Championship Is Dark Angel’s Icing On The Cake

It has been 39 years since an independently owned stud housed the champion sire of Britain and Ireland. Needless to say, much has changed in the interim.

Kris, who stood at Lord Howard de Walden’s Thornton Stud in Thirsk, North Yorkshire, was the last horse to achieve the feat and, in a sign of the times, he did so with just two crops of racing age to his name.

Winning a sires’ championship has never been easy, but an era of spiralling books of mares and an increasing commercial imperative has meant breaking the stranglehold of the bloodstock industry behemoths has become a seemingly insurmountable challenge.

Coolmore have been the dominant force during the last four decades, standing the likes of Galileo, Danehill and Sadler’s Wells, who between them accounted for 29 of the last 39 titles. More recently Juddmonte’s masterpiece Frankel and Dubawi, a linchpin of the Darley operation, have come to the fore.

But the close of this year will see a new name added to the illustrious roll of honour. Dark Angel has reached the pinnacle of the stallion ranks not with backing of a global conglomerate, but the support of a loyal band of skilled and committed breeders. Here is a horse who raced only at two and spent the traditionally tricky third and fourth seasons at stud at a fee of just €7,000. If ever a stallion could claim to have done it the hard way, it is Dark Angel.

A maiden championship can be considered a crowning moment for Yeomanstown Stud, which was founded by Gay and Annette O’Callaghan in 1981. But such are the demands of running a thriving operation engaged across the full spectrum of the Flat industry, and perhaps as an insight into the sort of mindset required to achieve such a feat, their son and farm manager David O’Callaghan says time to drink the result in has been in short supply.

“To get the overall title in Great Britain in Ireland is just the icing on the cake of a wonderful career”

“While it’s happening, you don’t actually think about it too much,” he says on witnessing a championship-winning season unfold. “It’ll probably only be when we look back in five years’ time – probably when we haven’t won it – when we’ll really appreciate it. That’s when we’ll look back and think ‘Wow, how did we do that?’

“Dark Angel has been the champion sprinter-miler sire every year for the last five years, so in our mind he’s been a top sire for a long time. But to actually get the overall title in Great Britain in Ireland is just the icing on the cake of a wonderful career. He’s been second twice before but we were never so close that we really thought about it, we were always half a million or more down on Frankel or Galileo. To finally get it over the line this year is very special.”

Of course, Dark Angel not only stands at the O’Callaghan family’s farm but he was bred there too. He left County Kildare in August 2006 for the DBS (now Goffs UK) St Leger Sale, where he was picked up by Catherine Corbett and Chris Wright, buying through BBA Ireland, at 61,000gns.

“He was a great-looking foal and a great yearling, so we always held him in high regard”

He packed plenty into his sole season in training with Barry Hills, winning a maiden at Chester’s May meeting and the valuable Doncaster sales race en route to his Pattern race breakthrough. That came in the Group 2 Mill Reef Stakes, an effort he surpassed just 13 days later when triumphing in the Group 1 Middle Park Stakes. He showed all his usual grit and determination to defeat Strike The Deal by half a length.

“He was a great-looking foal and a great yearling, so we always held him in high regard physically,” says O’Callaghan. “He was running all these good races and then all of a sudden he won the Mill Reef, and that’s when Gay really thought he could stand this horse. We’d been on the lookout for a new stallion for a couple of years, and they’re always hard to come by.

“As soon as he won the Group 1, Gay just said ‘Bingo! We’ve found our horse.’ We were in the fortunate position that we didn’t need to go see him as we knew what he looked like. So when the opportunity was there to buy him, he didn’t need to ask anybody’s permission, it was just a case of ‘where do I sign?’ He got the deal done during the October Yearling Sales. The fact that we’d bred him was just an added bonus.”

Dark Angel retired to stud in 2008, 12 months after Holy Roman Emperor was sensationally taken out of training before his three-year-old campaign to take the place of the subfertile George Washington on the Coolmore roster. O’Callaghan suggests the advent of the three-year-old sprinting programme, particularly races like the Commonwealth Cup, has made a similar situation unlikely.

“There was a bit of a furore at the time because of Holy Roman Emperor and Dark Angel retiring one year after the other,” he says. “But it was a different landscape back then insofar as there was no three-year-old programme. Their options were the Sandy Lane Stakes and then on to the July Cup, straight into the deep end. There was nothing in between.

“But having a proper programme has suddenly developed three-year-old sprinters into a force. If you had the three-year-old programme that exists now, then probably neither Dark Angel nor Holy Roman Emperor would have been pulled out of training.”

