TBA statistical awards for 2020 announced
The Queen’s Silver Cup – Godolphin
Godolphin retained the British and Irish breeders’ title for an eighth consecutive year in 2020.
The size of the operation, formerly known as Darley, makes it very difficult for others to accumulate more prize money during a season, but even so there was no shortage of quality among the hundreds of runners bred by Sheikh Mohammed to race in Britain and Ireland and nowhere was this more evident than at Royal Ascot.
Lord North made the leap from handicaps to Group 1 company when he became the first Cambridgeshire winner since former Darley stallion Halling to go on to success at the highest level in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes.
Later in the week, Fanny Logan beat the colts in the Group 2 Hardwicke Stakes and there were also Group 1 places for Cross Counter (Gold Cup), Pinatubo (St James’s Palace Stakes) and Sceptical (Diamond Jubilee Stakes).
Sheikh Mohammed has won this award a further six times under his own name and that of Dalham Hall Stud.
BBA Silver Cigar Box and Barleythorpe Stud Silver Cup – Dubawi
Dubawi confirmed his status as Britain’s leading stallion by topping the prize money list for an eighth consecutive season and the individual winners list for a fourth consecutive time.
His standard-bearer was undoubtedly Ghaiyyath who fulfilled his potential by completing the Coronation Cup-Eclipse-Juddmonte International treble in a stellar season that has earned him a place at stud.
There will be no stud career, however, for Dubawi’s other two domestic Group 1 winners in 2020 because both were gelded at the age of three.
Godolphin homebred Lord North won the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Ascot and the French-trained The Revenant was successful at the same course later in the season when winning the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.
Perhaps the most striking feature of Dubawi’s stud record is his versatility. He has sired Group 1 winners of every age between two and eight years and at distances from six furlongs to one and a half miles.
His legacy already looks assured with an increasing number of top-class sons at stud. Night Of Thunder, in particular, has made an impressive start. Although still waiting for his first Group 1 winner, the 2000 Guineas winner has sired eight Group winners from his first crop.
Tattersalls’ Silver Salver – Adaay
Whitsbury Manor Stud prevented a clean sweep of the statistical awards by Godolphin when Adaay clinched a second Tattersalls’ Silver Salver in six years for the Hampshire stud.
The award goes to the first-season sire that has accumulated the most prize money in Britain and Ireland and Adaay, who stands at Whitsbury in partnership with Shadwell Stud, ran out a decisive winner by more than £100,000 from the Dalham Hall-based Territories.
Domestic earnings of more than £266,000 were boosted to over £400,000 by his overseas runners and by the end of year his winners tally stood at 24, the best by a British-based stallion and second to only Mehmas on the European First Crop Sires’ list.
Those winners were produced at a strike-rate not far short of 40%, again the best by a British-based first-season sire, and included three black-type horses.
The son of Kodiac raced in the colours of Hamdan Al Maktoum and the highlights of a three-year career were victories in a pair of Group 2 races, the Hungerford Stakes at Newbury, and the Sandy Lane Stakes at Haydock.
Adaay follows in the footsteps of his stud mate Showcasing who won this award in 2014 and has quickly become one of the most in-demand stallions in Europe. His Sussex Stakes winning son Mohaather will begin his own stud career at Shadwell Stud this year.
Very few stallions make a lasting impact at stud, but with the likes of Cadeaux Genereux (leading British-based stallion in 2003), Compton Place and Showcasing the Harper family have consistently achieved better results than most and that can only bode well for the prospects of more recent recruits Havana Grey and Sergei Prokofiev.
Adaay’s stud fee remains at £5,000 in 2021.
The awards cover the calendar year 2020 and relate to racing in GB and Ireland only.
These awards shall be presented at the TBA's Flat Breeders' Awards Evening in July 2021.