Too Darn Hot at the forefront of first-crop Classic success
Plus Bound for Nowhere returns a winner at 10
By Frances J. Karon
Too Darn Hot in name, too darn hot in nature
Godolphin’s sophomore stallion Too Darn Hot, a son of Dalham Hall’s flagship stallion Dubawi, is en fuego, with two individual Classic winners from his first crop of 3-year-olds after his daughters Fallen Angel and Darnation won the G1 Irish 1000 Guineas and G2 German 1000 Guineas, respectively, on Saturday, both for trainer Karl Burke.
Fallen Angel, the Irish Classic winner, is one of four winners from as many foals out of Group 2 winner Agnes Stewart (Lawman), and she’s 5x4 to Delsy (the third dam of Too Darn Hot and the dam of Darshaan, the grandsire of Fallen Angel’s second dam, who’s by his son Dalakhani). Fallen Angel’s sire and dam are both inbred to dual Derby winner Shirley Heights, so she has that stallion four times within her first six generations.
FALLEN ANGEL (2021 Too Darn Hot – Agnes Stewart, by Lawman)
B: Branton Court Stud
O: Clipper Logistics
T: Karl Burke
Record: 6-4-1-0, £48,025 and €526,000 (total in USD: $628,306)
Highest achievement: Classic winner
Last Auction Price: none
Darnation, meanwhile, is—like her sire—bred on the tried-and-true Dubawi/Sadler’s Wells cross (with Sadler’s Wells 5x3). Among the 13 Grade/Group 1 winners on the cross are Modern Games, Ghaiyyath, and Night of Thunder, in addition to Too Darn Hot, of course. Claiborne’s second-crop sire Demarchelier, a Grade 3 winner, is another representative of the cross.
DARNATION (2021 Too Darn Hot – Monday Monday, by Galileo)
B: Newton Anner Stud
O: Newton Anner Stud
T: Karl Burke
Record: 7-4-0-1, £119,548 and €70,000 (total in USD: $237,948)
Highest achievement: G2 Classic winner
Last Auction Price: none
Along with his group-winning full siblings Lah Ti Dar and So Mi Dar, Too Darn Hot is one of 17 Dubawi-line stakes winners with a double dose of Dubawi’s own blue hen fourth dam Sunbittern (Sea Hawk II), most commonly found elsewhere through Sunbittern’s grandson In the Wings (Sadler’s Wells), the sire of Too Darn Hot’s broodmare sire Singspiel.
Winner of the G1 Dewhurst over 7 fur. at two and, at three, the G1 Prix Jean Prat over 7 fur. and G1 Sussex at a mile, Too Darn Hot ran second behind Phoenix of Spain (Lope de Vega) in the Irish 2000 Guineas, so Fallen Angel’s win in the fillies version of the race is a vindication of sorts.
Too Darn Hot was produced from the Group 1-winning mare Dar Re Mi, who was one of three Group 1 winners out of Aga Khan-bred Darara (Top Ville), a Group 1-winning half-sister to the influential sire Darshaan (Shirley Heights) that Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Watership Down Stud purchased for Ir£470,000 through agent Charlie Gordon-Watson in the autumn of 1994. Three of Darara’s four Group 1 winners were bred by Watership Down, who bred and raced Dar Re Mi and her three group-winning Dubawi progeny.
Among sires with first 3-year-olds this year, Too Darn Hot has more cumulative stakes winners—eight, including Southern Hemisphere Group 1 winner Broadsiding—than any other.
More first-crop Classic success to go around
A day before Too Darn Hot got his pair of Classic winners, Godolphin’s Kildangan-based fellow sophomore sire Blue Point (Shamardal)—whose six stakes winners place him second among second-crop sires behind Too Darn Hot by cumulative stakes winners, one ahead of the leading N. American stakes sire Audible (Into Mischief)—was likewise represented by a first-crop Classic winner when Rosallion, second in the 2000 Guineas in his last out, won the Irish 2000 Guineas for trainer Richard Hannon. Notably, Haatem, who finished one place behind Rosallion, is from the first-crop of Irish National Stud’s Phoenix of Spain—the horse who defeated Too Darn Hot in the Irish 2000 Guineas—for a one-two finish for the Shamardal/Giant’s Causeway sireline: Blue Point is by Shamardal, and Phoenix of Spain is by Shamardal’s son Lope de Vega.
