Best horses sired by Sea The Stars including Baaeed

Baaeed (137)

No horse since Frankel in 2012 has earned a higher rating on turf than the figure of 137 awarded to Baaeed for his outstanding display in the 2022 Juddmonte International at York.

Baaeed was a stunning six-and-a-half-length winner of the Knavesmire Group 1 on his first crack at a trip beyond a mile, taking his record to a perfect ten. He had previously cleaned out the mile division, winning five Group 1s at that distance.

Baaeed was unraced as a juvenile but quickly started making up for lost time after hitting the track in June 2021, winning a Leicester maiden, a Newmarket novice, a Newmarket listed race and a Group 3 at Goodwood within two months.

That impressive Group 3 success at Goodwood left little doubt Baaeed was a top-level performer and he proved that point in the Prix du Moulin at Longchamp. He faced a tougher test in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot against another top-class colt in Palace Pier but Baaeed was able to raise his game to maintain his unbeaten record.

Baaeed returned with a stylish success in the Lockinge Stakes in May 2022 and he didn't need to match that effort to register further top-level wins in the Queen Anne Stakes or the Sussex Stakes. With nothing left to prove in the mile division the decision was taken to step up in trip - following the same path Frankel had taken as a four-year-old - and it resulted in one of the best displays we have seen this century. William Haggas

Crystal Ocean (133)

Crystal Ocean was also a thoroughly consistent racehorse over middle-distances, the archetypal improver for Sir Michael Stoute who never finished out of the first three in 17 starts.

Narrowly denied on his sole outing as a two-year-old, Crystal Ocean won the Gordon Stakes at three, when he also filled the runner-up spot behind Capri in one of the strongest renewals of the St Leger in recent memory (subsequent Group 1 winners Stradivarius, Rekindling, Coronet and Defoe also featured amongst the beaten horses).

Crystal Ocean returned to win his first three starts as a four-year-old, including the Hardwicke Stakes, but he continued to be a bridesmaid at the highest level, notably finding one too good in both the King George and the Champion Stakes. That all changed in 2019, however, as he found further improvement at the age to five to again win his first three outings of the season, culminating with a much-deserved Group 1 success in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes.

He may have been beaten on his only two subsequent outings, but Crystal Ocean did his reputation no harm, producing a career best, in fact, when beaten just a neck by Enable in the King George. He was retired after suffering an injury on the gallops and stood his first season at The Beeches Stud at a fee of €8,000 in 2020. Sir Michael Stoute

Cloth Of Stars (132)

Cloth of Stars was a more temperamental sort than Crystal Ocean – he sometimes threatened to boil over in the preliminaries and could race keenly – but he too was a top-class performer when managing to channel his energy in the right direction.

A Group 3 winner as a two-year-old (also Group 1-placed), Cloth of Stars returned to win his first two starts at three, including a ready success in the Prix Greffulhe. That performance saw him sent off at 8/1 to win the Derby, but the exuberance that had threatened to hamper his progress as a juvenile resurfaced at Epsom, where he refused to settle before ultimately finishing eighth behind Harzand.

At that stage it seemed that Cloth of Stars may never fulfil his potential, and it is a credit to the skills of trainer Andre Fabre that he returned a much-improved model in 2017, completing a quickfire hat-trick with a first Group 1 win in the Prix Ganay. Given a mid-season break afterwards, he showed the benefit of his return in the Prix Foy to then finish second in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, producing the best performance of his career to be beaten only two and a half lengths behind Enable.

Admittedly, Cloth of Stars was well below that form for much of his last season on the track, but there was to be one final flourish, when staying on strongly from off the pace to be placed in the Arc for the second year in succession (beaten a length into third behind Enable and Sea of Class). Andre Fabre

Stradivarius (130)

Stradivarius developed into a very smart three-year-old in 2017, when his wins included the Queen’s Vase and the Goodwood Cup. Those successes identified him as a promising stayer for his connections to go to war with as an older horse, but few could have anticipated quite how dominant he would become in the division over the next couple of seasons.

Beaten at Ascot on his final three-year-old start, Stradivarius subsequently embarked on a winning sequence spanning 10 races, including back-to-back wins in each of the Yorkshire Cup, the Gold Cup, the Goodwood Cup (his third in total) and the Lonsdale Cup. Those victories saw him land the WH Stayers’ Million in both seasons, whilst his success in the 2019 Doncaster Cup also meant that he was the first horse since Double Trigger in 1995 to complete the ‘stayers’ triple crown’.

Stradivarius' winning sequence came to an end on his final appearance in 2019, when beaten just a nose by Kew Gardens in the Long Distance Cup, but there was still plenty of big-race success to come. He earned his peak rating when slamming his rivals by ten lengths to land a third successive Gold Cup at Royal Ascot in 2020, and the following month he won his fourth Goodwood Cup on the spin.

A crack at the Arc proved unsuccessful in October 2020 and Stradivarius then ran poorly for the first time in his distinguished career when tailed off in the Long Distance Cup only a couple of weeks later, but that was not to be the end of his remarkable story. Stradivarius wasn't quite the force of old in 2021, but he still added three more victories, including the Lonsdale Cup and Doncaster Cup, while he has remained competitive at the highest level as an eight-year-old in 2022. After winning the Yorkshire Cup, equalling the modern day record of six wins on the Knavesmire, Stradivarius was placed in the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot and in the Goodwood Cup, underlining his status as one of the toughest and most durable performers of the modern era. John Gosden

Sea Of Class (129)

Sea of Class’ narrow defeat at the hands of Enable in the 2018 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe was a tough one for her connections to take, but it still represented a huge effort from a three-year-old filly whose first appearance had come less than six months earlier.

