Tally-Ho Stud

It is worth keeping to the forefront of your mind when looking at the six stallions at Tony O’Callaghan’s Tally-Ho Stud in this price category, that Kodiac started out there at €5,000, dropping to €4,000 for his third and fourth years at stud. Today, following years of sustained success, he is €65,000. The six here are Cotai Glory (Exceed And Excel), Galileo Gold (Paco Boy), Inns Of Court (by Kodiac’s half-brother Invincible Spirit), Kessaar (Kodiac), Mehmas (Acclamation) and Vadamos (Monsun).

Three of the Tally-Ho stallions have their fees set at €7,500. With his first yearlings due to sell this autumn, it is scarcely believable that Galileo Gold is standing for half the fee he started out at. This is a classic winning miler, successful in both the 2000 Guineas and the Group 1 St James’s Palace Stakes, who was also a Group 2 winning juvenile. He is the best son of his sire, a triple-Group 1 winner, and his dam is a half-sister to a dual Group 1 winning sprinter. Throw in that his third dam is a half-sister to Montjeu, and what’s not to like about him as a sire?

Two short heads is all that stands between Inns Of Court being a dual Group 1 winner. Had he won the Prix Jacques Le Marois and the Prix de la Foret, what fee would you be looking at for a son of Invincible Spirit out of a half-sister to last year’s Japanese Group 1 winner Fierment? This newcomer to the stallion ranks has a lot going for him and looks value.

Crossing Acclamation with a Machiavellian mare produced Dark Angel, and is also the cross responsible for Mehmas. Now at a fee of €7,500 as we await his first runners, this could be a real bargain should a number of his juveniles, numbering more than 140, hit the racecourse running. They sold for up to €260,000 as yearlings and the 87 that sold averaged nearly five times his current fee. Mehmas only ran at two, winning two Group 2s and finishing second to Churchill in the Group 1 National Stakes.

Cotai Glory is the cheapest of the Tally-Ho sires, standing for €5,000. He broke three track records in a career that saw him race 30 times, and all his victories came at the minimum trip. He won the Group 3 Molecomb Stakes at two and his Group 1 placings include running second to Profitable in the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot. His first crop are just yearlings.

No surprise that Tally-Ho would find a home for a speedy son of Kodiac. Kessaar only raced at two and his pattern wins included the Group 2 Mill Reef Stakes over six furlongs at Newbury. On the female side of the family his first three dams are by Raven’s Pass, Giant’s Causeway and Mr Prospector. Kessaar’s first foals are hitting the ground and are due from nearly 100 mares covered. His fee is €6,000.

Also standing at the same figure is Vadamos and this Group 1 winning miler, trained by Andre Fabre, will have runners this year from a crop of 130 foals born in 2018. He is one of half a dozen Group 1 winners in the immediate family and, as a son of leading international sire Monsun, he is an outcross for Sadler’s Wells and Danzig line mares. His yearlings last year averaged just over five times his current fee and realised up to €180,000.

Tara Stud

There is little to choose between both sires at Tara Stud, each standing for just €5,000. Alhebayed and Estidhkaar are both Group 2-winning juvenile sons of Dark Angel and each has a top-class pedigree. Alhebayed went to stud two years before Estidhkaar and what a start he has made with his runners, getting nigh on 50 individual winners in his first two crops, and a pair of last year’s juveniles being stakes winners. Now that he is showing what he can do, breeders on a budget can use him based on what he has achieved.

Tara will be hoping for a good start also to the stud career of Estidhkaar, a half-brother to the Group 1 wining two-year-old Toormore. Estidhkaar will have his first crop of over 100 foals running this year, and given their popularity at the sales, there are great expectations for them.

They made up to 140,000gns and trainers will hope they show the same precocity as their sire. Estidhkaar won the Group 2 Superlative Stakes at Newmarket and the Group 2 Champagne Stakes at Doncaster, in the latter beating the dual Group 1 winner Belardo. At three he ran second to Group 1 winner Muhaarar, beaten a neck, in the Greenham Stakes.

Yeomanstown Stud

Just as his brother brought Kodiac from being an inexpensive sire to one of our top-tier stallions, so too has Gay O’Callaghan done the same, most notably with Dark Angel whose fee was once as low as €7,000 and who now stands for €85,000.

Dark Angel is one of five stallions at Yeomanstown this year, the roster also including the established Camacho and the newcomer Invincible Army.

El Kabeir (Scat Daddy) will have his first yearlings for sale this autumn. A Grade 2 winning juvenile in the USA, he added three stakes wins in his second season, a couple at Grade 3 level. His dam is a half-sister by Unbridled’s Song to four stakes winners. By the sire of No Nay Never, Justify and Caravaggio among 29 Group or Grade 1 winners by the much-missed stallion, El Kabeir covered 210 mares in his first two years at stud.

With 33 winners already under his belt from his first crop that hit the track last year, Gutaifan (Dark Angel) has demonstrated his ability in no uncertain terms. Stakes winners cannot be too far away given the numbers of winners he has. At just €6,000 for his stud fee, and more than one in three of his runners already having won, he is the type of sire trainers love. Being a son of Dark Angel also helps.