NOVELLIST DOMINATES ASCOT

Dr Christoph Berglar’s Novellist was a brilliant 5 length winner of the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot on July 27. The four year old registered the 37 Group 1 success for his sire Monsun and the great sire’s 123rd Group win. These figures put Monsun among the top five sires of all time, a remarkable feat for a horse who started out as a cheap stallion in Germany and who never covered many mares. Monsun has a total of 650 named foals of three years or older, an average of only 46 foals per crop. There are not that many more to come either as Monsun has 44 two year olds, 24 yearlings and only 16 foals from his last three crops.

The current leader as sire of Group winners is Sadler’s Wells with 336, but then Coolmore Stud’s stallion had somewhere around 2.200 named foals, more than three times as many as Monsun. Galileo retired to stud six years after Monsun but he has already had somewhere around double the number of foals aged three or upwards.

The Racing Post has Novellist on 127 after his Ascot victory making him the third highest rated Monsun, behind only Manduro and Shirocco. This may not however be an accurate reflection as Monsun has never been fully appreciated in England and Ireland. Monsun has had top winners all over the racing world and has been particularly successful in Germany, France, Italy, Canada, Australia and the United States, but remarkably only two trainers based in the British Isles have won Group races with a Monsun, Saeed bin Suror with Schiaparelli as an older horse, and Sir Michael Stoute with both Estimate and Fiorente.