‘Too Darn Hot Is A Worldwide Phenomenon Right Now’

[Wandering Eyes]

Darley's Sam Bullard and Watership Down Stud manager Simon Marsh have paid Too Darn Hot the ultimate compliment by drawing parallels between the young stallion and last year's European champion sire Night Of Thunder.

Both sons of Dubawi operate under the same Darley roof and Too Darn Hot, the sire of multiple Group 1 winners in both hemispheres, is charting a similar path towards elite stallion status, according to Bullard and Marsh.

Buallard said, “Dubawi was what we set out to achieve in the early days of the Darley stallions and he has done so much more than that. Now, to have one of his sons [Night Of Thunder] in Ireland at Kildangan Stud and for him to be the European champion sire last year was wonderful. Incredible, really.”

He added, “But when you see what is coming through [for Too Darn Hot] and when you realise the support coming through, the support that he is getting from leading breeders and leading trainers, I suspect come the yearling sales of 2028, Night Of Thunder will be struggling! We'll have to work hard to stay at the top anyway. So it's really exciting and we're very lucky to have two great sons of Dubawi.”

Too Darn Hot may be sitting pretty as the sire of multiple Group 1 winner Fallen Angel in Europe along with Australia's champion two-year-old turned stallion Broadsiding. But there is a deep appreciation here for the fact that the chapters within this story could have read very differently had Too Darn Hot made his initial target at the yearling sales.

Bullard explained, “What a story Too Darn Hot is. He was bred by Watership Down Stud and the Lloyd Webbers intended to sell him as a yearling but he went lame before the sales. So, unluckily at the time, they were forced to withdraw him and decided to put the pink colours on. He went to John Gosden and was a brilliant two-year-old. We were lucky enough, with the support of our patron [Sheikh Mohammed], that we were able to buy into him so he was destined to stand at Dalham Hall Stud at the end of his racing career.”

He added, “At that time, we sort of knew that Dubawi looked like being an exciting sire of sires and with the pedigree that Too Darn Hot has, being out of Dar Re Mi, who was a champion herself, that it was incredibly strong. He was a horse we were hugely keen to get hold of and the breeders have supported him enormously the whole way through.”

That support has seen Too Darn Hot sky-rocket to a career-high fee of £100,000 for 2026. Meanwhile, what he has achieved in Australia, where he was crowned the 2024 Champion first-season sire with a record-breaking A$4.16 million in earnings, is adding to his growing reputation as an international force to be reckoned with. The glowing terms in which Marsh and Bullard speak about Too Darn Hot would suggest that the share price in the young stallion is only going to go one way.

Commenting on Too Darn Hot's success Down Under, Marsh said, “It's something that many stallions have tried to achieve – the likes of Galileo, Dubawi, Lope De Vega and Night Of Thunder have gone down there. A lot of stallions have tried to be dual-hemisphere stallions but, really, since Danehill, there have been very few who have been able to make a mark in both hemispheres, which he is doing.”

He added, “But he's not a two-trick pony. It's remarkable what he is doing and, knowing that he has his best crops to come, you'd have to think he still has a long way to go. He's sired stakes winners in Japan and America, he's having winners in Hong Kong and he's had Group 1 winners in Germany, France, England, Ireland and Australia. He's a worldwide phenomenon right now. I am sure that the best is still to come and he is very similar to Night Of Thunder in that Night Of Thunder's best progeny and the best mares that he covered are only coming through now. Too Darn Hot is a few years behind Night Of Thunder, yet he is achieving some remarkable things from his early crops. To have a horse who is doing it in both hemispheres is pretty unique and obviously very exciting.”

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