Cover Image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
“If he's not going to be attractive to breeders, then I don’t know what is,” is how Will Bourne, Ciaron Maher’s Head Of Bloodstock, described Point Of Law (GB) (Frankel {GB}) after the Northern Hemisphere 3-year-old colt powered home to win the G1 Melbourne Cup on Tuesday.
It is a powerful statement to make, but Bourne has quite solid reasoning that extends far beyond the colt’s three and three-quarter-length domination of the race that stops the nation.
The horse identified by the Maher team at this year’s Royal Ascot racing carnival has combined the holy trinity of performance, precedence, and pedigree to not just shine at Flemington, but to influence the next generation of stayers bred when he retires to stud.
Ticking the first two boxes
Royal Ascot has been a fertile hunting ground for future stars in Australia, with particular success coming from the G2 Queen’s Vase, a 3-year-old race over 2846 metres. Subsequent G1 Sydney Cup winner Circle Of Fire (GB) (Almanzor {Fr}) was fourth in 2023 before joining Maher’s stable, behind $1.6 million earner Saint George (GB) (Roaring Lion {USA}) who finished second. Chris Waller’s dual Group 1 winner Birdman (Ire) (Free Eagle {Ire}) finished third the following year.
Point Of Law came fourth in the Queen’s Vase by a length and a half in his first start in stakes company, and followed it up with a win in the 2615-metre G3 Bahrain Trophy at Newmarket before his acquisition by Maher.
Point Of Law after winning the G1 Melbourne Cup | Image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
“We try to buy a horse out of the Queen’s Vase every year,” Bourne said. “Royal Ascot is usually a hard track, and that race has produced a good formline in Australia. The Bahrain Trophy is similar - we purchased Royal Supremacy out of that race in 2024 when he came second.”
"We try to buy a horse out of the Queen’s Vase every year... that race has produced a good formline for Australia." - Will Bourne
Royal Supremacy (Ire) (Make Believe {GB}) improved upon his 15th placing in the 2025 Melbourne Cup to finish fifth to Point Of Law on Tuesday, carrying five kilos more than his earlier effort.
The Cup this year was a similar race shape to the Queen’s Vase, where a tearaway leader put a gap on a slow field and Point Of Law wound himself up to dash home impressively. He was just that bit better with almost two more furlongs to run.
Will Bourne | Image courtesy of Ciaron Maher Racing
“I thought he was the run of the race in the Queen’s Vase,” Bourne said. “He showed that brilliant turn of foot again yesterday (Tuesday). He has very appealing bloodlines, so if he can show that turn of foot over 2000 metres, he’s going to be a very valuable stallion.”
The pedigree makes a stayer
Good horses can come from anywhere, but generally speaking, a good horse that seeks to be influential needs to stand on the shoulders of champions. Point Of Law, son of champion racehorse turned champion sire Frankel (GB), himself the son of the breed-shaping Galileo (Ire), has just that.
“By Frankel out of a Deep Impact mare, you just don't get any better than that,” said Bourne. “He’s the real deal, Frankel. The Deep Impact factor makes it more interesting too, and he has already shown himself to be a proper horse. He’s no plodder.”
"He’s the real deal, Frankel... and he (Point Of Law) has already shown himself to be a proper horse." - Will Bourne
Point Of Law is the first foal out of Listed-performed Portfolio (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}, also a dual 2000-metre winner and also the first foal out of her dam, Listed Lyric Stakes winner Diploma (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}). The producer of a Group performer by Frankel, Diploma is out of dual Listed winner Enticement (GB), who boasts a fourth champion in her sire Montjeu (Ire).
Deep Impact (Jpn) | Image courtesy of Shadai Stallion Station
Fourteen sons of Deep Impact (Jpn), a breed shaper in Japan, have produced stakes winners so far, including Sheza Alibi’s sire Saxon Warrior (Jpn), Satono Glow’s (NZ) sire Satono Aladdin (Jpn), and Study Of Man (Ire), whose first crop has produced four-time Group 1 victress Kalpana (GB) and Melbourne Cup fourth Sons And Lovers (GB). Auguste Rodin (Ire) and Fierce Impact (Jpn) are poised to be the next to add to Deep Impact’s legacy.
Dubawi (Ire) needs little introduction to Australia, who has wholeheartedly embraced his sons and grandsons at stud, while Montjeu has woven himself into the fabric of pedigrees in both hemispheres. Fourteen of his sons are stakes producers, and his grandson Tarzino (NZ) sired another Group 1 winner two weeks ago with the unbeaten G1 Spring Champion Stakes victress Proxima Dea.
