Power of Juddmonte families on display at Ascot

Any owner would be forgiven for thinking that deep pockets are needed to play at Royal Ascot given the number of runners who changed hands privately in the weeks leading up to the meeting, culminating in the very public £2 million acquisition of Ghostwriter by Kia Joorabchian’s Amo Racing at the Goffs London Sale. Yet when it came down to it, Royal Ascot happily again lent itself to a melting pot of winners, with independent owner-breeders, bargain hunters and smaller stallion farms revelling in success alongside the traditional heavy weights.

For instance, it cost no more than £3,500 this season to use either Massaat or Washington DC, who earned their Group 1 breakthroughs on Tuesday courtesy of Docklands (Queen Anne Stakes) and American Affair (King Charles III Stakes). Docklands cost just £16,000 as a yearling, when bought by Blandford Bloodstock, while those working the 2023 Tattersalls Ireland September Sale would have most likely come across the future Royal Ascot Group 1 winners Cercene and Time For Sandals, who between them cost €50,000 and €35,000. Trainer Joseph Murphy has been a stalwart of the Irish training ranks for around 50 years and by his own admission, it was Cercene’s diminutive stature that allowed him to pick her up for inexpensively from her breeder China Horse Club. But this well-related filly wouldn’t be the first from her family to be on the smaller side and the stockman in Murphy obviously saw something in the daughter of Australia; nearly two years on and connections are in possession of a Coronation Stakes winner.

Her win continued a hot June for Australia following Lambourn’s win in the Derby. The Coolmore stallion now sits in third on the leading British and Irish sires’ list – ahead of various heavyweights including Frankel, Wootton Bassett and Dubawi – which must be music to the ears of the breeders who used the son of Galileo this season at a new career low fee of €10,000. He also continues to show himself in a good light as a broodmare sire, which again came to the fore at Royal Ascot by the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes winner Lazzat.

He leads the way among the European second-crop sires, a bright spot in what is otherwise a generally underwhelming generation of stallions

If Australia was good value this season, then the same must be said for Ballyhane Stud’s Sands Of Mali, whose first crop continues to make a good impression. Commonwealth Cup heroine Time For Sandals, bred by Ballyhane, is the leading light of his first crop. However, she is far from being the only smart representative, with last year’s Windsor Castle Stakes winner Ain’t Nobody and recent Ballycorus Stakes winner Copacabana Sands among those to suggest that his 2025 fee of €5,000 was a steal. As such, he leads the way among the European second-crop sires, a bright spot in what is otherwise a generally underwhelming generation of stallions. He’s certainly an interesting horse going forward due to his background – by the Miswaki stallion Panis and out of a mare by Indian Rocket, he appeals as a potentially important outcross. Having said that, Time For Sandals is inbred 3×3 to Miswaki; interestingly, one of Panis’ best horses, the fast Group 3 winner Out Of Time, is also closely inbred to the stallion.

Other winners such as Gstaad, whose dam Mosa Mine was bought for just £800 by breeder Kelly Thomas, should also provide heart to smaller operators. Mosa Mine first came to prominence as the dam of top two-year-old Vandeek and judging by his win in the Coventry Stakes, Gstaad won’t be long in emulating his sibling’s success at the top level.

Regardless of value or source, a number of the week’s winners were supported by a strong back line. For instance, various Juddmonte families popped up with regularity led by that belonging to Chain Store, who is the fourth dam of Fiona Carmichael’s unbeaten Queen’s Vase winner Carmers and fifth dam of Palace Of Holyroodhouse Handicap winner Adrestia. Danehill’s dam Razyana is also ancestress of the Kensington Palace Handicap winner Miss Information while Mofida, one of Juddmonte’s earliest foundation mares, is the ancestress of Ascot Stakes hero Ascending. 

Godolphin’s popular homebred Rebel’s Romance, who landed his 15th stakes race in the Hardwicke Stakes, is also one of 24 stakes winners worldwide inbred to Juddmonte blue hen Slightly Dangerous.

A Juddmonte background is also key to Ombudsman, who took another step up the ladder for John and Thady Gosden with his impressive win in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot. The Night Of Thunder colt only made his debut last summer and has made giant strides since, with last year’s Group 3 Prix Prince d’Orange also among his five wins.

It took a bid of 340,000gns for Anthony Stroud to buy Ombudsman from his breeder James Hanly at Book 2 of the 2022 Tattersalls October Sale. At the time, Hanly remarked that he ‘should put up a statue of Night Of Thunder’ such was the financial contribution of the stallion’s stock to the stud that October. And in the case of Ombudsman, the reward was particularly sizeable given that his dam Syndicate, for whom he is only the second foal, had cost the breeder just 25,000gns as a three-year-old.