Dark Angel Never Looked Back

Weatherbys’ records show Dark Angel covered 120 mares in that first season, followed by 82 in year two and 68 in year three. While these numbers plainly did not hold Dark Angel back, they were less than connections had anticipated.

“There was a little bit of publicity at the time, I’m not going to say negative publicity, but it wasn’t positive about these horses retiring at two,” says O’Callaghan. “So he didn’t get the reception we thought he would in so far as we thought he’d be a no-brainer, because for us he was a no-brainer. We sent him a lot of our own mares, but we thought he’d cover nearly double what he did in that first year, it just didn’t happen.”

But suffice to say, Dark Angel never looked back. From 14 full crops of racing age he has sired 203 stakes performers, 17 of whom have won in Group/Grade 1 company. There is also a certain irony to a horse who only raced at two coming up with so many runners who showed not only talent and toughness, but longevity too.

That first crop contained the likes of Bronze Angel, Gabrial and Sovereign Debt, all of whom were at least useful at two and were still racing aged nine, having achieved plenty along the way. Sovereign Debt and Gabrial finished first and second, in that order, twice during their eight-year-old season, first in the Group 2 bet365 Mile and again in the Group 3 Diomed Stakes.

Lily’s Angel was another early flag bearer, giving Dark Angel his first black type success in the Listed Empress Stakes at two and winning the Group 3 Chartwell Fillies’ Stakes at four, when she was also beaten just half a length into second in the Group 1 Matron Stakes.

Lethal Force Elevated Dark Angel

But arguably the most significant member of that debut crop was Lethal Force. He may have cost Clive Cox just €8,500 as a yearling but he was not beaten far in the Coventry Stakes, and really came into his own at four when going back-to-back in the Diamond Jubilee Stakes and July Cup.

“It wasn’t until the third year when Lethal Force came and won his Group 1s,” says O’Callaghan. “That’s what elevated Dark Angel from being a solid ten grand stallion, that’s when we first thought ‘He might be a bit better than this.’”

His fee rose incrementally to a high of €85,000 in 2018, 2019 and 2020, a price point underpinned by some genuine superstars of the Turf. His third crop contained dual Nunthorpe heroine Mecca’s Angel, while his sixth produced the brilliant Battaash and Harry Angel, both of whom were bred by Paul McCartan. More recently there has been Poule d’Essai des Pouliches winner Mangoustine and two-time Group 1-winning juvenile Angel Bleu, to name but a few.

Moreover, so many of his headline horses were bred by the O’Callaghans themselves, including dual Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes scorer Khaadem, Markaz and his sister Mecca’s Angel and Sovereign Debt.

“One after the other, there was a heap of horses who kept doing things that just seemed unlikely,” O’Callaghan says of Dark Angel’s sustained upward trajectory. “Each year another horse kept coming along that was better than the last one. Whereas most horses have a lull where they go missing for a year, there was never a year where he went missing – and even when it seemed like he might have a smaller crop, the old stagers just kept turning up.”

There Were Very Few Holes in Dark Angel

The remarkable consistency of his output helped guard Dark Angel against some of the industry’s more unforgiving tendencies. “Everyone is always trying to pick holes in all these stallions, and I don’t mean that in a negative way, but because it’s a very critical business we’re in,” says O’Callaghan. “Everyone is trying to zone in on what’s best. But there were very few holes in Dark Angel over the years that people could point to and say ‘he doesn’t do this, he doesn’t do that’ because he pretty much does everything.”

However, there were times earlier in his career when Dark Angel’s offspring confounded even some of the shrewdest judges around. His progeny tend to prove highly competitive individuals, which is undoubtedly a key factor in his success. But this has meant they are not always seen to best advantage in the breeze-up arena, which is so often an important proving ground for young sires.

“They definitely love competition,” says O’Callaghan. “They’re very willing horses but when they’re on their own they can appear a bit lazy, they like a bit of company to help them focus on the job. The breeze-up men found it hard to get them to breeze. They’d all breeze well at home once, but once they’d done it once they’d figure why did they need to do it again.”

Whatever Other Faults They Might Have, He Will Correct It

This laid back approach to life may well descend directly from Dark Angel himself. “He’s a gent of a horse,” says O’Callaghan. “He’s very easy to deal with and he’s always been very fertile, he’s great to cover mares. He covered big numbers almost every year because he never has many repeats.

