Kingman set up to shine more brightly over the next few years

In a regular EBN feature, John Boyce assesses Kingman's stats and the impact his elite books of mares will have in the next few years. 

Taken from The Boyce Report, European Bloodstock News, 6th October by John Boyce:

Cast your mind back to the spring of 2014 when we were treated to a fabulous renewal of the Gr.1 2000 Guineas, which saw Night Of Thunder prevail by a half a length from that season’s Champion Miler Kingman, with the subsequent dual Derby winner Australia a close third. Widely considered as one of the best versions of the 2000 Guineas, the race has since gathered even more lustre through the exploits of the first three in their second careers as stallions.

Of the three, it is Kingman that commands the highest fee at the present time, standing for £150,000 in 2022, ahead of the €75,000 for Night Of Thunder and the €35,000 for Australia, but all three are safely considered among the upper echelons of European sires. There is no better way to announce your arrival as a sire of note than to have a first-crop two-year-old skate home in one of Royal Ascot’s Group races, and that is exactly how Kingman was catapulted into the mainstream of elite European sires. In Royal Ascot’s premier juvenile contest, the Gr.2 Coventry Stakes, his son Calyx was an impressive winner and later that season the Andre Fabre-trained Persian King raided the Gr.3 Autumn Stakes at Newmarket, beating two subsequently very smart Ballydoyle colts in 2000 Guineas winner Magna Grecia and triple Gr.1-winning miler Circus Maximus.

By season’s end among his 24 winners, Kingman had five stakes-winning juveniles on the board also including Gr.1 Dewhurst fourth Sangarius. That was a fair effort considering the Kingmans promised so much more as three-year-olds and beyond. To put his first-year achievements in perspective, only five other sires have bettered his tally of five stakes winners this century, Fasliyev and Night Of Thunder both on seven, with Frankel, No Nay Never and Oasis Dream on six a piece.

Six years on, Kingman’s first crop has matured to include 18 stakes winners and seven Group winners produced off a fee of £55,000, with Persian King graduating to Gr.1 success in the Poule d’Essai des Poulains as a three-year-old. Remarkably, the Banstead sire’s second crop was arguably even stronger than his first, with 17 stakes winners and 12 Group winners – five more than his first, headed of course by his pièce de résistance Palace Pier.

This 600,000-guinea yearling won nine of his 11 races, featuring two renewals of the Gr.1 Prix Jacques Le Marois, plus the St James’s Palace Stakes, Queen Anne and Lockinge, all at the highest level. And his neck second to Baaeed on his career finale in the Gr.1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes now looks very good indeed.

The most recent member of that batch of foals to join the ranks of Gr.1 winners is Kinross, who has struck a rich vein of form this year as a five-year-old with a string of three consecutive victories, ending with an impressive win in the Prix de la Forêt last Sunday. Another second-crop Gr.1 scorer is Domestic Spending who was secured for 300,000gns at Tattersalls October Book 1 on behalf of Klaravich Stables and duly repaid his connections by winning four times at Gr.1 level on turf in the US.

Kingman’s third crop held up remarkably well too, producing a further 12 stakes winners, featuring eight at Group level, which again was more than he managed with his first set of runners. Moreover, he maintained his  run of at least one Gr.1 winner per crop, when the German-bred Schnell Meister scored for his Japanese owners, Sunday Racing Ltd, in the NHK Mile Cup.

After such a positive showing with his first crop, Kingman was rewarded with an outstanding book of mares in 2019 at an increased fee of £75,000. The number of elite mares covered went through the roof, almost doubling from 63 in his fourth book to 124 the following spring. And it is this crop by the son of Invincible Spirit, more than any other, that the market will expect the most from. But the early signs are very encouraging with four Group-winning juveniles already on the board – that’s almost as many as his four previous crops put together.

What’s more, they all have a progressive look to them and three carry the significant Timeform ‘p’ after their ratings. His Gr.2 Gimcrack hero Noble Style is currently rated Europe’s second best juvenile by Timeform on 119p, while the 112p-rated pair of Commissioning – winner of the Gr.2 Rockfel Stakes and Europe’s joint second highest rated filly behind Tahiyra – and Juddmonte’s Nostrum, who scored impressively in the Gr.3 Tattersalls Stakes, make this his best collection of juveniles so far.

We can also expect plenty of stars from his current crop of yearlings, conceived at £150,000, when they reach the racecourse as they are from yet another richly endowed crop bred from 120-plus elite mares. The vastly increased number of elite mares covered by Kingman in the past four years has a special significance for the Banstead sire as his strike rate from this class of mare is an excellent 14.2 per cent stakes winners to runners. Conversely, from all other mares, which make up the dams of 43 per cent of his runners so far, his strike rate is only 8.9 per cent, well below expectations. We see the same trend among his Group winners with 9.4 per cent coming from his well-bred mares compared to 4.7 per cent from all others.

We can also conclude that from his better mares, the typical Kingman gets better with age as his strike rate for juveniles, three-year-olds and older horses of 6.4 per cent, 11.6 per cent and 14.4 per cent stakes winners to runners would suggest. It’s also clear that his colts and geldings tend to fare better than his fillies and mares, supported by 18.3 per cent stakes winners among his male offspring from good mares and 10.2 per cent from his female, both excellent figures in their own right.

But the stat that stands out the most is the one generated by his runners whose best form is between a mile and 10f; no fewer than 30.4 per cent of these runners from well-bred mares have become stakes winners.

Is there any other current-day sire set up to shine more brightly over the next few years than Kingman?