Syndicate had won once in the Juddmonte colours for Ralph Beckett off a rating of 78 as a two-year-old at Southwell. Hanly sent her to John Feane and the daughter of Dansili added further to her record by winning off 68 at Ffos Las in the autumn of her four-year-old campaign.

Despite her inexpensive price tag, Syndicate hails from one of Juddmonte’s best families as a great-granddaughter of the multiple Group 1 winner All At Sea, a daughter of Juddmonte foundation mare Lost Virtue.

Lost Virtue wasn’t a young mare when she joined Juddmonte Farms in November 1986. She had failed to make the track and was by a nondescript sire in Cloudy Dawn. But she was out of a half-sister to the iconic American runner Damascus and come 1986, the then ten-year-old was herself adding to the family as the dam of two smart horses, American Listed winner Full Virtue and French Group 3 winner Over The Ocean, to a pair of average stallions in Full Out and Super Concorde. 

Offered at the 1986 Keeneland November Sale in foal to Topsider just months after Over The Ocean had run second in the Prix d’Harcourt, Lost Virtue joined Juddmonte on a bid of $375,000, quite an advance on her previous valuation of $37,000 six years previously but a figure that would come to represent value with the benefit of hindsight.

Lost Virtue’s second living foal for Juddmonte was the Riverman filly All At Sea, trained by Sir Henry Cecil to win the Prix du Moulin and run second in the Oaks. Two years later she foaled Quandary, a Listed winner by Blushing Groom now regarded as an important mare in her own right. 

Since then, other branches of the Lost Virtue family have been successful in different hands including James Tafel, the breeder of her champion great-granddaughter Banshee Breeze, and Northern Farm, breeder of fellow Grade 1-winning descendant Yoshida.

However, this is a family that is now very much associated with Juddmonte. 

The Quandary branch has provided the operation with champion Twice Over as well as the Group 1-winning siblings Timepiece and Passage Of Time, whose son Cosmic Year ran a recent third in the Irish 2,000 Guineas. Passage Of Time is also the dam of Time Test.

In the case of Ombudsman, he descends from Lost Virtue via All At Sea and her daughter Insinuate. 

All At Sea was one of the leading fillies of 1992, her versatility illustrated by the fact that her win in the Prix du Moulin followed placed efforts in the Juddmonte International and Oaks, in which she succumbed only to the superior staying power of User Friendly.

For whatever reason, All At Sea was comparatively disappointing at stud, returning two stakes horses in the lightly-raced Listed scorer Insinuate and Grade 2-placed Imroz out of ten foals. However, both have contributed to the family’s fortunes at stud; Imroz as the granddam of Group/Grade 1 winners Mutual Trust and Antonoe and Insinuate as the dam of stakes winners Stronghold (Supreme Stakes), Convey (Winter Derby) and Take The Hint (Pretty Polly Stakes). 

Stronghold and Convey were sons of Danehill and Dansili respectively and that affinity with Danehill blood has carried over in the case of Insinuate’s daughter Indication, who was trained by John Gosden to win an extended 1m1f maiden at Wolverhampton. At stud, the daughter of Sadler’s Wells was sent exclusively to Danehill-line horses including Juddmonte’s own Dansili, a pairing which yielded Italian Group 3 winner Runnymede and Feilden Stakes winner Stipulate. Syndicate, also by Dansili, is one of five fillies out of the mare but so far the only stakes producer.

Still relatively young at 11-years-old, Syndicate has turned into quite the moneyspinner for Ballyhimikin. Ombudsman, himself the eighth top lot during the second session of that Book 2 sale, is followed by a two-year-old full-sister who sold for 900,000gns to SackvilleDonald at last year’s Tattersalls October Book 1 Sale. The mare also has a yearling filly by Ten Sovereigns.

Ombudsman’s Group 1 breakthrough goes a little way to softening the notion that his sire Night Of Thunder is a superior producer of fillies. He is Night Of Thunder’s eighth winner at the top level, of which six – including this year’s 1,000 Guineas heroine Desert Flower and the American Grade 1 scorers Choisya and Dynamic Pricing – are fillies. Last year’s Irish Champion Stakes winner Economics, missing so far this season, is his other male Group 1 winner. 

This is the year in which Night Of Thunder’s first €75,000 crop turned three and it shows. He currently has a sizeable lead at the top of the British and Irish sires’ table with earnings of over £2.5 million to his credit and is second to only Wootton Bassett on the European standings. Nor are Desert Flower and Ombudsman the only important current flagbearers since his ten European stakes winners so far this year also include the exciting stakes-winning fillies Sunly and Estrange, both of whom look capable of holding their own at the top level. 

Don’t bet against him retaining his lead in the British and Irish sires’ championship.