Two of the best sires and broodmare sires in recent times descend from the 1985 Irish Oaks winner Helen Street. The Major Dick Hern-trained Ballymacoll homebred didn’t produce her best runner until her tenth foal, when her Machiavellian colt Street Cry proved topclass on dirt, winning the Dubai World Cup and Stephen Foster Handicap.
Five years earlier, Helen Street had produced Street Cry’s Listed-placed ownsister Helsinki, who found fame as the dam of Shamardal, the Dewhurst Stakes winner who trained on to win the Poule d’Essai des Poulains and Prix du Jockey-Club ahead of annexing the York-staged St James’s Palace Stakes.
Both Street Cry and Shamardal were unqualified successes at stud. For Street Cry, all you need to know is that he sired two of international racing’s iconic fillies in Zenyatta and Winx, who won 56 races between them including 39 at the highest level. Shamardal, meanwhile, has sired 29 Group/Grade 1 winners in an exceptional career that produced his latest top-flight winner this year in the shape of Falmouth Stakes heroine Cinderella’s Dream.
Shamardal has delivered 147 stakes winners at a top-class rate of 12.5 per cent from his northern hemisphere-foaled runners, pride of place going to his equally effective sire son Lope De Vega, plus Blue Point (Timeform 131) and Pinatubo (Timeform 134), his two truly top-class runners both of whom are in the process of building their own reputations as sires.
To this point in time, Shamardal’s maleline descendants are already responsible for 35 Group/Grade 1 winners, also including those in the southern hemisphere. In the year to date, Belardo has two Group/Grade 1 scorers in Fiach McHugh (Hong Kong) and Romanoff (New Zealand) while Caballo De Mare gave Phoenix Of Spain a first top-tier winner when winning the Prix du Cadran in October. Their sire, meanwhile, is having a quieter year than usual at the top level, his three Group/Grade 1 winners coming in Australia (Arapaho), the US (Carl Spackler) and France (Consent). That said, Lope De Vega remains one of the most prodigious sources of Group and stakes horses anywhere in the world, having sired 66 during 2025, the most of any northern hemisphere stallion.
As a broodmare sire, Shamardal is still very much active, and based on what his daughters have achieved so far, the son of Giant’s Causeway is certainly among the elite sires or mares. Only Sea The Stars (7.9 per cent) among active sires has surpassed his seven per cent stakes winners from his daughters’ runners foaled in the northern hemisphere. Even the great Galileo (8.2 per cent) is not that far ahead of him. And compared with one of the best European broodmare sires of the past 40 years in Darshaan, who scores 9.1 per cent stakes winners, Shamardal’s metrics still look impressive. Moreover, when we run the same rule over his elite daughters, his percentage of stakes winners climbs to 13.4 per cent, which puts him ahead of Galileo’s 12.5 per cent, Sea The Stars’s 12.7 per cent and closest to Darshaan’s 15.5 per cent.
In all, Shamardal has amassed 18 Group/ Grade 1 winners worldwide as a broodmare sire and this year his daughters have delivered the top-level scorers Field Of Gold (Timeform 127), Goliath (127) and Sosie (122), plus Ceowulf (128) in Australia.
For his part, Street Cry was less efficient than Shamardal at converting his runners to stakes winners, but he still worked at a very high level with nine per cent stakes winners from among his Northern hemisphere foals and 8.7 per cent from his Australian progeny. The similarities between Street Cry’s output in each hemisphere is striking in that Winx had a Timeform rating of 134 and Zenyatta achieved a high of 131. His best ten American horses also produced an average Timeform rating of 123.3 compared to the 122.7 for his best ten down under.
Street Cry’s first US crop, in addition to Zenyatta, delivered champion two-year-old and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner Street Sense, who the following spring became the first Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner to land the Kentucky Derby. Also in that first crop was Street Boss, a sprinter with Grade 1 wins in the Triple Bend and Bing Crosby Handicaps who went on to sire seven-time Australian Group 1 scorer Anamoe.
Thus far, Street Cry’s line has produced 57 Group/Grade 1 winners around the world, and unsurprisingly his legacy rests in both North America and Australia, his two homes while standing under the Darley banner. To get a sense of Street Cry’s achievements, we need only look at the nine 2025 Group/Grade 1 winners from his own male line.
In America, Street Sense sired La Cara to win the Ashland and Acorn Stakes, while Street Sense’s son McKinzie was responsible for Pennsylvania Derby winner Baeza and CCA Oaks heroine Scottish Lassie. Meanwhile in Australia, Street Boss found another potential star in Coolmore Stud Stakes winner Tentyris and also sired Another Wil to win the CF Orr Stakes. Then Street Cry’s son Pride Of Dubai gave us Tancred Stakes winner Dubai Honour and Empire Rose scorer Pride Of Jenni, while another Street Cry son, Per Incanto, delivered triple Group 1 winner Jimmystar and George Ryder scorer Gringotts.
As we have seen with his sire metrics, Street Cry’s current stakes-winner strikerates in the north and south in his roleas a broodmare sire are also very similar. His daughters produce 6.4 per cent stakes winners from among their northern hemisphere-foaled runners, and 6.5 per cent from their runners foaled in the southern hemisphere.
Just like his nephew Shamardal, Street Cry’s elite mares really step up to the plate, delivering an impressive 13.1 per cent stakes winners from the northern hemisphere runners and very pleasing 8.4 per cent in the south.
Street Cry’s Group/Grade 1 roll of honour as a broodmare sire is one of the most impressive you will find anywhere, and the 2025 members of that cast are an international who’s who of racing greats. The thoroughly admirable and consistent Rebel’s Romance and Hong Kong star Romantic Warrior head the list. Then we have Rosehill Guineas and multiple Group 1-winning two-year-old Broadsiding, plus star three-year-old filly Treasurethe Moment, who picked up three Group 1s in 2025, and Golden Rose Stakes scorer Beiwacht. Spring Champion Stakes winner Attica, Tattersall’s Tiara scorer Tashi, plus All-Star Mile winner Tom Kitten are other Group 1 winners of note.
Street Cry also delivers as a sire of broodmare sires with Street Sense mares producing the Grade 1 winners Mindframe and Good Cheer in the US and Northerly Stakes winner Cosmic Crusader in Australia. To cap it all off, Street Cry’s Per Incanto is broodmare sire of that sprinter extraordinaire, Ka Ying Rising, currently the world’s top rated speedster.
