Pedigree Notes: Signify

Take a closer look at SIGNIFY’s broodmare sire, Pivotal (GB)

Broodmare Sires of 2019: A Pivotal Hat Trick
by John Berry, TDN Europe 1/6/20

Through the 2019 season we seemingly never had to wait too long for the next big-race triumph for a son or daughter of a mare by Pivotal (GB) (Polar Falcon). It is no surprise, therefore, that the 27-year-old Cheveley Park Stud patriarch has ended the year not merely completing a hat-trick of titles as Champion Broodmare Sire of Great Britain and Ireland but also topping the European table too.

One of Pivotal’s principal advantages as a broodmare sire is, of course, that Sadler’s Wells does not appear in his pedigree, which means that the majority of Pivotal mares are compatible with Galileo (Ire) and his sons. Pivotal’s daughters were collectively responsible in 2019 for eight individual Group 1 winners in Europe who between them won 12 Group 1 races.

Three of the eight are by Galileo: Magical (Ire), Hermosa (Ire) and Love (Ire). Furthermore, Cheveley Park Stud’s homebred G1 Tattersalls Falmouth S. heroine Veracious (GB) is by Galileo’s best son Frankel (GB).

It would, though, be grossly unfair to Pivotal to attribute his success as a broodmare sire solely to the fact that his daughters are generally compatible with Galileo. For one thing, a mare has to be high-class to merit a place in Galileo’s book, whoever she is by; secondly, Pivotal’s daughters regularly produce good horses from a broad spectrum of stallions.

G1 Investec Coronation Cup winner Defoe (Ire) is by Dalakhani (Ire) whose pedigree is not merely devoid of Galileo: it is devoid of Northern Dancer entirely. Showcasing (GB), Kodiac (GB) and Fastnet Rock (Aus), sires respectively of Advertise (GB),Fairyland (Ire) and One Master(GB), are similarly free of Galileo, notwithstanding that all three hail from the other branches of the Northern Dancer sire-line.

To put Pivotal’s achievement of three consecutive Broodmare Sire Championships of Great Britain and Ireland into perspective, he ranks as only the third horse since the start of the 20th century to have topped the table three years running, following St Simon (five consecutive seasons, 1903 to 1907) and Sadler’s Wells (seven consecutive seasons, 2005 to 2011). Company does not come any more elite than that.

Read the rest of the article on the TDN