With the world in the grip of a pandemic, it may seem crass to write about something as trivial as horse racing, but we all need our distractions.

I was asked via Twitter to look at the overall performance of grandsons of Galileo in National Hunt Racing (I recently wrote about their performance at Cheltenham). As the overuse of sons of Galileo is a bugbear of mine, I didn’t take much persuasion to accept the challenge.

To make a meaningful comparison, I looked at the performance throughout the 2019/2020 season of sire sons of Galileo, Montjeu and Monsun. The numbers confirm that sire-sons of Galileo are nothing special in the world of National Hunt racing. In fact their performance is inferior to that of sires by Montjeu and especially by Monsun.

Methodology:

I looked at the sire standings for National Hunt in 2019/2020 for the top 550 sires from the Racing Post website. I then extracted and aggregated the results for the sons of Galileo, Montjeu and Monsun. The summary results are shown below:

SIRELINE	Wnrs	Rnrs	W/R %	Wins	Runs	%	Stks Wnrs
GALILEO SIRES TOTAL	127	522	24.3%	174	1721	10.1%	11
MONSUN SIRES TOTAL	224	797	28.1%	322	2637	12.2%	15
MONTJEU SIRES TOTAL	165	613	26.9%	235	2023	11.6%	13

Summary of Findings:

Sons of Galileo fare poorly in terms of winners to runners and wins to runs compared with sons of Montjeu and especially sire sons of Monsun. There may be some reasons to account for the difference such as a younger age profile of the representatives of the Galileo tribe but there is nothing in the figures to suggest that National Hunt breeders should be flocking to sons of Galileo…

Blindly believing in sire lines on the flat or in National hunt racing will lead to lots of disappointments. There are individual sons of Galileo who could be promising jumps sires (Nathaniel especially) but overall the figures suggest that most sons of Galileo are not that welcome an addition to National Hunt pedigrees. The real concern is that sending one third of mares to sons of Galileo may eventually cause long term damage the National hunt breed by narrowing the gene pool. National Hunt breeders may feel reassured in using sons of Galileo ( everyone else is doing it) , but as the Corona virus has shown, being part of the crowd isn’t always such a good idea….

Detailed Workings: Stallions listed by their placing in the sires table by earnings- figures as shown on Racing Post website on 28/03/2020 and referring to UK and Irish earnings for 2019/2020 season

Rank	Stallion	Wnrs	Rnrs	W/R %	Wins	Runs	%	Stks Wnrs	Earnings £
13	Mahler	53	213	25%	72	752	10%	2	£949,163
49	Nathaniel	17	39	44%	22	117	19%	4	£328,541
98	Sixties Icon	5	34	15%	7	121	6%	0	£146,624
114	Rip Van Winkle	10	29	34%	14	101	14%	0	£121,731
135	Sans Frontieres	6	41	15%	9	117	8%	1	£98,224
141	Teofilo	8	39	21%	9	125	7%	1	£92,078
148	New Approach	7	24	29%	9	82	11%	0	£87,972
164	Soldier Of Fortune	3	11	27%	6	45	13%	1	£71,857
240	Cima De Triomphe	1	1	100%	2	4	50%	1	£42,105
246	Imperial Monarch	2	16	13%	4	46	9%	1	£40,774
253	Australia	3	9	33%	3	28	11%	0	£37,282
255	Heliostatic	3	5	60%	4	12	33%	0	£36,694
259	Battle Of Marengo	2	6	33%	4	26	15%	0	£35,329
294	Finsceal Fior	2	12	17%	3	28	11%	0	£27,716
390	Vendangeur	1	4	25%	1	20	5%	0	£14,971
435	Frankel	0	9	0%	0	24	0%	0	£11,521
444	Noble Mission	1	3	33%	2	6	33%	0	£11,039
451	Roderic O’Connor	1	7	14%	1	15	7%	0	£10,552
465	Intello	0	9	0%	0	19	0%	0	£9,464
485	Feel Like Dancing	1	1	100%	1	5	20%	0	£8,178
512	Ruler Of The World	1	4	25%	1	10	10%	0	£6,607
529	Cape Blanco	0	3	0%	0	6	0%	0	£5,688
537	Red Rocks	0	3	0%	0	12	0%	0	£5,478
	GALILEO SIRES TOTAL	127	522	24.3%	174	1721	10.1%	11
Rank	Stallion	Wnrs	Rnrs	W/R %	Wins	Runs	%	Stks Wnrs	Earnings £
11	Getaway	75	258	29%	98	866	11%	5	£1,100,603
16	Network	21	61	34%	32	196	16%	3	£845,837
29	Arcadio	30	141	21%	45	481	9%	1	£541,960
30	Shirocco	39	148	26%	55	436	13%	2	£531,547
57	Schiaparelli	10	50	20%	14	154	9%	1	£283,101
63	Gentlewave	6	12	50%	8	39	21%	1	£233,923
72	Samum	4	6	67%	8	19	42%	1	£201,211
82	September Storm	9	33	27%	17	149	11%	0	£181,315
133	Salutino	5	14	36%	11	65	17%	0	£102,638
149	Aizavoski	9	30	30%	12	79	15%	0	£87,690
167	Manduro	5	14	36%	8	49	16%	0	£69,827
220	Noroit	3	16	19%	4	55	7%	0	£48,225
254	Lauro	3	5	60%	4	14	29%	0	£37,087
264	Axxos	2	3	67%	2	15	13%	0	£34,877
303	Ocovango	1	4	25%	2	8	25%	1	£26,632
367	Speedmaster	2	2	100%	2	12	17%	0	£17,480
	MONSUN SIRES TOTAL	224	797	28.1%	322	2637	12.2%	15
Rank	Stallion	Wnrs	Rnrs	W/R %	Wins	Runs	%	Stks Wnrs	Earnings £
17	Scorpion	42	189	22%	55	719	8%	1	£810,218
35	Walk In The Park	8	27	30%	9	80	11%	4	£483,862
36	Fame And Glory	33	136	24%	49	380	13%	1	£473,569
37	Authorized	22	59	37%	32	200	16%	1	£451,972
77	Pour Moi	11	30	37%	18	90	20%	0	£195,358
92	Montmartre	7	27	26%	12	88	14%	2	£155,773
96	Maxios	8	17	47%	11	51	22%	1	£150,255
97	Motivator	7	20	35%	12	59	20%	1	£148,850
103	Papal Bull	8	31	26%	10	113	9%	1	£139,334
105	Davidoff	2	5	40%	4	18	22%	1	£135,129
120	Jukebox Jury	6	10	60%	12	31	39%	0	£114,475
153	Camelot	5	28	18%	5	83	6%	0	£84,328
352	Honolulu	2	4	50%	2	10	20%	0	£19,342
375	Frozen Fire	2	6	33%	2	21	10%	0	£17,080
400	Hurricane Run	0	11	0%	0	32	0%	0	£14,439
455	Masked Marvel	1	2	50%	1	7	14%	0	£10,104
461	Spider Flight	0	5	0%	0	20	0%	0	£9,735
484	Recital	1	6	17%	1	21	5%	0	£8,221
	MONTJEU SIRES TOTAL	165	613	26.9%	235	2023	11.6%	13