Gr1 Dewhurst Stakes at Newmarket.
He debuted on the 10th May in his 2yo year, an early enough start.
2yo Form Strength: *****
Precocity: ****
Sergei Prokofiev
8 runs as a 2yo, winning 3 races including the Gr.3 Cornwallis Stakes at Newmarket. Earned £109,262 in prize money as a 2yo. Track debut on the 11th April in his 2yo season, at Dundalk.
2yo Form Strength: ***
Precocity: *****
Earthlight
An elite 2yo record; 5/5 race wins including the Gr.1 Prix Morny & Gr.1 Middle Park. £401,867 earnings as a 2yo. Debut on the 19th June in his 2yo season.
2yo Form Strength: *****
Precocity: ***
Far Above
Never ran as a 2yo. 3 wins from 4 runs as a 3yo, earning £37,031 throughout the campaign. Signature 3yo win coming in the Listed Prix Kistena at Deauville. Group 3 winner of the Palace House Stakes as a 4yo.
2yo Form Strength: n/a
Precocity: *
(Follow up comment: At the time of writing i hadn’t realised that Far Above was a Breeze Up horse and was going off race record only)
Mohaather
£28,490 earner as a 2yo and winner of the Gr.3 Horris Hill Stakes at Newbury. Track debut on the 21st September, with a 2/3 record over the course of his remaining 2yo campaign.
2yo Form Strength: ***
Precocity: **
Sands of Mali
Gimcrack winner, returning £130,833 overall in 2yo campaign. 15th July debutant with a 2/5 record overall as a 2yo.
2yo Form Strength: ****
Precocity: ***
Hello Youmzain
Gr.2 winner as a 2yo, taking the Critérium de Maisons-Laffitte. £101,317 earner as a 2yo with a 2/3 race record. Debuted on 22nd August at Carlisle.
2yo Form Strength: ****
Precocity: ***
Arizona
Gr.2 winner of the Coventry Stakes as a 2yo. £287,519 earner with a 2/7 race record overall. 06th May debutant at the Curragh.
2yo Form Strength: ****
Precocity: ****
Ghaiyyath
Gr.3 winning 2yo, taking the Autumn Stakes at Newmarket. Developed into an Elite older horse winning Group 1s at 4yo and 5yo. £40,644 earner as a 2yo, after making track debut in September. 2/3 race record as a 2yo.
2yo Form Strength: ***
Precocity: **
Kameko
£157,837 earner as a 2yo and winner at Group 1 level when winning the Futurity Trophy at Newcastle. July debutant, with 4 runs at 2, winning twice.
2yo Form Strength: *****
Precocity: ***
First Season Mare Covers & Stud Fee
The way these First Season sire markets work is that the bookmakers generally install the Sire with the most mare covers in as the favourites. The logic is usually pretty sound, Sergei Prokofiev was the most active sire in GB with 154 mares covered in his first year at Stud. The market is likely also responding to the strong record of Whitsbury Manor in making a stallion, with Havana Grey a high profile recent case in point.
Pinatubo was the second most active sire in GB with 152 mares covered at Dalham Hall Stud. Interestingly, Earthlight was the most active overall with 164 mare covers, as the market is covering both UK & Ireland it might open up some opportunity.
Pinatubo tops the table in terms of opening Stud Fee, at £35k. Ghaiyyath and Sottsass second at 30k EURO, but you’d expect them to be producing more classic types than precocious 2yos. Kameko closely behind with a £25,000 opening fee, equating to around 29,300 euro.
Foal Sales
The market also offers us a guide. So let’s take the insights from the buyers at the foal sales of 2022 and how they regarded the stock of the aforementioned stallions.
Pinatubo was top by foal sale average, only 8 foals offered commercially through the ring, but these returning an average of £136,520. Ghaiyyath 2nd with 29 foals offered for an average of £99,590.
Yearling Sales
Pinatubo again led the way at the Yearling Sales, returning a yearling average of £146,488 and median of £100,000. Ghaiyyath maintained second position, whilst Earthlight’s yearlings were well received by the market, jumping up to 3rd position after foals returning in 4th by average.
Hello Youmzain was well received by the market, returning a £78,750 yearling average, up from a £46,725 foal average.
An alternate view is to evaluate the impact value of the yearling price in comparison to the opening stud fee. A sire starting with a higher stud fee would be expected to generate a higher set of yearling prices, as the related stud farm and ownership groups support that sire in the marketplace. Looking at the yearling returns in comparison to stud fee is an interesting value metric.
Sergei Prokofiev performed the best here, yielding an Impact Value of 5.72 based on opening stud fee to yearling average. From a 6,500 GBP fee he returned a yearling average of £37,203 and median of £28,000.
Earthlight is again coming across very well; 5.70 IV with a yearling average of £96,972 from that opening 17,000 GBP fee. (20k Euro)
Our yearling biomechanics ratings
At racing² we are trying to evaluate and get a rating as many yearlings as we possibly can across all yearling sales in Europe, the US, Australia & New Zealand. Having a systematic rating system in place i feel can help us with getting a position on sires fairly early on in their career.
The table below shows the scores we generated for yearlings we were able to rate across the European Yearling Sales in 2023. Displaying only the top 5 performers in our dataset.
Interestingly, our models really were positive on both King of Change and Sands of Mali. Although they may be helped on average returns by the smaller sample sizes of 11 and 8.
Of sires with more than 15 yearlings evaluated, Ghaiyyath was our top scorer by average, returning a 53.50% across 42 evaluated yearlings. Pinatubo is following close behind with a 49.50% average.
The Summary?
So after all those words i’m afraid it’s a pretty unoriginal summary. I really cannot see past Pinatubo or Earthlight for the honours this year.
Pinatubo brings the best 2yo form, a fair amount of precocity, the highest opening stud fee, the highest foal average, the highest yearling average and strong scores on my biomechanic ratings.
Earthlight would be the one you’d be hoping to oppose Pinatubo with, and ideally you’d like a bit of juice in the price at 5/1 upwards. He has the most soldiers with 164 mare covers in that first crop and scores consistently on the high end of all key metrics. 2/1 though means that he isn’t missed at the market.
Predicted 2024 FSS Champion : Pinatubo
