SPENDTHRIFT Farm’s Yaupon (Uncle Mo) and Tally-Ho Stud’s Starman (Dutch Art) were both born in 2017 and were unraced at two, but yet are the leaders in the USA and Europe with their first crops of racing age in 2025. Both horses raced eight times, produced their best results at the age of four, and have shown that precociousness in sires does not require them to be early types at two themselves.

Yaupon stretched to seven furlongs once to win the Grade 1 Forego Stakes at Saratoga, but his other five victories were gained over six furlongs, including the Grade 2 Amsterdam Stakes at Saratoga and the Grade 3 Chick Lang Stakes at Pimlico. Meanwhile Starman, who won five of his eight starts, raced almost exclusively over six, though he went half a furlong more to finish third in the Group 1 Prix Maurice de Gheest at Deauville, and he would have been the winner had the race been over six!

Starman won on his first three visits to the racecourse, including a listed race at York, and on his final start that season appeared to have his limitations exposed when he was tested in Group 1 company in the British Champions Sprint at Ascot, finishing 14th of the 16 runners, with less than 10 lengths covering the entire field. Starman was slowly into his stride that day. His four-year-old season showed how much he progressed and he ended it as the champion older sprinter in Europe.

His first run of the season saw Starman win the Group 2 Duke of York Stakes and two months later he showed his true class to land the Group 1 July Cup against 18 opponents, winning impressively by more than a length. Starman made two more starts, the race at Deauville and the Group 1 Haydock Sprint Cup. In the latter he was denied a short head by Emaraaty Ana, just failing to catch the winner after eating up the ground in the last furlong.

There is probably no finer judge of stallion talent than Tony O’Callaghan, and he was quick to secure Starman for stud duties, much to the delight of the colt’s owner/breeder David Ward. A setback before the British Champion Sprint, and the restrictions imposed by Covid at the time, precluded Starman from racing again after Haydock, but racing’s loss has been breeding’s gain.

Now we are waiting to see what fee will be set for Starman in 2026. He retired to stud at €17,500, falling to €15,000 in year two, but breeders have been enjoying a bonanza for the past two seasons, being able to use him for €10,000. The question for next year is how many multiples of that will he go to? Yaupon stood his first two seasons at $30,000, the recent two at $25,000, and now he will command $60,000 in the spring.

Flying high

What has Yaupon done to warrant this increase? He currently outpoints Starman in one respect, having sired six stakes winners to his peers’ five. However, none of Yaupon’s blacktype performers, nine in total, have earned any of it at graded stakes level. In this regard, Starman flies high, with 11 stakes performers, a Group 1 winner in Venetian Sun, Group 2 winner and Group 1-placed Green Sense, two Group 3 winners in Lady Iman and North Coast (runs tonight at Del Mar), recent stakes winner Leading Dancer, while four of his six winners who earned small blacktype did so in group races.

Intriguingly, Yaupon’s yearling average and median this year fell from that achieved by his first crop, while Starman’s has rocketed in the opposite direction.

Starman’s first crop average and median were the equivalent of €47,704 and €26,088, while this year’s comparative numbers are €118,123 and €79,158. Watch out for the strong demand for Starman’s foals at the upcoming sales. He has 23 at Goffs and just three in Newmarket.

BRIAN Haggas, a noted businessman and successful owner, died a year ago. He was the father of trainer William, and quite the character it would seem.

From what I have read about Brian, I wish I had met him. He was forthright, apparently hard to please (he was a Yorkshireman), but very loyal and with a sense of humour.

While he had experienced success via his mother’s involvement with racing as a flat and National Hunt owner, and through his own and his wife’s ownership exploits, it appears that nothing gave him as much pleasure as breeding a good horse did. It is fitting therefore that, almost to the day of his first anniversary, a great favourite among the horses he bred, Hamish (Motivator), took his tally of wins to 15, and at the great age of nine.

The story of Haggas’s involvement with Hamish starts with the purchase in 1994 of a yearling at the Tattersalls Houghton Sale for 16,000gns by his trainer son. However, the filly, subsequently named Frog (Akarad), was put in training instead with Sir Mark Prescott, with whom Brian Haggas enjoyed a near half-century association and deep friendship.

Frog went on to win five times, in a three-week period at three, having failed to even get close to being placed in four juvenile runs. Three of those five wins were at odds-on.

Stakes winners

Frog had 11 foals at stud, all of whom made it to the races. Eight of them won, and three were stakes winners. Beaten Up (Beat Hollow) started his career with William Haggas and won his first three starts, beating Al Kazeem to capture the Group 3 St Simon Stakes. He was then sent to Chris Waller in Australia, with Brian and later William Haggas retaining an interest, and won the Group 1 Doomben Cup.

Beaten Up was a year younger than Harris Tweed (Hernando), named after a business Brian Haggas owned, and his seven wins were headlined by success in the Group 3 John Porter Stakes, while an equally-rated run was finishing second in the Group 2 Hardwicke Stakes. The third stakes winner for Frog was the filly Vow (Motivator), though she was sold as a yearling for 60,000gns to John Warren.

Cleverly, Highclere Thoroughbred’s Harry Herbert put her in training with William Haggas – he knew the family intimately after all – and she gained what was to prove a very valuable piece of blacktype when scoring in the Listed Oaks Trial Stakes at Lingfield. She ran fourth in the Oaks, behind Was, Shirocco Star and The Fugue, and beating Maybe. Vow sold as a four-year-old for 600,000gns, 10 times her original cost.

Consecutive years

Harris Tweed, Beaten Up and Vow were born in consecutive years, and followed by Tweed (Sakhee). That mare only raced three times, all in the space of three weeks.

Tweed won her first two starts, at Newcastle and a runaway success at Newmarket, and started at odds of 2/13 in a three-runner handicap on the all-weather at Wolverhampton, but was beaten a neck. She was off to stud after that, and her first foal was Hamish.

There are few more durable and loved horses in training, and the nine-year-old will continue to race on at the age of 10, according to Maureen Haggas. Look at the gelding’s stats. His 15 wins comprise 12 stakes wins, nine at Group 3 level. He won the St Simon Stakes and the Ormonde Stakes twice, while his eight placed efforts include running second last year to Luxembourg in the Group 1 Coronation Cup, beaten a length.

Three years ago, Hamish put it up to Kyprios in the Group 1 Irish St Leger, closing him down to finish three-parts of a length behind in second place. Last year, Hamish rounded out his year by taking the runner-up spot to Goliath in the Group 2 Prix Conseil de Paris, going down by half a length, and running out a five-length winner of a listed race at the Curragh. He has won £966,585. There must be some award that Hamish can claim for his efforts.