That debut effort had also resulted in defeat, but Sea of Class didn’t look back after that, easily winning a pair of listed events at Newbury, the Irish Oaks at the Curragh and the Yorkshire Oaks at York. The last two performances saw her come from last to first to land the spoils, showing a sparkling turn of foot in the process, but those patient tactics were expected to be much harder to execute when attempting to emulate her sire with victory in the Arc. In the event, however, she very nearly pulled it off, weaving through from the last pair to be beaten just a short neck by Enable, with the verdict likely to have gone the other way just a few strides later.

That effort confirmed Sea of Class a filly of the highest order – there was a strong case for saying she was the best horse in the race – and it’s a real shame that we didn’t get to see more of her. Comfortably beaten at Royal Ascot on her reappearance as a four-year-old, she was sadly put down a few weeks later due to complications from colic surgery. William Haggas

Hukum (127)

Hukum's exploits may have been eclipsed by those of his year-younger brother Baaeed, but he too is a Group 1 winner.

Hukum had to wait until he was five to make his top-level breakthrough, but he put up a high-class display to draw four and a quarter lengths clear of subsequent King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes winner Pyledriver in the Coronation Cup at Epsom.

The style of that victory, and indeed Pyledriver's subsequent success, suggests Hukum could have made an impact in other Group 1 contests during the summer but he was sadly sidelined by a fractured hind leg and had to undergo surgery. Owen Burrows

Sea The Moon (127)

Sea The Moon raced exclusively in Germany, which means his name may not be as familiar as some on this list, but he was undoubtedly one of the stars amongst Sea The Stars’ first crop of runners, with his four wins including an 11-length demolition of some smart rivals in the German Derby.

Sent off the 18/10 favourite for that contest after easily winning his three previous starts, Sea The Moon could hardly have been more impressive in extending his unbeaten record to four. Soon in his customary position at the head of affairs under Christophe Soumillon, he still didn’t look the finished article but ultimately proved far too classy for his 17 rivals, producing a high-class performance to draw clear in the straight without coming off the bridle.

Sea The Moon featured prominently in the ante-post betting for the Arc immediately afterwards, but sadly he never made it to Longchamp; he was surprisingly beaten on his next start in the Grosser Preis von Baden before injury brought his career to a premature end. Markus Klug

Taghrooda (127)

Sea The Stars made a promising start with his first two-year-old runners in 2013, but, given that he himself came into his own over middle-distances as a three-year-old, his progeny were widely expected to do better still with time and distance.

One of the brighter prospects amongst his first crop was the John Gosden-trained Taghrooda, who had looked potentially smart when winning a back-end maiden at Newmarket on her only start as a juvenile. In the event, she proved herself to be much better than that, providing her sire with a first British classic success in the Oaks at Epsom, before taking another step forward to maintain her unbeaten record against older horses and the opposite sex in the King George at Ascot (by three lengths from the high-class Telescope) later that summer.

Taghrooda may have failed to add to her tally in two subsequent starts – she was turned over at long odds-on in the Yorkshire Oaks before a creditable third behind Treve in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe – but she still retired as one of the best three-year-old middle-distance fillies in Britain for many a year, in the process giving Sea The Stars a major boost in his early years at stud. John Gosden

Harzand (126)

Harzand showed only fair form on his sole appearance as a two-year-old, but it didn’t take him long the following year to show he possessed an above-average level of ability, making no mistake at the second attempt as he won a Cork maiden by 16 lengths with seemingly any amount in hand.

Clearly, the bare form of that effort still gave him plenty to find to develop into a classic contender, but his subsequent win in the Ballysax Stakes – a race won by previous Derby winners such as Galileo and High Chaparral – meant that he had plenty of supporters when attempting to complete the hat-trick in the blue riband at Epsom. A late injury scare threatened to derail his bid for classic glory, but Harzand ultimately overcame that to prevail in determined fashion, relishing the extra emphasis on stamina as he found plenty to beat US Army Ranger by a length and a half.

Harzand didn’t need to improve to follow up in the Irish equivalent at the Curragh, when beating Idaho by half a length, but he was below that form when well held on his final two starts in the Irish Champion Stakes (reportedly struck into) and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

His career may have ended in slightly anti-climactic fashion, but that shouldn’t detract from his performance at Epsom. Dermot Weld

Mutakayyef (125)

Mutakayyef may have won only one of his first 10 starts (when sent off 4/1-on for a Sandown maiden), but he still showed himself to be capable of very smart form in that time, notably finishing placed in no fewer than four pattern events.

Gelded at the end of his four-year-old season, Mutakayyef returned at five and suddenly found the end product he had lacked before with back-to-back wins in a listed race at York and the Summer Mile at Ascot. He then produced a career-best effort in defeat when beaten two and a quarter lengths into third behind Postponed in the Juddmonte International back at York, where he might have finished closer still but for the trouble he encountered close home.

Mutakayyef looked set for another productive season as a six-year-old, with his two domestic starts after returning from Dubai yielding a second in the Queen Anne Stakes and another success in the Summer Mile. However, he reportedly finished lame on the second occasion and had to be retired, bringing to an end a consistent career in which he finished out of the first three only once in 17 starts (when fifth in the 2017 Dubai Turf). William Haggas

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