What Makes A Good Broodmare Sire?

[Wandering Eyes]

Being a leading broodmare sire is so often a posthumous honour. It is also one that tends to come on the back of a stallion either having been sent strong books of mares from the outset, or having earned that right through eye-catching early results in his stud career. 

Of the top 20 broodmare sires in Europe in 2025, only half of them are still living, and of that 10, eight remain active. It is hardly earth-shattering news to reveal that Galileo's name was at the top of the list, as it has been for the last six years, just as Deep Impact is now a dual champion broodmare sire in Japan. Their own sires, Sadler's Wells and Sunday Silence, were similarly dominant in that same field before then. Where the line is drawn between excellence and opportunity is hard to say, but the tide of opinion soon turns against a stallion at the slightest hint of waning prepotency.

The trend for sending more speedily-bred mares to middle-distance stallions means that we have seen the likes of Exceed And Excel, Green Desert, Danehill Dancer, and Scat Daddy appear as broodmares sires of Derby winners – but they were all also just very good stallions themselves. 

So what is it that breeders look for in selecting a mare for breeding? Does her sire matter, or is it all just a game of luck and chance? Once again, we asked our panel of experts for their thoughts on this topic, and their answers are below. If you missed their views on stallion-making races, you can read the article via this link. 

John O'Connor, Ballylinch Stud

“My overarching view would be that the top broodmare sires of an era are usually the ones whose stock blend very well with the dominant sire-lines of that period. So I'm thinking of Darshaan, who was an outstanding broodmare sire, but he had a fantastic record with Sadler's Wells. It seemed to work. 

“And certainly Danehill, who was a really good broodmare sire as well, seemed to work particularly well with Galileo. And we found from right from the start that he worked particularly well with Lope De Vega – Danehill and his sons did.

“So I think it's probably fair to say that what makes a good broodmare sire in any particular era is their ability to cross well with the dominant sires of the same era. And I'd also think it's nothing you would expect that they wouldn't get in their own right as stallions, in that they would get plenty of good fillies.

“If I was looking for a good broodmare sire, I would certainly be looking at their own dam-line and thinking that it would be better if that was a very strong broodmare-line. 

“I think that Montjeu line brings a lot of quality, elegance and class to broodmares. It can bring a bit of temperament as well, but overall, I think that line is good as a broodmare-line.”

Andreas Putsch, Haras de Saint Pair

“The older I get, the more I try to get away from set rules, so I wonder if there's such a thing as a good broodmare sire per se. I'm not convinced.

“First of all, I think any stallion who early in his career gets very good mares, for whatever reason, will automatically have a fantastic chance to be considered 10 years later as a good broodmare sire.

“And then there are examples like Invincible Spirit, who had atrocious mares early in his career, and when the first offspring of those mares started running, he was labelled as a bad broodmare sire. But then he had better mares, and he hit, and today, he's one of the top broodmare sires in Europe.

“So to me, that's proof that it really has just to do with the quality of mares and the strength of the families that the stallion is covering that gives him the best chance to become a good broodmare sire. But I don't think that they make it by themselves. 

“The reverse example is Spectacular Bid. He was a super horse. He was retired to stud in Kentucky and in his first years he got the cream of the broodmare population in Kentucky. And then they figured out he wasn't doing it and they shipped him up to New York. But he was a top broodmare sire 10 years after he started his career. And at one point, he was leading broodmare sire and everybody was looking for Spectacular Bid mares.

“Obviously, if you don't have the budget, and you look for a mare at a bargain price, you go for family over performance, then why not go for a good broodmare sire? It's probably a better chance than to go for one that is not good. But if you have the budget, then you can ignore what stallion she's by.”

Alex Scrope, pedigree expert and matings advisor

“I think sire is important when buying a broodmare, but I think it's very difficult to identify a successful broodmare sire until they've got enough runners on the ground that you know what they're clicking with.

“A horse who was a disaster as a stallion but covered very good mares because he was such a good racehorse was Arazi. Once Arazi's daughters found their metier and found the stallions that suited them, he was a brilliant broodmare sire.

And if you look at Invincible Spirit and Oasis Dream: I always think they've gone in parallel all the way, but one was much more fashionable than the other. But then when they started being broodmare sires, Oasis Dream just floated ahead.

And so I think there's a lot to be said for horses that were very good racehorses and not fashionable stallions because in their first three years they would have had very good mares. And if you can pick the fillies by a stallion who may have failed but he was good enough racehorse to cover very good mares, then you've got the female family.

So, you know, for somebody like Gerald [Leigh], for instance, we used to use old stallions who'd gone completely out of fashion. So we used horses like Sharpen Up, Kris, Sir Ivor, Nijinsky and that sort of thing. Although they'd gone out of fashion, genetically they hadn't changed, the only thing that had changed was instead of being $250,000, they were $10,000.”

Joe Foley, Ballyhane Stud

“I'm not a big believer in the broodmare sire concept either, I think that's a bit of a myth. But what I look for in a broodmare sire: number one, ability. And I think a very important one is temperament, or the temperament that a stallion imbues in his progeny. So if a stallion gets a lot mad fillies, I think that's a negative.