ROSALLION (2021 Blue Point – Rosaline, by New Approach)
B: Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum
O: Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum
T: Richard Hannon
Record: 6-4-1-1, £154,683 and €518,560 (total in USD: $751,037)
Highest achievement: Classic winner
Last Auction Price: none
He may not have the deep female family of Too Darn Hot, but Blue Point was a 5-6 fur. specialist much like his broodmare sire Royal Applause—a thriving influence of speed in today’s pedigrees—with nine group wins (four Group 1, including two at Royal Ascot four days apart) within the distance range from two to five, and that turn of foot has served him well at stud. His Big Evs won the 5-fur. G1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint last year, and that colt just made his successful return to the races earlier this month, winning a listed sprint. Rosallion’s Classic win now gives Blue Point a second stakes winner over a mile after Shady Lady at two last year; both milers are out of Sadler’s Wells-line mares, while his four other stakes winners—including Raqiya, who won her first stakes, the listed Cathedral, on Saturday—are all out of Danzig-line mares.
The big winner in the aftermath of Irish Guineas weekend is Godolphin, which stands Too Darn Hot (alongside sire Dubawi) for £65,000 at Dalham Hall in England and Blue Point for €60,000 at Kildangan in Ireland, where he retired to stand alongside his sire Shamardal, who died midway through Blue Point’s first covering season.
There’s been little variety in the sires of the winners of five of the six Classics contested so far in England, France, and Ireland this year, and if you’re Godolphin, you’re not complaining. The winner of the 2000 Guineas, Notable Speech, is by Dubawi, and Dubawi is the sire of the sires of the winners of the Poule d’Essai des Poulains (won by Metropolitan, by Zarak) and Irish 1000 Guineas (Fallen Angel, by Too Darn Hot). Shamardal made his mark on the Irish 2000 Guineas (Rosallion, by son Blue Point) and Poule d’Essai des Pouliches (Rouhiya, by son Lope de Vega). While neither Zarak (at The Aga Khan Studs in France) nor Lope de Vega (Ballylinch Stud in Ireland) stand for Godolphin, their successes reflect favorably.
(Only the winner of the 1000 Guineas, Elmalka, by Kingman, did not come from either the Dubawi or Shamardal sirelines.)
First Defence making waves as a broodmare sire
First Defence, a dazzlingly well-bred son of Unbridled’s Song and Grade 1 winner Honest Lady (Seattle Slew)—a daughter of Broodmare of the Year Toussaud (El Gran Senor)—was a Grade 1-winning sprinter for breeder Juddmonte, and at stud he was a useful sire for the farm’s Kentucky branch, from where he sired six graded stakes winners in his eight crops before moving to Saudi Arabia for the 2017 breeding season.
Five of those six graded winners, including all three Grade/Group 1 winners, were Juddmonte homebreds, and among the Grade 1 winners were the fillies Close Hatches (champion and dam of Grade 2 winner/dual Classic-placed Tacitus, a Taylor Made son of Tapit with first yearlings in 2024) and Antonoe, both of whom are now graded stakes producers following Segesta’s win in the 9 fur. turf G2 Wonder Again S. at Belmont At the Big A on Memorial Day.
Trained like her dam (in her U.S. starts) by Chad Brown for Juddmonte, the lightly raced 3-year-old Segesta is the first stakes horse from four foals of racing age (including a 2-year-old colt by Speightstown) out of Antonoe, who is the sole stakes winner from her unraced Dynaformer dam Ixora. Segesta is the 102nd stakes winner for Hill ‘n’ Dale’s Ghostzapper.
First Defence has really proven his mettle; 10 of his 99 daughters with at least one foal of racing age have already produced graded stakes winners. The best of these progeny is champion Idiomatic (Curlin), whose Grade 1-placed stakes-winning dam Lockdown is a full sister to Close Hatches. There could be another big horse in the near future, as Juddmonte’s 3-year-old Batten Down (Tapit), out of Close Hatches and thus a full brother to Tacitus, broke his maiden at Churchill at the end of April and is under consideration for the Belmont by trainer Bill Mott.
Juddmonte deserves kudos for their part in furthering the Unbridled’s Song legacy, as in addition to First Defence’s exploits above, the farm also raced and stood Arrogate, who in his abbreviated stud career of three crops sired Classic winners Arcangelo (2023 Belmont) and Seize the Grey (2024 Preakness), Kentucky Oaks winner Secret Oath, and Monday’s Grade 2 Hollywood Gold Cup winner Mr. Fisk, and although none of these were bred by Juddmonte, his success came under their watch.