The strength in Point Of Law’s pedigree comes not just from one side, but from two strong sides continuously interlocking. In the opinion of people like Coolmore Stud’s Colm Santry and Bruce Slade, principal of Kestrel Thoroughbreds and Newgate Farm’s director of bloodstock, a powerful combination of female family and sire power becomes all the more necessary when breeding to stay.
"Every single one of those horses (Point Of Law’s damsires) were not just champion racehorses of their generation, but they have all been breed-shaping sires." - Bruce Slade
Bruce Slade | Image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
“Every single one of those horses (Point Of Law’s damsires) were not just champion racehorses of their generation, but they have all been breed-shaping sires ever since,” said Slade.
“To have champions stacked on top of each other on the page, it is a very rare pedigree in that respect. To have the influence of Montjeu, Dubawi, Deep Impact is very powerful stuff - and while the damline is always important, those sires still make up half the pedigree.”
“He's the pinnacle of breeding,” Santry said of Point Of Law. “That's the type of pedigree you need to be successful in the middle-distance sire ranks. A sprinting sire doesn’t need any pedigree. Speed is hereditary. Class and pedigree are what you need to become a good middle-distance sire - especially when the further out you go in distance, the more of both you will need.”
"Class and pedigree are what you need to become a good middle-distance sire - especially when the further out you go in distance, the more of both you will need." - Colm Santry
Colm Santry | Image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
World class
When examining the bloodlines knitted together on Point Of Law's page, perhaps he was always destined to reach the greatest heights so quickly. His five-start run-in to the Cup makes him the most lightly raced winner since Martini Henry (NZ), who won Cup at his second start after winning the 1883 Victoria Derby on debut just three days before.
In the opinion of his trainer, the colt has the world at his feet and a resume that will only grow with time.
“I think he's world class,” Maher told racenet.com on Wednesday. "If he keeps developing - if you see the shape of him, the frame of him, he's still got a lot of developing to do - it certainly wouldn't surprise me if he races in the best races in the world.
"If he (Point Of Law) keeps developing, it certainly wouldn't surprise me if he races in the best races in the world." - Ciaron Maher
Ethan Brown and Ciaron Maher after winning the G1 Melbourne Cup | Image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
“You wouldn't rule out going back to England or Dubai, there's some nice races there. Japan is one of the big races on the global circuit - he would handle a fast track. They usually run on fast tracks over there and he's out of a Deep Impact mare by one of the world's best stallions.
“It should be quite fun, but we're mindful he's still quite raw and we want to let him furnish as well.”
If he could display the same turn of foot over a shorter distance, the colt would certainly improve his commercial appeal to Australian breeders.
“If he could win a Cox Plate or something similar, he becomes a very, very interesting horse,” said Slade.
Creating the pedigree of a horse like Point Of Law is a lifetime of sending the best to the best, and the Australian breeding industry can benefit from a taste of the best when he arrives at stud.
A lasting influence
Santry points to Zabeel (NZ) as perhaps the greatest template for what could be Point Of Law's future; class and pedigree producing a champion on the track who has gone on to be a champion producer at stud.
“Zabeel is the greatest middle-distance sire we've ever seen down here,” he said. “He's by Sir Tristram, a great staying influence, and he’s out of a Nureyev mare. She was probably the best bred mare that ever went to Sir Tristram and produced his most valuable son at stud. No other son of Sir Tristram has come close to Zabeel.”
"She (Lady Giselle) was probably the best bred mare that ever went to Sir Tristram and produced his most valuable son at stud." - Colm Santry
While she may not have raced herself, Zabeel’s dam Lady Giselle (Fr) (Nureyev {USA}) boasts a close family thick with black-type - including Carnegie (Ire) and his G1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe-winning dam Detroit (Fr) (Riverman {USA}) - and it has been mostly with Sir Tristram (Ire), and horses of his calibre, that she has been so fruitful.
Zabeel (NZ) | Image courtesy of Cambridge Stud
“Sir Tristram ran in the Kentucky Derby and he ran in the Epsom Derby,” Santry said. “Back then, horses never travelled, but here is this very well-bred horse by Sir Ivor, one of the greatest racehorses to ever come out of Ballydoyle, travelling the world. He must have been shooting the lights out at home to be running on a program like that.
