New Bay and Mehmas close to joining the European elite

Xtra Season 1: Part 1, Issue 1

By Jocelyn de Moubray

In this week's issue:

🔸 New Bay: boasts an excellent Group 1 winners to foals strike-rate
🔸 Mehmas: this season's leading sire numerically of two-year-old and three-year-old winners, and with two smart Listed winners in France last week
🔸 Video including footage of the Dante Stakes, the Pretty Polly and the Listed Prix des Reves d’Or, as well as Weatherbys pedigrees of the race winners
🔸Weatherbys bloodstock section from the Nick Luck Podcast featuring Ned Toffey from Spendthrift, who chats all things Into Mischief

WATCH XTRA ON VIDEO HERE ⬇️

WHEN THEY retired to stud in 2017 neither New Bay at Ballylinch Stud nor Mehmas at Tally-Ho Stud were particularly at the top of the fashion stakes.

Eight years on, this pair are clearly among the best European sires of their generation and have stood this spring at fees of €75,000 and €70,000.

This year’s three-year-olds are their fifth crop and were produced when the sires were standing at €20,000 and €25,000. For New Bay this was a return to his starting fee, while the success of Mehmas’s first crop had already seen his fee double from its initial €12,500.

New Bay’s older horses Alcantor and Persica have both won Group races this year, but last week it was his three-year-olds who put him in the spotlight, with both the colt Pride Of Arras (click the red links for pedigrees) and the filly Falakeyah emerging as Classic contenders.

Pride Of Arras won the Dante in a style similar to other recent lightly raced winners of the race, such as Desert Crown and Golden Horn – he came from behind and accelerated past his rivals in style, despite it being only his second career start.

Falakeyah hasn’t run since the Guineas meeting, but her front-running win in the Listed Pretty Polly Stakes looks better than ever after the third and fourth then, Qilin Queen and Sand Gazelle, have gone on to finish first and third in the Listed Childwickbury Stud Trial in Newbury at the weekend.

New Bay making his name

Juddmonte’s New Bay was a top three-year-old, winner of the Group 1 Prix du Jockey-Club when he came with a brilliant run from behind to beat Highland Reel, he also finished second in the Poule d’Essai des Poulains (G1), and, from a wide draw, and third to Golden Horn in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (G1).

However, his four-year-career was a disappointment with only one Group 3 success, and as regards a stud career, at that time of his retirement, sons of Dubawi were not what everyone was looking for after the lack of success by Poet’s Voice and Makfi.

From his first three seasons at stud, standing at €20,000 twice and then €15,000, New Bay produced a total of 196 foals, at an average of only 65 a year, while his first crop of yearlings averaged around €40,000, twice his stud fee.

Once they began racing, though, New Bay’s progeny started to make a mark.

There were two Group winners from his first crop of two-year-olds, including Saffron Beach, who went on to win Group 1 races at three and four. His first crop also included Bay Bridge, the four-year-old winner of the Group 1 British Champion Stakes. His second crop had two more juvenile Group winners – Bayside Boy, who was also a Group 1 winner at three of the Queen Elizabeth Stakes II, like the Champions Stakes run at Ascot's October meeting, and the German champion Sea Bay, winner of the Group 3 Preis des Winterfavoriten.

His third crop was quieter, but his fourth crop has included the Group winners Alcantor, Devil’s Point and Persica.

The 285 foals from New Bay’s first four crops, include three Group 1 winners (1.1 per cent Group 1 winners to foals, and anything over one per cent is an excellent return), seven Group 1 performers (2.5 per cent) and 12 Group winners (4.2 per cent).

New Bay's fifth crop is his biggest to date, and the son of Dubawi has 128 three-year-olds to run for him.

 An opportunity, which now looks likely to lead to an even better future for the sire.

This year's Group 2 Dante Stakes winner Pride Of Arras and the Listed Pretty Polly Stakes winner Falakeyah, trained by Owen Burrows, are currently amongst the favourites for the Epsom Derby and the Oaks, while his two-year-old Group 2 winner Bay City Roller has yet to race as a three-year-old.

New Bay has returned consistently excellent results from each of his successive crops and over the coming years will have far more, as well as more expensively produced horses, to represent him

His progeny act on all types of ground, as well as the All-Weather, and if he has had few representatives outside Europe, it is just really because of a lack of numbers.

New Bay: in figures

The average winning distance of his progeny is 8.72f, similar to his sire Dubawi or Lope De Vega, and significantly less than Zarak, another son of Dubawi out of a Zamindar mare.

His Group 1 winners so far have come over a mile to 1m2f, but 45 per cent of his three-year-old winners have been over 1m2f or further. There is every reason to expect a runner by New Bay to win a Group 1 over 1m4f in the future – he himself had the speed to compete in the French Guineas, as well as the stamina to finish a close third in the Arc.

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Mehmas: leading sire of two-year-olds and three-year-olds by numbers

Mehmas only raced as a two-year-old and has gone on to build his reputation as a sire of two-year-old winners and two-year-old Group race winners.

The son of Acclamation produced five Group 1 winners from his first four crops (1.3 per cent of his foals), and his fifth crop of 216 foals produced a record number of 70 two-year-old winners. Mehmas also produced just over nine per cent juvenile black-type performers to foals, putting him behind only No Nay Never among European stallions, and for two of these three years, Mehmas was still standing at only €10,000 and €7,500.

Mehmas produced just over nine per cent juvenile black-type performers to foals from the crops born in 2020, 2021 and 2022, putting him behind only No Nay Never among European stallions, and for two of these three years Mehmas was still standing at only €10,000 and €7,500.

Mehmas’s progeny’s average winning distance is 6.6f, and if they tend to act on every surface, they are particularly successful on fast ground and artificial surfaces

He has already produced three Grade 1 winners – Chez Pierre, Going Global and Magnum Force – as well as Believing and West Acre, Group 1 and 2 winners at Meydan, and his progeny are well suited to racing in the US and the Middle East. 

In the middle of May, Mehmas's winners included the three-year-old colt Diego Ventura, the winner of a 7f Listed race at ParisLongchamp, and Imperial Me Cen, who took France’s first juvenile Listed race of the year at Vichy, the Prix des Reves d'Or, without coming off the bridle.

Mehmas is currently Europe’s leading sire of both three-year-olds and two-year-olds by number of winners. However, if Mehmas is to rank higher still among European sires, he needs to get a three-year-old Group 1 winner in Europe at some point.

🗞️ Stop press

Underwriter, by Mehmas and the debut winner of the 6f maiden at Ayr on May 21, is now being quoted as a best-priced 12-1 for the Coventry Stakes (G2) at Royal Ascot.

The colt, trained by Archie Watson and owned by Wathnan Racing, is out of the No Nay Never mare Zour's Heart, a daughter of Sotka (Dutch Art), a Listed-placed 5f two-year-old-winning half-sister to multiple 5f Group 1 winner Sole Power.

Underwriter was a £200,000 Goffs UK Breeze-Up purchase from Grove Stud by Blandford Bloodstock, bred by Ecurie Haras De Saint Vincent Et Al and not sold at the Arqana August Sale 2024.

🎧 LISTEN to Ned Toffey of Spendthrift Farms chatting to Nick Luck in the Weatherbys section of the Nick Luck Podcast