BALLYLINCH Stud sires are on fire; three in particular.

Two classic aspirants were on show at York, Juddmonte’s homebred Item (Frankel) maintaining his unbeaten career start with a comfortable win in the Group 2 Dante Stakes, while Lilt (Lope De Vega) is also unbeaten after taking the Listed Michael Seely Memorial Stakes on just her second start for owner/breeder James Wigan.

If you are wondering what the Ballylinch connection is with Item, that Andrew Balding-trained colt is the second stakes winner and first pattern winner out of a daughter of Lope De Vega (Shamardal), the Grade 1 Natalma Stakes winner Capla Temptress. Her daughter Temptable (Kingman) won the Listed Prix Matchem at Saint-Cloud last year, one of three wins that season.

Temptable and Item are the second and third offspring of Capla Temptress, the first, Cabrit (Kingman) getting his sole win in the UAE last year at the age of four. Juddmonte has used outside sires for Capla Temptress’s next two progeny, two-year-old filly Tympana (St Mark’s Basilica) and yearling filly by Dark Angel (Acclamation).

While Capla Temptress gained her Grade 1 success at two in Canada, the talented Dank (Dansili carried James Wigan’s red and blue silks to her most famous wins in the USA, Sir Michael Stoute sending her at the age of four to win the Grade 1 Beverly D Stakes as a prelude to capturing the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf at Santa Anita.

Dank is one of three Group/Grade 1 winners out of Masskana (Darshaan), who took until the ages of four and five to win in France. From an Aga Khan Studs’ family, Masskana is a daughter of the 1983 Group 1 Prix Robert Papin winner Masarika (Thatch) who went on the following spring to add the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches-French 1000 Guineas. At stud she bred a pair of pattern winners.

Belying her race record when it came to the breeding shed, Masskana came to prominence when her daughter Sulk (Selkirk) was crowned champion juvenile filly in France after winning the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac for Wigan. Five years after Sulk was born, Eagle Mountain (Rock OF Gibraltar) arrived in this world, and he gained the biggest of five wins in the Group 1 Hong Kong Cup, and was runner-up in the Derby, Champion Stakes and the Breeders’ Cup Turf.

Phenomenal

After a phenomenal 2025, Lope De Vega, sire of 25 Group 1 winners, is well on his way to yet another memorable year, and Lilt was his 23rd stakes horse in five months. Twenty-eight stakes winners were compiled last year, showing why one of the world’s best sires is well entitled to a fee of €200,000.

Another of the sires at Ballylinch on a roll is New Bay (Dubawi), as is his son and fellow sire Bayside Boy who has made a flying start to his career as a stallion. New Bay posted his third stakes winner of the month, and 27th overall, when his three-year-old son Limestone won for a third time in five starts for the partnership of Valmont, Al Shaqab Racing and Ballylinch Stud. The colt sold for 210,000gns as a yearling, though Ballylinch retained an interest.

Nine years ago the Co Kilkenny farm spent 1,000,000gns for Limestone’s dam, Modernstone (Duke Of Marmalade), and now both of her winners are blacktype, her son Lone Eagle (Galileo) having landed the Group 3 Zetland Stakes at two and run second in the Group 1 Irish Derby. Modernstone was a stakes winner in the USA.

Make waves

As soon as this column has been sent to press, it is even-money that any first-season sire number quoted will be out of date as you read this. At the time of writing, Bayside Boy continues to make waves with his runners, and his score stands at six winners from 10 runners, a figure that is mightily impressive. It comes as no surprise, given that he won the seven-furlong Group 2 Champagne Stakes at two and placed twice at Group 1 level, including third to Native Trail in the Dewhurst Stakes.

At three, Bayside Boy showed he was among the best milers of his generation when triumphant in the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on his final start. He has 85 members in his first crop, and given that he made the first of his five juvenile starts in mid-July, it must be quite a bonus and an encouragement for breeders that his stock is showing such precocity.

FOR many, John Gunther is best-known as breeder of the US Triple Crown winner Justify, a member of the final crop left by Scat Daddy (Johannesburg) following his death at the age of 11.

Gunther also had a Scat Daddy filly in that final crop, foaled in 2016, and she was retained and raced. Named Atomic Blonde, she won three times, including a stakes race on the turf at Gulfstream Park, and when she went to stud her first port of call was a covering by their own Without Parole (Frankel). The resulting colt disappointed, though he has placed, but the mare’s second did not, and he is Napoleon Solo. She now has a yearling son of Authentic

A son of Liam’s Map (Unbridled’s Song), Napoleon Solo cut little ice as a yearling, Chad Summers securing him at Keeneland for just $40,000. What a bargain that has turned out to be, as he now has winnings of more than $1.5 million after five starts, and this comes from three wins. He first came to notice when he won the Grade 1 Champagne Stakes at two, and now he has scaled a further height as winner of the second leg of the Triple Crown, the Grade 1 Preakness Stakes.

The female side of the family is European in origin, Napoleon Solo’s fourth dam being the French Group 2 winner Navratilovna (Nureyev). There are many French pattern winners in the immediate family, as well as blacktype jumpers. Atomic Blonde is out of Volver (Danehill Dancer), three times a winner and dam of seven winners. She was sold to Gunther’s Glennwood Farm for $22,000 in 2001.

Four stallions

The leading sires table currently in the USA is dominated by four stallions whose earnings this year stand at $7.5 million or more; Into Mischief, Gun Runner, Not This Time and Curlin. The first three command a $250,000 covering fee, while Curlin is 10% less. In eighth place, with progeny earnings of more than $5 million, is Lane’s End’s Liam’s Map. Guess what? You can use him for $50,000.

For that you can get, if not the most fashionable stallion at stud, then one of the most versatile.

He can sire top-class performers on turf and dirt, and rounded out his own racing career with an easy victory in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Keeneland 11 years ago.

He has a second star runner at present, Burnham Square, and he too is out of a Scat Daddy mare.