Bound for Nowhere a popular winner
Bound for Nowhere (The Factor), a longtime personal favorite of this writer, emerged from his annual winter break looking better than ever and had been quietly prepping at Keeneland for his 10-year-old debut, which came in a 5 1/2 fur. turf allowance optional claimer at Churchill on Saturday. With this year’s Derby- and Oaks-winning rider Brian Hernandez Jr. up, owner/trainer Wesley Ward’s entire won by three lengths to take his record to 24-10-4-3 with earnings of $1,324,206. It was Bound for Nowhere’s first start in 10 months and his first win in 22 months.
While winners at the age of 10 are rare—and becoming increasingly more rare with some racing jurisdictions no longer taking entries for horses older than nine—Bound for Nowhere is at least Ward’s second horse to win at that age after Hartsel Reed’s homebred gelding Men’s Exclusive (Exclusive Ribot) won an allowance at Santa Anita in March, 2003, and he also earned black-type later that same year. Like Bound for Nowhere, Men’s Exclusive was a Grade 2-winning millionaire.
Odds and ends: We’re not even out of May yet and already freshman sire Sergei Prokofiev (Scat Daddy), standing at Whitsbury Manor in England, has two stakes winners following Arizona Blaze’s win in the G3 Marble Hill in Ireland on Saturday. Sergei Prokofiev is also the sire of three-for-three Enchanting Empress, winner of the listed National S. last week. A $1.1 million yearling, Sergei Prokofiev was a 5.5 fur. Group 3 winner at two. His total of six 2-year-old winners, conceived on a £6,500 fee, leads all global freshman sires, with Complexity (standing at Airdrie), Earthlight (Kildangan), Hello Youmzain (Haras d’Etreham), Sands of Mali (Ballyhane), Shaman (Yeomanstown), Thousand Words (Spendthrift), and Van Beethoven (Karwin) tied for second with three winners apiece…Echo Town is the latest freshman to earn the “sire” designation after Three Echos—representing Echo Town’s trainer (Steve Asmussen) and owner (L and N Racing)—won a maiden special at Churchill on Friday. At least 34 first-crop stallions based in the U.S., England, France, Ireland, and Japan have now sired at least one winner…
The listed stakes-placed mare Reem Three (Mark of Esteem) excelled as a producer—she’s the dam of two Group 1 winners, a Group 2 winner, a Group 3 winner, two listed winners, and two stakes-placed runners—and now she’s excelling as a granddam, too. On Friday, her 3-year-old grandsons Rosallion, already a Group 1 winner last year, won the Classic Irish 2000 Guineas and Inisherin (Shamardal) won the G2 Sandy Lane S., his first black-type win. The colts are both bred on the Shamardal/Galileo cross, as their dams are by Galileo sons New Approach and Teofilo. Reem Three has an affinity for Shamardal, as her Group 3 winner Cape Byron is by him and her listed stakes winner Captain Winters is by his son Lope de Vega…Another mare to have had a good week is unraced Repeta (Broken Vow), whose 6-year-old gelding Mucho Del Oro (Mucho Macho Man) won the G3 Daytona S.—his second Grade 3—at Santa Anita on Sunday and 4-year-old stakes-winning colt Funtastic Again (Funtastic) ran a fighting second at 11-1 in the G1 Shoemaker Mile at Santa Anita on Monday. Repeta’s 2-year-old filly Reliable Source, from the first crop of Volatile (Violence), is in training at Keeneland…The much-missed Galileo was represented by the 253rd graded/group winner of his career when 3-year-old Chief Little Rock—his sire’s 374th stakes winner—won the G3 Gallinule S. on Sunday. Chief Little Rock is the ninth stakes winner, all at group level, by Galileo from a Fastnet Rock mare…Galileo’s son Ulysses, a multiple Group 1 winner, was represented by his first Group 1 winner when 4-year-old White Birch won the Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh on Sunday. White Birch defeated five-time Grade/Group 1 winner Auguste Rodin (Deep Impact), who shares a fifth dam, Fager’s Glory (Mr. Prospector), with White Birch. Ulysses stands for £9,000 at Cheveley Park Stud, which bred White Birch as well as his first three dams.