Good Morning Bloodstock on Oasis Dream

Aisling Crowe from the Racing Post looks at the reasons why Oasis Dream is such good value at £15,000.

Taken from The Racing Post's Good Morning Bloodstock, 14th February 2024, by Aisling Crowe:

Oasis Dream probably bends the parameters of the Good Morning Bloodstock series in that he's not underrated, although I think he may be a little overlooked these days because younger, flashier horses have come along to capture the attention and headlines. For me, Oasis Dream, at the fee he now stands for, definitely represents value as a proven source of elite performers and top-class racehorses.

What other stallion who has sired 18 individual Group 1 winners from a total of 66 Group winners and 134 black-type winners costs £15,000? He has a stakes winners-to-runners strike-rate of nine per cent during his career, which is a pretty impressive statistic when you consider that he now is the sire of 1,928 foals and 18 crops of racing age.

Oasis Dream has more than proven himself and for a young mare starting off her career, you want an established stallion. Juddmonte has just the horse for the job, at a fee now that places him within the reach of more breeders. At £15,000, it is the lowest price he has ever been available, having started off his career at £25,000 and reaching a peak of £85,000 in 2011, 2012 and 2014. His age, 24, is obviously a factor for a variety of reasons, but he has 93 two-year-olds and 78 yearlings registered. Last year he covered 89 mares. Naturally, his schedule and books are going to be managed carefully to give Oasis Dream the best opportunities possible and with his best interests in mind. I think his age also makes it almost a case of now or never because there are going to be only a limited number of years left to use him.

The scope of his offspring's success is quite wide, with his Group 1 winners including a Champion two-year-old in Native Trail, juvenile Group 1 winners such as Arcano, Charming Thought, NaAqoos and Pretty Pollyanna, Classic victors like Native Trail and Power, middle-distance stars such as Midday and Royal Ascot sprinters like Muhaarar, Goldream and Prohibit, among others.

He's clearly a source of speed which, if we are taking a note of market dictates at all, should be a positive for Oasis Dream. He's also a source of precocity given the sheer number of juvenile stakes winners he has sired in addition to the Group 1 winners mentioned above, but he is also the fountainhead of durability, which is one of the main attributes of Oasis Dream that so impresses me. One example is the four-year-old Marbaan, who was second in the Group 2 Zabeel Mile in early January. At two he won the Group 2 Vintage Stakes and last season was placed in the Lennox Stakes and Salisbury Stakes. Even better is Miqyaas, who won the Group 2 Blue Point Sprint last February at the age of eight.

Midday, who was a superstar for Juddmonte and Oasis Dream, won the last of her Group 1s at the age of five. Oasis Dream clearly and comprehensively sires tough horses who compete over a variety of distances and trips, retaining the ability to race and remain competitive over lengthy careers. It's the type of horse I aspire to breed.

Champion two-year-old, the highlights of his own racing career for Juddmonte and John Gosden were Group 1 triumphs in the July Cup, Nunthorpe and Middle Park Stakes. He was also second in the Sprint Cup and third in the King's Stand. The son of Green Desert therefore was a truly top-class sprinter, but his progeny's winning distance averages out at approximately a mile. He seems to replicate Green Desert's ability to inject pace into staying mares but, as a study of his offspring shows, can sire champion two-year-olds and brilliant middle-distance runners. That's probably the influence of his female line, which has to be one of the most potent stallion-producing families currently in Juddmonte's Green Book. He's a half-brother to the Poule d'Essai des Pouliches winner Zenda, dam of Kingman, who stands alongside his 'uncle' at Banstead Manor.

His dam, Hope, is a Dancing Brave full-sister to Irish Oaks heroine Wemyss Bight, who is the dam of triple Group 1 winner, Derby third and classy dual-purpose sire Beat Hollow. Hope's Sadler's Wells half-sister Trellis Bay was Listed-placed and her Listed-winning daughter Cinnamon Bay is the dam of Prix du Jockey Club winner and Ballylinch sire New Bay, another stallion I like enormously. Then there is Coraline, also by Sadler's Wells, and the dam of Group 1 winner Reefscape and the Group 2 winners Coastal Path and Martaline, who became a brilliant sire of National Hunt horses in France.

Oasis Dream's second dam Bahamian, by Mill Reef, won the Listed Lingfield Oaks Trial and was second in the Prix de Pomone and Park Hill Stakes, both Group 2 contests. Directly descended from her are seven individual Group 1 winners and seven stallions who have sired top-level winners in one or both codes. It's that concentration of quality in the family that is so remarkable. Stallions and sirelines are one thing, but broodmare sires and female families are vital elements in a stallion and it's something that I place huge importance upon when attempting to assess a stallion. There aren't many female families better than that of Oasis Dream, especially at this price point.

Last year his foals averaged £37,650 for seven sold from eight offered, bred on an advertised fee of £20,000. That average was remarkably similar to 2022, when it was £37,195 for 12 sold from 15 offered and, again, his fee was £20,000. In 2021, when Native Trail was blazing a trail across the season to champion two-year-old honours, his foal sale average was £48,941 for 15 sold from 16 offered. His fee in 2020 was £25,000.

His yearling sale average in 2021 was £81,522 for 57 sold from 64 offered and they were bred off a £30,000 fee. In 2022 he returned a yearling average of £51,904 for 32 sold from 39 offered, with the covering fee at £25,000. Last autumn saw an increase in his yearling sale average to £55,733 for 50 sold from 58 offered, and at a fee of £20,000.

And then there is his record as a broodmare sire, which places a premium on nicely bred daughters of Oasis Dream, meaning you probably won't be disappointed if you breed a filly by him. Last year alone there were seven individual Group 1 winners out of Oasis Dream mares and their successes ranged from Quickthorn (by Nathaniel) in the Goodwood Cup to Big Evs (Blue Point) in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint.

There is every likelihood of more to come as Big Evs wasn't the only exciting juvenile of 2023 with Oasis Dream as his damsire. Mill Reef winner Array is out of Frankel's half-sister Joyeuse, Group 2 Prix du Calvados winner and Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac third Les Pavots is a half-sister to Group 1 winner Sir Dragonet, while Atlantic Coast won the Group 3 Killavullan Stakes and there's Redcar Two-Year-Old Trophy winner Dragon Leader.

Array, Les Pavots and Dragon Leader are all by sons of Scat Daddy, and Oasis Dream is also the broodmare sire of Sioux Nation, Scat Daddy's Phoenix Stakes winner who has made such a promising start to his stud career with his first two crops and is consequently one of the busiest stallions in Ireland. He's also the broodmare sire of Caravaggio's Diana Stakes winner Whitebeam. His success as a broodmare sire with Scat Daddy line stallions would suggest to me it's worth trying the reverse of the cross.

As a broodmare sire he has 29 per cent stakes winners to runners with Teofilo, including Group 1 winners Nations Pride, Tawkeel and Twilight Payment, so if I wasn't sending a Teofilo mare to Awtaad, I'd go to Oasis Dream to reverse the cross. Interestingly, there has been only one runner by Oasis Dream out of a mare by Bated Breath, but it's a winner. The reverse cross has ten per cent stakes winners to runners, so I think I'd be going there with my Bated Breath mare.

Oasis Dream is one of the most accomplished stallions at stud in Europe and, at £15,000, has to rate as probably the best value sire on the market in Britain.