Who’s the daddy? Top ten greatest sires of the last 100 years (part two)
Nancy Sexton ranks the stallions who have left the most indelible mark in the last 100 years. Today she ranks them in order from the top five.
Northern Dancer was a game changer in the horse racing industry. He won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Queen's Plate at the age of three. His foals were bred to great success at Windfields Farm, Canada and at Coolmore. He also sired The Minstrel, El Gran Senor, Northern Trick, Secreto and Sadler’s Wells. The latter rewrote the record books at his time at coolmore, breeding G1 winners. In 1985, breeders were paying up to $950,000 to secure his services at 25.
Pharos sired Pharos, which is responsible for Native Dancer, Buckpasser, Brigadier Gerard and Shergar. Nearco was a product of Federico Tesio's Premio Dormello. Tesios sold Near co to Martin Benson at Beech House Stud in Newmarket. Nearc is the sire of close to 90 stakes winners in total, including Derby winners Dante and Nimbus.
Sadler's Wells was a successful breeding stallion from 1981 to 2008. He won 14 champion sires' titles and sired 73 G1 scorers, including Derby winners Galileo and High Chaparral. His first crop contained the 1988 Dewhurst Stakes dead-heaters Prince Of Dance and Scenic. Sadler’s Wells can be credited with rejuvenating the breeding industry in Europe. He also stood Montjeu, the sire of 31 G 1 winners including Camelot and High Chaparra, and El Prado, a champion in North America.
Native Dancer was a champion racehorse of the 1950s and 1960s. He won all of his 22 starts for Alfred G. Vanderbilt except for the Kentucky Derby. Native Dancers was also a successful sire of many successful horses. His descendants include Raise A Native, a sires of Fappiano, Forty Niner, Gone West, Gulch, Kingmambo, Miswaki, Seeking The Gold, Smart Strike and Woodman.
Galileo won 12 British and Irish sires’ championships and has over 20 G1-producing sons at stud led by Khalid Abdullah”s unbeaten champion Frankel. He also boasts 40 G 1 winners as a damsire. Tuesday landed the Oaks. Magical Lagoon became his 96th G-1 winner altogether in the Irish Oaks and he was the champion three-year-old colt of 2001 for the Coolmore partners.
