Two Emerging Superstars

[Wandering Eyes]

The 2015 intake of new sires always had the potential to throw up a star. After all, among the group was top-class miler Kingman (GB), who had demonstrated his prowess on the racecourse, with stunning victories in four of the best mile races as a 3-year-old, following a narrow-margin loss in the G1 2000 Guineas at Newmarket. It also featured a host of other Group 1 winners, featuring the likes of Derby winners Australia (GB) and Ruler Of The World (Ire), plus Sea The Moon (Ger), Toronado (Ire), Olympic Glory (Ire), Charm Spirit (Ire) and War Command to name a few.

The group also contained the Timeform 118-rated No Nay Never, whose best performance came in the G1 Prix Morny at two. History now recounts that both Kingman and No Nay Never have made the strongest starts at stud among this group. But that fact in itself doesn’t do justice to their efforts in the first two years of their careers.

No Nay Never has so far accumulated 18 stakes winners by the end of his second season year with runners–the same count as the outstanding Dubawi (Ire) achieved at the same point in his career and behind only Frankel, who sets the standard for the modern stallion with 20 stakes winners. No Nay Never’s race record may have been that of an archetypical juvenile with three unbeaten runs, featuring success in Royal Ascot’s G2 Norfolk before his G1 Prix Morny victory. But he’s already proved beyond doubt that he gets runners with tremendous potential to improve over time. Just witness Ten Sovereigns’s stunning success in the G1 Darley July Cup during the summer.

No Nay Never’s numbers really explain why he’s earned the right to cover better and better mares. In fact he’s set to cover Hermosa (Ire), Magical (Ire), Airwave (GB), Muravka (Ire), Maybe (Ire), Rain Goddess (Ire), Peeping Fawn, Cuff (Ire), Bracelet (Ire), Venus De Milo (Ire), Shermeen (Ire), How’s She Cuttin’ (Ire), and Sun Bittern in 2020. His 18 stakes winners make up 12.5% of his total runners and this number already puts him among the very best sires in any generation. Moreover, it completely overwhelms the 7.3% stakes winners his mares normally produce with other stallions–a fundamental sign that No Nay Never has got what it takes.

The fact that the son of Scat Daddy started out at €20,000 and was never above €25,000 in his first four years at stud, yet can produce stakes winners at such a high rate, augurs well for his future. In 2019 he covered more elite mares than in his first four years put together and there is a small piece of evidence from his existing runners that gives us a glimpse of what his future might look like when his 2020 crop reaches the track. So far, only 24 of his early runners are out of elite mares, yet they have produced six stakes winners, which is a strike rate of 25%. In all likelihood he’ll struggle to maintain that number as no sire in recent times has matched such a score, but it nevertheless gives a clear indication of No Nay Never’s enormous potential.

Juddmonte’s Kingman has posted 17 stakes winners so far in his short two-year career. Like his contemporary No Nay Never, it’s one of the best total on the past 25 years, only three behind his stud companion Frankel at the same stage. Kingman possesses that excellent blend of being capable of siring a brilliant Royal Ascot 2-year-old as well as Classic milers and high-class mile-and-a-quarter horses. The quality of his current stakes winners is extraordinarily high at this stage of his career with an average Timeform rating of 112.1, and his best 10 performers have a combined average rating of 118.6. To put that in context, it is 0.3 behind Frankel and ahead of all other sires in the past 25 years.

Like, No Nay Never, Kingman received a massive vote of confidence from breeders in 2019, covering as many as 136 elite mares, the most of any sire in Britain and Ireland.

There is no doubt that Kingman has a higher bar to scale than No Nay Never, but he’s given every indication that he’s up to the task. Like Frankel, it will take Kingman a bit longer to produce the kind of stats that his mares have managed to achieve with other sires. With one crop of 3-year-olds and two sets of juveniles, his numbers are bound to lag a little until his first two crops reach maturity. His 10.4% stakes winner score is short of the 15.2% of his mares’ other runners, but this is simply a feature of all stallions starting out with high quality books.

What’s certain is that Kingman has the ammunition to be just about as good as any sire around. Even in his fourth year he covered a record number of elite mares, so we can expect consistency right up to the point when his 2020 crop start competing. Then anything could happen.

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