"Sir Tristram ran in the Kentucky Derby and he ran in the Epsom Derby... he must have been shooting the lights out at home to be running on a program like that." - Colm Santry
“Looking back, it must have been his temperament that got in the way of him winning, so he was banished to New Zealand, but he was a wickedly well-bred horse. He was perhaps the one that got away.”
It is mostly through Zabeel and his descendants that Sir Tristram’s blood survives in Australasia, and it is through the descendants of other champions that Coolmore Stud and like-minded operations continue to seek to enrich Australian bloodlines.
“We’ve had three Epsom Derby winners come here who struggled to get mares, but all three have been invaluable to the Australasian breeding industry with their daughters,” said Santry.
Sir Tristram (Ire) | Image courtesy of Sportpix
“One was Galileo, one was Quest For Fame, and the other was High Chaparral. It was a struggle with Galileo to get mares to him that matched the quality of horse he was, and High Chaparral was not the ideal physique that the Australian breeder was looking for, so he was sent to New Zealand initially.
“High Chaparral was a very light-framed horse. He didn’t weigh a lot when he was racing, but he was fiercely well-bred. All three have since proven themselves very good influences, and it’s a success we will continue with City Of Troy.”
Champions by champions
Frankel, the greatest sire son produced by Galileo and a 10-time Group 1 winner from 1400 to 2000 metres, is a rare flavour in the Southern Hemisphere.
His own pedigree epitomises the class needed to succeed over further distances; he is one of three Group 1-performed sire sons for Kind (Ire) (Danehill {Ire}), a three-quarter-sister to triple Group 2 winner Riposte (GB) (Dansili {GB}) out of a mare by Rainbow Quest (USA), the Arc-winning sire of Quest For Fame (USA). His stakes-winning half-sister Joyeuse (GB) (Oasis Dream {GB}) has produced this year's G1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere winner Amusingly (GB) (No Nay Never {USA}).
Frankel (GB) | Standing at Juddmonte
“There are some bloodlines and sires who just work down here,” Bourne said. “Back in the day, it was Dansili. Anyone who bought a Dansili out of Europe came down here and dominated.”
A Group 1 producer in both hemispheres, Dansili (GB) appears on Point Of Law’s own pedigree page as the sire of Enticement’s half-brother Surfrider (Ire), winner of the G3 Prix Djebel and runner-up in the G1 Prix de la Foret before retiring to stud, where he is one of nine black type-producing sons of the sire.
His family is still sought after - his dam Hasili (Ire) (Kahyasi {Ire}) is the ancestress of Arrowfield Stud’s prized new recruit Lead Artist (GB), whose own dam is a daughter of Frankel. Again and again, the same highlights and reference points appear in the pedigrees of champions.
The offspring of mares that earn their spot in Frankel’s book do tend to deliver on their promise; dual Group 1 winners Hungry Heart and Converge among them, as well as his shuttle sire sons Chaldean (GB) and Diego Velazquez (Ire), and Sir Delius (GB), who bids for a fourth Australian Group 1 in Saturday’s G1 Champions Stakes at Flemington.
Sir Delius has already ticked the 2000-metre box that gives him the race record to appeal to Australians, and his own page features similar ingredients to add to the appeal.
“Once you have an impressive individual with an impressive race record, like Sir Delius and Point Of Law, the next most important thing for them as a stallion prospect is the sire,” Slade said. “We see it time and again that champions go on to be good sires, and good sires go on to be sires of sires.”
Sir Delius (GB) | Image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
"We see it time and again that champions go on to be good sires, and good sires go on to be sires of sires." - Bruce Slade
Sir Delius, who hails from the family of Invincible Spirit (Ire) and Pride Of Dubai, is out of a mare by another champion in Daylami (Ire), out of a mare by four-time Group 1 winner Generous (GB) who produced his best horses in New Zealand.
The Go Bloodstock-owned entire is also not the only recent highlight on the page, which also features USA Champion Turf Female Uni (USA) (More Than Ready {USA}) and Wimbledon Hawkeye (GB) (Kameko {USA}), a multiple Group/Graded winner on both sides of the Atlantic.
“It’s a pedigree with enough class that it keeps producing top results,” Slade said. “And at the end of the day, he’s by a champion of his generation. The highest probability for getting a champion in a population is from another champion, and he has all the trademarks to be one.”
To have two such well-bred and well-credentialled sons of Frankel entering stud on Australian soil in the near future, we should be so lucky.
