Can Champions Day Seal the Sires’ Championship for Night Of Thunder?

[Wandering Eyes]

We should have seen it coming really. Night Of Thunder burst onto the scene in 2019 to be champion first-season sire with seven stakes winners to his name. Not all leading freshmen go on to put themselves into contention for champion sire honours, of course, but six years later this is exactly what the prolific Night Of Thunder has done, and he looks almost certain now to follow the achievement of his own sire Dubawi, who was champion in 2022.

Dubawi, who turns 24 in January, took longer to get there but for many of his earlier years at stud he had Galileo to contend with. Since that multiple champion's demise, the title race has had a more open feel to it, albeit it has twice been won by Galileo's son Frankel and now a son of Dubawi looks likely to follow suit. 

It's quite something when one considers the relatively small likelihood of the Dubai Millennium line taking root in such a way after he left only 56 foals back in 2002.  Darley also has Dubawi's son Too Darn Hot sneaking up the charts, and he has an exceptional representative in Fallen Angel, the winner of five Group 1s at two, three and four. 

This Saturday at Ascot, four of the ten highest-rated horses in the Longines World Rankings this year will turn out for Qipco British Champions Day. Of those, Dubawi's 126-rated son Delacroix and Night Of Thunder's Ombudsman (128) – who currently tops the list – will face off in a scintillating line-up for the Champion Stakes which includes another son of Night Of Thunder, Economics, on his first run for a year. Also in line for a Group 1 outing on Saturday are Ten Bob Tony and Estrange, who give Night Of Thunder a chance to accrue some decent progeny earnings on a valuable day's racing.

At the time of writing, he is more than £600,000 clear in the British and Irish sires' championship, with Wootton Bassett behind him in second. The late Coolmore sire still holds sway across Europe having had the Classic winners Camille Pissarro and Henri Matisse, as well as the Group 1 winners Sahlan, Maranoa Charlie and Puerto Rico to add to his haul in France. 

Back when the sacrilegious move was made to wrest the Champion Stakes from its rightful home of Newmarket, it was Frankel who saved the new-look Champions Day at Ascot, with his winning appearances first in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes then his emotional swansong in the Champion Stakes. (Notably, he had also won the Royal Lodge at two, when that race was respectively run at its rightful home of Ascot.) 

This year, Frankel has Latakia, Bedtime Story and Exactly representing him at Group 1 level on Champions Day but, already more than £2 million behind Night Of Thunder in progeny earnings, he will be unable to hold onto his champion sire crown. Don't bet against him winning it back at some stage though. 

Frankel has had strong competition from within his own stable this year, with Kingman having reached the milestone of 100 stakes winners in late September, and he is of course responsible for the joint-top-rated three-year-old in the world in Field Of Gold. The grey is on 127, currently equal with the Arc winner Daryz (Sea The Stars), and is one of five Group 1 runners for Kingman at Ascot.

Ballylinch Stud's globally renowned Lope De Vega could yet improve his standing in the sires' table. Currently in sixth, he has Almaqam, Carl Spackler, First Look, Iberian and Fox Legacy to represent him on the Group 1 stage this weekend.

Completing the top ten stallions in the table to date, Sea The Stars has Sweet William and The Lion In Winter in his corner, while Australia's good year could be continued through his Irish Oaks-placed daughter Wemighttakedlongway.

Mehmas has no Champions Day representatives but is once again having a strong year and is the leader in both the European table and in Britain and Ireland by number of winners. 

Then there's Blue Point, whose finest hours came at Ascot and whose breakthrough as a stallion of note was aided by his Classic-winning son Rosallion. Plenty would enjoy seeing Rosallion win his fourth Group 1 on what may well be the final start of his career in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. Blue Point's second-top-rated son Kind Of Blue returns to defend his Champion Sprint crown,  in which he could face fellow Blue Point offspring Rayevka and Sky Majesty. 

Outside the ten are some names who will doubtless be given plenty of consideration by breeders in the coming months as mating plans are confirmed. Gleneagles had a Group 1 sprint winner and a Derby runner-up last year (as well as the German Derby winner) but it is his son Calandagan who is arguably doing the most to advertise his sire's merits. Fresh from back-to-back Group 1 victories in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, the four-year-old returns to Ascot to line up for a red-hot Champion Stakes. He's not his sire's only Champions Day runner either, as One Look, recently third in the Prix de l'Opera heads to the Champion Fillies and Mares Stakes.

Study Of Man had his breakthrough Group 1 winner in that race last year and Kalpana will be back in an attempt to retain her crown. Meanwhile, a horse who deserves respect in the Champion Stakes is the lightly-raced Almeric, who looks progressive and impressed on his return in the Doonside Cup last month. He could be Study Of Man's next star performer. 

Golden Horn has made the transition to being fully respected in the National Hunt sphere, with the Champion Hurdle and Triumph Hurdle winners Golden Ace and Poniros to his credit at the Cheltenham Festival this year. But don't rule him out of the Flat game just yet: this year his five group winners on the Flat put him on a par with Camelot and Too Darn Hot, and they are led by the mighty stayer Trawlerman, who returns to the scene of his Gold Cup triumph on Saturday in a bid to win a second British Champions Long Distance Cup. The difference this year is that the race now carries Group 1 status for the first time.

Trawlerman will have competition from another hugely consistent stayer in Al Qareem, a son of the secretly very decent stallion Awtaad, who, like Golden Horn, is a Classic-winning son of Cape Cross. 

 

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