Darley sire Shamadal is locked in a tense three-way battle with Not A Single Doubt and Fastnet Rock for first-season honours but Sheikh Mohammed’s stud is already celebrating a clean-sweep of the second-season sires’ premiership.

Darley sires Exceed and Excel, Lonhro, Reset, Dubai Destination and Untouchable dominate the second-season ladder.  Fourth placed Eliza Park resident Statue Of Liberty is the only outsider in the top half-dozen.

Exceed and Excel is high-balling on top with 60 winners of 132 races and prizemoney of $3.21 million.  His chief earner this season has been G1 Blue Diamond winner Reward for Effort with $764,000.

Lonhro is next best with 51 winners of 103 races and earnings of $2.25 million.  The former Woodlands champ has done a splendid job to make second spot considering his top performer this season has been Shatters.  The Peter Snowdown trained filly has garnered just $125,000 which is a mere 5% of Lonhro’s total earnings.

Those figures suggest Lonhro is still waiting for a stand-out galloper that every sire needs – for publicity purposes as much as anything else – leading into the start of the stud season.

Lonhro won 26 of his 35 starts – the majority of them in Sydney – but Melbourne racegoers would argue he was at his best down south.  He won a vintage edition of 2001 Caulfield Guineas then beat Sunline after an epic duel in the 2002 Caulfield Stakes.  For an encore, he came back from the dead to defeat Delzao a head in the 2004 Australian Cup.

With two crops of racing age, Lonhro has sired 59 winners but only three of them have been black-type winners – Black Minx, Custard and Minnesota Shark.

Snowden believes Lonhro has a Group 1 galloper in the wings and he reckons last start Flemington winner Denman will confirm that rating in the G1 Golden Rose at Rosehill in August.

Denman (2c Lonhro – Peach by Vain) won first-up this prep at Kilmore and then completed a hat-trick within a fortnight at Flemington and Sandown.  He came from well back to score at headquarters and showed his versatility by scoring an on-pace victory at the Lakeside course last Saturday.

Denman is raced by Sheikh Mohammed and is a half-brother to G1 Victorian Sires’ Produce Stakes winner Preserve (Canny Lad) and LR Scone Dark Jewel Classic winner Rio Osa (Canny Lad).

Their dam Peach only raced twice before being retired to Woodlands.  She was beaten by Pauillac on debut at Hawkesbury in December 1993 and bowed out ten months later with a win at Gosford despite racing erratically.

Peach has a yearling colt by Commands and a weanling colt by Lonhro.  She missed to Darley sire Librettist last year.