News

Shamardal Favourite For Freshman Title

1st Apr 2009

Stallions - Mike Hedge - Wednesday, 1 April 2009

Darley’s former champion juvenile Shamardal is the favourite to become Britain’s champion first-season sire for 2009.

Bookmakers list Shamardal at 7-4 to take the title ahead of Oratorio (Ire), the horse he beat in England’s top two-year-old race, the Dewhurst Stakes.

Coolmore-based Oratorio, a son of Danehill who ran seven times as a juvenile, winning four. At three, he was placed in three Guineas races before winning the Eclipse and the Irish Champion Stakes from Motivator. Oratorio covered 153 mares in 2006.

Australia’s Starcraft is well in commission at 12-1.

The Aga Khan's Azamour, a 6-1 chance, and Ballylinch Stud's Whipper, who is priced at 7-1, are the only two non-Coolmore or Darley-based stallions prominent in the betting. Hot on their heels are another two from Coolmore - the 2,000 Guineas winner Footstepsinthesand, another son of Giant's Causeway, and the Danzig stallion Antonius Pius.

The two first-season sires who have already got off the mark, Camacho, a Danehill stallion who stands at Morristown Lattin Stud, and Bearstone's Firebreak, a son of Charnwood Forest who sired the winner of the Brocklesby Stakes, are longer priced at 33-1 and 100-1 in this first show. Their prices are probably a reflection of their comparatively smaller booksizes in 2006: Camacho covered 57 mares and Firebreak just 48.

The winner is decided on numbers rather than prizemoney through the turf Flat season in Britain and Ireland which runs from March 27-November 27.

Leading First-Season Sire 2009

7/4 - Shamardal, 3/1 - Oratorio, 6/1 - Azamour, 6/1 - Dubawi, 7/1 - Whipper, 8/1 - Footstepsinthesand, 9/1 - Antonius Pius, 11/1 - Pastoral Pursuits, 12/1 - Starcraft, 12/1 - Avonbridge, 14/1 - Motivator