It’s a fair bet that, in the future, there will be many statistics carrying an asterisk alongside them in the surreal year that is 2020.
Regardless of what will transpire around the world for the rest of this crazy year, the performance of first-season sire Mehmas is certainly shaping with promise.
Wednesday’s winning debut by Royal Mehmas at Naples was the 21st winner so far this year for Mehmas.
That the Tally Ho Stud based stallion should be doing well comes as no great surprise.
Mehmas was a 62,000gns Tattersalls October Book 2 yearling and sold the following spring for 170,000gns at the Craven Breeze-Up Sale to the bid of Peter and Ross Doyle on behalf of Al Shaqab Racing.
A talented runner himself as a juvenile for trainer Richard Hannon. Mehmas won four of his eight starts at two, notably the Group 2 Richmond Stakes at Goodwood beating Blue Point, as well as placing at Group 1 level in the Middle Park and National Stakes.
Mehmas is bred on the same Machiavellian cross as Dark Angel with both retired after just one season on the track.
His sire Acclamation got 28 first-crop winners from 60 runners and is currently sitting on 54 stakes winners overall including his successful Group 1 winning son Dark Angel.
This first-season precocity extends to Mehmas’s grand sire Royal Applause, the Champion Older Sprinter in Europe in 1997 and with 21 winners from 48 first-crop runners.
Putting these figures into context, Mehmas covered 187 mares in his first season at a fee of €12,500, the most of any first-season horse in 2017, so with 146 named offspring in 2020 numerically he was always likely to do well.
Of course, as we know, quantity does not guarantee quality however, the signs are there that there is both for Mehmas who has Gr2 Richmond Stakes winner Supremacy and Listed Rose Bowl Stakes winner Method as well as Listed placed Muker amongst his winners.
There does not appear to be a discernible trend in pedigrees at this stage, his three stakes horses all out of different broodmare sires – Supremacy (Arcano), Method (Iffraaj) and Muker (Namid).
So far there are six first-season sires with stakes winners – Goken (1 from 20 runners), Twilight Son (1 from 37), Coulsty (1 from 14), Prince Of Lir (1 from 23) and Pride Of Dubai (1 from 19).
In terms of percentage of winners to runners for horses with 10 runners or more, the Haras de Colleville-based Goken is currently running at 55% ahead of Prix du Jockey-Club winner New Bay (44%) and Coulsty (36%) – Mehmas is currently running at 30%
With 24 other runners to have placed it’s a fair bet Mehmas will continue adding to his first-season total but whether he can set a new record total remains to be seen.
Since the year 2000, Iffraaj holds the record for the most European winners supplied by a first-crop sire with 38 from 72 runners in 2010 followed by Invincible Spirit (35 from 69 in 2006).
The next four months will be interesting.