First season sire Mehmas bidding to make up for lost time with bumper crop

Few first-season sires have numbers on their side quite like Mehmas. The son of Acclamation will be bidding to make up for lost time when his progeny belatedly grace the track on Tuesday at Kempton and Newcastle, for which he was represented by nine individual entries.

Of the horses nominated by their trainers to be given priority in the ballot for the two-year-old races at Royal Ascot, Mehmas was the most popular sire with 14 individual nominations, followed by Dark Angel with ten and nine for Kodiac.

Richard Hannon trained Mehmas to July and Richmond Stakes successes as well as a hard-fought second in the 2016 Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot.

The trainer nominated three of the speedster’s progeny for a potential tilt at the royal meeting, including Cooperation, a half-brother to Shamwari Lodge - the dam of the stable's Oh This Is Us - who was purchased by £82,000 by Peter and Ross Doyle at the Goffs Premier Yearling Sale in 2019.

Hannon also nominated £50,000 purchase Host, while the Tom Dascombe-trained Fools Rush In, who commanded £60,000 and £40,000 yearling purchase Astimegoesby, trained by George Boughey, also stand out as being some of the highlight nominations.

Mehmas has a whopping 145 two-year-olds set to run for him this season, which goes some way in explaining the strong early entry for his progeny in the opening juvenile races of the season at Newcastle, Kempton and Yarmouth.

Those numbers would suggest that Mehmas, who stands for €7,500 at Tally Ho Stud in County Westmeath and whose first crop of yearlings made up to €260,000, has passed on his precociousness to his stock.

A winner over five furlongs on debut at Chester in May 2016, before following up in a conditions race later that month, Mehmas came into the Coventry Stakes off the back of three runs and went down by just over two lengths to Caravaggio.

He raced eight times, winning twice at Group 2 level and achieving a peak RPR of 114, before being retired to stud at Tally Ho at two, something the Mullingar-based operation are not afraid to do, with Group 2 Mill Reef winner Kessaar the latest to do so.

All bar one - Emirati Dirham - of Mehmas's potential runners at Kempton and Newcastle on Tuesday and at Yarmouth on Wednesday have been nominated by their respective trainers for Royal Ascot.

Fellow Tally Ho-based first season sire Vadamos could also be represented on Tuesday with Balamiyda entered in a six-furlong maiden at Kempton.

New Bay, Buratino, Bobby's Kitten and Territories are other first-season sires who are represented at the entry stage for maidens next week.

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