“Dark Angel puts in lots of very positive attributes into his mares,” he continues. “He’s a very good walker himself but he won’t put a big walk into a mare that doesn’t already have one. So if you want a good sales horse by Dark Angel, you need a mare with a good hip who walks very well. Other than that, whatever other faults they might have, he will correct it. He puts in great feet, great bone, loads of scope. He’s a Middle Park winner but he’s not a short, compact horse like a lot of sprinters. He’s got a load of scope, and ultimately that’s probably why he’s been so successful because they get better from two to three, three to four, and can run over six, seven and eight furlongs.”

Getting better from two to three to four while running over six, seven and eight furlongs almost perfectly describes this year’s headline act. No runner has contributed more to Dark Angel’s championship-winning prize-money haul than Charyn, who won five races this season and collected £1,841,856 in the process.

Charyn Been Phenomenal

Nurlan Bizakov’s colour bearer struck in the Queen Anne Stakes, the Prix Jacques le Marois and the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, and could be considered unfortunate not to win tactical renewals of the Lockinge and the Prix du Moulin to boot. Charyn’s valuable Group 1 success on British Champions Day also proved decisive in securing the sires’ title, as the leader board going into that meeting was virtually a three-way photo finish between Dark Angel, Dubawi and Galileo.

The Roger Varian-trained grey, who was bred by Guy O’Callaghan’s Grangemore Stud, was also high-class at two, winning the Group 2 Criterium de Maisons-Laffitte, and just kept on progressing to prove himself something completely out of the ordinary at four.

“It’s been phenomenal,” O’Callaghan says of Charyn’s banner season. “In a lot of ways he could’ve won three more Group 1s this year. Through no fault of his own he ended up knocking on the door a couple of times, but he had a flawless season really. He never missed a beat. He became the most consistent performer over a mile since Rock Of Gibraltar nearly. To produce that level of form so often, it’s a level of consistency that you don’t see that often.

“We would’ve loved to have bought and stood Charyn,” O’Callaghan adds ruefully. “That would’ve been the perfect ending to the perfect story, if the horse that Gay bred became Dark Angel and came home to stand at Yeomanstown, then the horse that myself and Guy bred came back to replace him. Unfortunately the Sumbe team weren’t for selling, which is obviously understandable.”

Charyn, who is standing his first season at Montfort et Preaux at a fee of €35,000, may well have an important role to play in enhancing Dark Angel’s reputation as a sire of sires. But whatever he does, it is clear Dark Angel is already having an impact from further back in pedigrees.

So many of the traits that have made Dark Angel a successful sire are also being transmitted by his daughters, and he finishes this year in 12th on the British and Irish broodmare sire standings. He has been represented on this front by Yorkshire Oaks winner Content and her three-parts sister Bedtime Story, an explosive winner of the Chesham and Debutante Stakes. The pair are out of Mecca’s Angel.

“He’s already proven himself to be very prolific on the broodmare sire side,” says O’Callaghan. “We have a nice bunch of his daughters and hopefully they will continue making a greater influence on the breed. They’ll definitely put in a soundless of limb and wind, which is a huge part of the battle, as well as a bit of heart.”

Dark Angel is also the damsire rising star stallion Havana Grey, a horse O’Callaghan remembers with rather mixed emotions. “We actually underbid Havana Grey as a foal,” he says. “I still can’t believe we stopped! There’s a lot of Dark Angel in him.”

In many ways Dark Angel being crowned champion sire does not tell us anything we didn’t already know. The rising 20-year-old has long been confirmed as a precious upgrader of stock, passing on class, courage and soundness in abundance. But it is the origins of this story that makes it quite so remarkable.

“Definitely the biggest thing is that he was able to do it from essentially humble beginnings and not only that, but with humble support all through his life,” says O’Callaghan. “People who have anything from two to ten mares, they’re the ones who’ve made it happen. He never had really major support from any of the major groups. We were delighted when Darley bought into him in 2015 and they have been good supporters of Dark Angel over the years, but he’s done it without the best of the mares from Darley, Juddmonte, Coolmore or the Aga Khan.”

And this landmark result does not merely reflect where Dark Angel started, how he got to where is now or what he may yet go on to achieve. It also shines a light on those who have been with him every step along the way.

“He’s done huge things for us as a family and for Yeomanstown,” concludes O’Callaghan. “To have a horse like that, and to be able to use a horse like that for so many years, it’s huge. We’ve supported him and he’s obviously supported us. He’s enabled us to buy better mares and slowly expand everything over the last 20 years. To come across a horse like him is very rare. He’s been a life changer for us all.”