FIRST Defence (Unbridled’s Song) has enjoyed plenty of success as a broodmare sire, and Juddmonte has had a particular association with him. After all, they bred him, raced him, and most of his best winners also carried their colours.

After just eight seasons at Juddmonte Farm in Kentucky, it was announced in September 2016 that the Grade 1 Forego Handicap winner First Defence had been sold to continue his stallion career in Saudi Arabia at Haif Stud. At the time he had sired the 2014 champion older mare Close Hatches and seven other blacktype winners, including Group 3 Acomb Stakes winner Dundonnell, French Group 3 juvenile winner Antonoe, and multiple Grade 3 winner Irish Jasper.

First Defence is out of the Grade 1 winner Honest Lady (Seattle Slew), a half-sister to Grade 1 winners and successful sires Empire Maker (Unbridled) and Chester House (Mr Prospector). His grandam Toussaud (El Gran Senor) is also a Grade 1 winner and a renowned matriarch, as she also produced a fourth Grade 1 winner in Chiselling (Woodman), and the Grade 2 winner Decarchy (Distant View) who was runner-up in a Grade 1.

Trained by Bobby Frankel on behalf of Juddmonte Farms, who also saddled all of his outstanding siblings, First Defence won six of 14 starts, and was a top-class sprinter who won graded stakes on the dirt and turf. His best performance was taking the Grade 1 Forego Handicap by almost seven lengths at Saratoga, and he was second in the Grade 1 King’s Bishop Stakes. When he sold to Saudi Arabia, he was considered to have been just moderately successful as a stallion, in spite of siring a champion.

Connections might have wondered about the wisdom of selling First Defence a few years later. His final crop conceived in the USA included Juddmonte’s Group 1 Phoenix Stakes winner Siskin, and she followed up the next season by winning the Group 1 Irish 1000 Guineas. Group 2 winner Tilsit was also in that crop, and he was beaten a head in the Group 1 Prix d’Ispahan. Meanwhile, Antonoe went on to race in the USA where, in 2017, she won the Grade 1 Just A Game Stakes at Belmont.

Quality performers

As this was happening, daughters of First Defence were themselves

beginning to produce quality performers, none more prominent than Idiomatic (Curlin), twice a champion and a four-time Grade 1 heroine. She is now among the broodmare band at Juddmonte. Another Grade 1 winner from one of his daughters was the 2021 Hollywood Derby hero Beyond Brilliant (Twirling Candy). Tacitus (Tapit), a multiple Grade 2 winner who was three times runner-up in Grade 1s, is yet another and is at stud in Kentucky.

That record of two Grade 1 winners out of daughters of First Defence doubled at the weekend, in the space of 24 hours, and in quite a spectacular fashion. The three-year-old Salamis (Speightstown) won the Grade 1 Hollywood Derby, and then his year-older half-sister Segesta (Ghostzapper) finally got the Grade 1 victory she deserved in the Matriarch Stakes, also at Del Mar. a race Juddmonte was winning for the eighth time. They are both out of Grade 1 winner Antonoe, quickly elevated into the realms of outstanding broodmares.

Mind you, Antonoe’s start at stud was far from ideal. Her first foal, Parade Square (War Front), never raced, and Juddmonte sold her second, Catmint (Kitten’s Joy), for $40,000 as a three-year-old, having placed once in three starts. R. Townsend Sparks now races her, and she won three times last year and placed again in 2025. She is the most successful runner to carry his colours, but I imagine she will soon appear in new ownership, given that she is a winning half-sister to two Grade 1 winners.

Race or retire

It will be interesting to see if Juddmonte continues to race Segesta or head to stud with her. Last year she was runner-up in the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks, and this year occupied the same position in the Grade 1 First Lady Stakes, beaten a neck. Her Matriarch win took her earnings well over $1 million. Her half-brother Salamis will race on, and he won Belmont’s Gio Ponti Stakes before his Hollywood Derby victory.

The rise of Antonoe is unlikely to stop now. She has an unraced two-year-old filly Directive (Gun Runner), and a yearling filly by Speightstown (Gone West). She was covered by Justify (Scat Daddy) this year. Antonoe was born in the same year that Juddmonte sold her dam Ixora (Dynaformer) for $100,000, after which she went to South Africa to Klawervlei Stud. She has had eight winners in all, Antonoe being her star.

It will hopefully be a long career in the paddocks for Antonoe, and she has eclipsed the achievements of just about every member of her family with two Grade 1 winners. However, she has some way to go to match the quantity of winners bred by the mares in her dam line. Ixora had eight, her dam Imroz (Nureyev) produced nine, third dam All At Sea (Riverman) got ‘just’ seven, while the fourth dam, Lost Virtue (Cloudy Dawn) bred nine.

This is a very happening female family, as you might realise from some of the names above. Space will not allow me to mention all of the 13 Group/Grade 1 winners in it, but prominent among them is none other than Ombudsman (Night Of Thunder).