Page 42 - Demo

Too Darn Hot winning the Sussex Stakes (G1)
New stallions 2020 Too Darn Hot heads up this year’s batch of new sires at stud.
Aisling Crowe runs through individual profiles and outlines options for mare owners
€/£50,000>>€/£25,000
Too Darn Hot
Dubawi – Dar Re Mi (Singspiel)
Dalham Hall Stud
£50,000
An unbeaten champion two-year-old by the sire of 2019’s champion first-season sire from the Aga Khan family of leading sire Darshaan, Too Darn Hot is the most expensive new stallion of 2020.
A home-bred from Lord and Lady Lloyd- Webber’s Watership Down Stud, Too Darn Hot made an eye-catching debut over a mile at Sandown in the August of his two-year- old season. He quickly showed that first impression of him correct with a powerful performance when winning the 7f
Group 3 Solario Stakes, beating Listed Chesham Stakes winner Arthur Kitt by 4l.
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He improved again when winning the Group 2 Champagne Stakes at Doncaster with a strong showing ahead of subsequent Classic winner Phoenix Of Spain and the Group 2 winners Van Beethoven and Dark Vision.
Arguably he put in the best performance of his career in the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes when he was an easy winner of the 7f championship race, which has been won by such stallion luminaries as Mill Reef, Storm Bird, Diesis, Shamardal and Frankel.
He was two and three-quarter lengths clear of Group 1 Phoenix Stakes winner Advertise with subsequent Derby hero Anthony Van Dyck third.
After the Dewhurst, Too Darn Hot was given an official rating of 126 making him the highest-rated two-year-old in Europe of 2018.
An interrupted three-year-old preparation meant he missed the 2,000 Guineas for which
he was ante-post favourite, and, with a Derby tilt in mind, he returned in the 1m2f Group 2 Dante Stakes. He suffered the first defeat of his career on the Knavesmire failing to land a telling blow on winner Telecaster, but his second place finish was still ahead of Japan, Nayef Road and Line Of Duty.
With the Derby stamina conundrum mainly resolved, Too Darn Hot returned to a mile for the Irish 2,000 Guineas but lacked the speed of the winner Phoenix Of Spain, and again had to settle for the runner-up spot.
With Epsom off the agenda, as were ideas of trying the 1m2f trip once more, Too Darn Hot’s selected Royal Ascot target was the Group 1 St James’s Palace Stakes in which he suffered a third successive defeat.
Once more he lacked the finishing kick of his rivals, this time the winner being Circus Maximus, who held off Too Darn