Pivotal Takes Centre Stage as a Broodmare Sire

[Wandering Eyes]

As we near the end of May, it’s quite something to think that Cheveley Park’s Pivotal (GB) (Polar Falcon) can already boast three Group 1 winners–Cracksman (GB), Rhododendron (Ire) and Olmedo (Fr), plus probable future Group 1 winner Defoe (Ire)–as a broodmare sire. Currently, he heads the great Galileo (Ire) by about £700,000 on the European broodmare sire table and will no doubt be thoroughly tested this year by the great Coolmore sire, who has Saxon Warrior (Jpn) among others running for him in 2018.

But make no mistake, it has been a fantastic career for Pivotal. It’s not often that we witness an out-and-out sprinter thrive in a stallion world usually dominated by top milers and middle-distance horses. Yet, Pivotal has carved out his own niche and if the performance so far of his daughters at stud is anything to go by then we can expect much more from the Cheveley Park stalwart.

A top-class sprinter by the Nureyev stallion Polar Falcon, Pivotal was at his best when winning the G1 Nunthorpe at York and Royal Ascot’s King’s Stand, back in the days when it had been demoted to a Group 2 race. Nowadays, these races are the two prime targets for five-furlong specialists, but Pivotal’s victories in both earned him a Timeform rating of only 124, more than 10 pounds behind the best specialist sprinters of 2017.

It was easy to understand why he started out at a fee of £6,000, but the racecourse success of his offspring eventually pushed that fee to the lofty heights of £85,000 by 2007. The best by a sire that produced an excellent ratio of 9.5% black-type winners to runners but struggled to get championship horses, Pivotal had to prove his mettle the hard way. Poorer speedy mares dominated his early books, but such were his results, that he caught the imagination of breeders with both better and stouter mares. Those early crops contained top-class speedsters like fellow Nunthorpe winner and stud companion Kyllachy (GB) (Time Form 129), but crucially his early runners also contained the likes of Golden Apples (Ire), Chorist (GB), Megahertz (GB) and Silvester Lady (GB), all Group 1 winners at 10 furlongs and above. And Pivotal took advantage of his well-earned better-bred mares going on to sire his best-ever progeny, the G1 Champion S. winner Farhh (GB) (Time Form 131), in the second half of his career. He also sired other middle-distance Group 1 winners in African Story (GB), Izzi Top (GB), Halfway To Heaven (Ire), Queen’s Jewel (GB) and Buzzword (GB).

The access to better and stouter mares did indeed provide Pivotal with a greater breath of opportunities, but it is debatable whether they made him a more effective sire. His first four crops of runners, whose average winning distance was 7.4 furlongs, included an outstanding 18.9% black-type winners to runners. Not even the great Galileo could manage that. What made this level of success all the more remarkable is the fact that his mares managed only 3.7% when covered by other sires. From his fifth crop onwards that siblings’ benchmark has stood at 9.7%, which clearly demonstrates the hike in mare quality that Pivotal received after his early success. But here’s a strange thing. Pivotal’s ratio of black-type winners since then has been 9.7%, almost 10 points lower than he achieved with his first four crops. Overall, his ratio is a world-class 11.4% from mares that typically produce 8.9% with other sires–a glittering career indeed.

It’s rare to find such a highly prized broodmare sire like Pivotal that is still producing young stock and racehorses as good as Addeybb (Ire) and Brando (GB) this year. Pivotal’s second career is thriving. There are huge dividends to be had if your mare compliments the great sire of the day. And there is no doubt that daughters of Pivotal have stuck up a very fruitful partnership with the mighty Galileo and his sons. There are currently 23 runners by Galileo out of Pivotal mares and they feature no fewer than eight black-type winners (35%) and seven group winners (30%). Two mares, Halfway To Heaven and Beauty Is Truth (Ire), are responsible for five of these black-type winners. Halfway To Heaven is the dam of recent G1 Lockinge S. scorer Rhododendron and Group 1 juvenile Magical (Ire), while Beauty Is Truth had Hydrangea (Ire), a Group 1 winner on British Champions day, representing her last year. Another Pivotal mare, the listed winner Rhadegunda (GB), produced the 136-rated runaway G1 Champion S. and G1 Prix Ganay hero Cracksman, by Galileo’s son Frankel (GB). Results like these will no doubt offer huge encouragement to breeders to try this cross in future.

Of course, Galileo isn’t the only option for a Pivotal mare. In fact, all sires that have had two or more black-type winners from Pivotal mares have posted stakes-winner ratios far higher than their own career marks. The Banstead pair of Oasis Dream (GB) and Dansili (GB) have really impressive numbers. Moreover, as they represent two significant sire lines of Green Desert and Danehill, it makes it very easy to find a mate for a daughter of Pivotal. Oasis Dream and Dansili each have five black-type winners, from 20 and 19 runners respectively, producing excellent strike rates of 25% and 26%. Stud companion Dutch Art (GB) also has five stakes winners out of Pivotal mares, while the 29% stakes winners by Tamayuz (GB) is also very striking. In all, Pivotal’s daughters have produced 72 black-type winners so far, at a rate of 6.2%, which given his humble beginnings compares very favourably with the better broodmare sires of the day.

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