“Pedigree also comes into it. I like well-bred stallions out of good mares. I think they have a better chance of being a positive as a broodmare sire than other less well-bred horses. For example, Galileo, Sea The Stars, out of Urban Sea. Rainbow Quest was out of I Will Follow, who was out of Where You Lead. Dansili, another well-regarded broodmare sire, is out of Hasili. So I think when a stallion is extremely well bred, out of a very good mare – like Kingmambo and Miesque – that's another thing I really look for.”

Jim Bolger, Classic-winning breeder and trainer

“Well, I didn't have that choice because I was producing the fillies myself, which went on to be mares. And I didn't always keep the right ones either, but there you are. 

“But if I was 30 again and starting out, I'd be very selective with regard to the fillies that I would keep. But having said that, I now go on to contradict myself. A few of mine couldn't win an egg-and-spoon race and they went on to breed Classic winners. So what do I know about it then? You shouldn't even be talking to me.

“My view of the whole breeding game is it's a bit like pebble-dashing. You throw enough of the stuff and some of it will stick.

“I think whether you're talking about a stallion's pedigree or a mare's pedigree, you definitely have to avoid the spoilers along the way. So as you can identify those and make sure that you don't have one of them in the pedigree, you're in with a chance.

“A lot of mares will throw one Group 1 winner and the special ones can produce two. And then you can go back and try and breed full-brothers and full-sisters and that doesn't work either.

“I suppose we go back to what people were saying in the middle of the last century, and that's breed the best to the best, and hope for the best. And that's probably the short answer.

“I don't recall ever reading anything that the late Arthur Budget had to say about how to do it, and he's the one with the real record. He bred and trained two Derby winners [Blakeney and Morston].

Mathieu Alex, Haras de Beaumont 

“I just don't know if there is such a thing as a good broodmare sire. To become a good broodmare sire, you have to be a good sire, and because you're a good sire, you're covering good mares, and then you become a good broodmare sire.

“I mean, we all remember Sadler's Wells and Darshaan, but they were very good horses themselves. Nowadays, the leaders Galileo, Sea The Stars and Dubawi – they're very good stallions.

Really, I think it's a bit of everything, and the support from the stallion owner is massively important as well. The mares you are sending them, the way you raise them, the way you're going to train the progeny. I mean, everything is important.”

Nicolas de Chambure, Haras d'Etreham

“If I'm trying to buy a mare and am in the process of setting a valuation, the broodmare sire is a big part of it, but I'm happy to give a chance to young horses that haven't proven themselves as a broodmare sire if they have the attributes that I feel could make them a good broodmare sire. 

“The only thing I do is, once I feel they've proven themselves not to be good broodmare sire, that tends to be a bit of a killer for me in terms of buying those mares. I'm quite strict on that.”

Kirsten Rausing, Lanwades

To my mind, it's one of these self-fulfilling prophesies. All this business about nicks – Bold Ruler, Princequillo and vice versa, Sadler's Wells, Darshaan, backwards and forwards, and Galileo Danehill, and so on. We all know why this happens: it's because a horse early in his career, such as Sadler's Wells covering some mares by Darshaan, and the results were very good. Therefore, anyone who had a Darshaan mare sent her to Sadler's Wells, and vice versa. 

“What I would like in a broodmare sire first and foremost is soundness in limb and wind as well. And some broodmare sires do stand out – Selkirk not least. He was an exceptional broodmare sire. Was that to do with the fact that he was a reasonable outcross for the many, many sons of the Northern Dancer-line sires that then proliferated? He went very well with Green Desert. 

“But Selkirk was a great sire and certainly an equally great broodmare sire, and Darshaan was another one.

“For obvious reasons, Archipenko has done me very well, and Hernando has given me an Arc winner as a broodmare sire. I personally like Invincible Spirit, but I know a lot of people don't, which I don't know why.

“An outlier in my opinion, and again, very subjectively, is Stormy Atlantic, who never won a graded race. I bred to him on numerous occasions, and my attraction to him was really his dam-line, which is also that of Special. It was a long-term project and he got me quite a few winners, but only one stakes winner, Kinetica. But I then bred his daughters to Archipenko in order to duplicate Special's family.”

Ed Harper, Whitsbury Manor Stud

“The main factor is being sent good mares from the get-go. What's really impressive is when a stallion that starts off at a cheap fee ends up being a proper broodmare sire. It's not until the fifth or sixth crop that these stallions start covering mares with better pedigrees. It then takes another five or six years for the female offspring of those matings to start breeding runners themselves, so these sires are likely to be 17 or older before people realise their talents as a broodmare sire. That's why sires such as Pivotal and Acclamation are so impressive.

“It was too late before I worked out that Compton Place was a magic broodmare sire. He never covered smart mares but soon after he died we couldn't stop breeding black-type horses out of the few daughters we'd kept. Hindsight is 20/20 but we should have kept more of his daughters because you could breed them to any stallion as he was a complete outcross.”

 

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