Night Of Thunder & Ombudsman on top of the world following outstanding June

Champion sire Night Of Thunder and his brilliant son Ombudsman both enjoyed a sensational Royal Ascot, with performances that underlined their reputations as the best in the world. 

An exceptional winner of the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes in 2025, Ombudsman became the first horse in 31 years to win back-to-back renewals of the middle-distance highlight with another superb display. 

This season’s Dubai Turf winner stormed to a four-length verdict over a field that included the first and second from last year’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe – Daryz and Minnie Hauk – and Tattersalls Gold Cup victor Almaqam. 

The BHA’s Head of Handicapping Dominic Gardiner-Hill hailed the victory as “the best performance we’ve seen in the world in 2026” and handed the five-year-old a career-high official rating of 132. 

Night Of Thunder ended Royal Ascot as the meeting’s leading sire with four wins including a superb day one double, with 2,000 Guineas hero Bow Echo taking the St James’s Palace Stakes and Ten Bob Tony leading home a 1-2 for his sire in the Queen Anne Stakes. Highly progressive three-year-old Lost Boys was successful for the stallion as he rattled off a fourth straight win in the Golden Gates Stakes. 

A sensational month for Night Of Thunder’s progeny saw Estrange capture the Pretty Polly Stakes in Ireland and Portfolio Duration win Saratoga’s New York Stakes, taking the sire’s tally of G1 winners in 2026 to five – more than any other stallion globally. 

Blue Point enjoyed notable success of his own at Royal Ascot as his daughter Blue Bolt secured a deserved first Group-race victory in the Duke Of Cambridge Stakes. Double Rush scored for the same sire in the fiercely competitive Wokingham Stakes, while Ghaiyyath filly Alobayyah stormed home to take the Kensington Palace Stakes. 

The Gold Cup provided one of the undoubted highlights of the week, with Trawlerman going down by a head to younger rival Scandinavia as he attempted to defend his title in the staying showpiece. 

Opera Ballo emerged with credit as he finished third after making the running in the Queen Anne Stakes – a race in which Notable Speech met with another Royal Ascot defeat in sixth – with three-year-olds Talk Of New York and Del Maro also running strong races in defeat. 

America’s Champion Two-Year-Old Filly of 2024 Immersive booked a return to the Breeders’ Cup with a brave victory in the Fleur de Lis Stakes at Churchill Downs. The daughter of Nyquist was an impressive winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies and has a guaranteed place in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff this time. 

Nysos, who is also by Nyquist, will be heading to Keeneland in October to defend his Breeders’ Cup Mile crown following an emphatic victory in the Met Mile earlier in the month, with runner-up Knightsbridge completing an exacta for his sire in the historic race. 

Maxfield has made an exciting start to his stallion career and the dual G1 victor celebrated a first top-level success as a sire as Englishman equalled Saratoga’s long-standing course record for seven furlongs with a scintillating display in the Woody Stephens Stakes. 

The Queensland Racing Carnival represents the last major racing meeting in the Australian calendar, and Fireball Miss provided her sire Bivouac with a second G1 winner as she dominated the Queensland Oaks. 

With all top-level racing now finished for the campaign, Street Boss will end the season as Australia’s second most-prolific sire in terms of G1 winners, with his total of four only bettered by the late Snitzel on six. 

A superb Classic crop for Street Boss has included top sprinter Tentyris, outstanding filly Tempted and Green Spaces, who was a decisive winner of the ATC Australian Derby. Pericles scored for the stallion when notching a first top-level win at the age of six in the Futurity Stakes. 

Beiwacht (Bivouac) and Observer (Ghaiyyath) have also formed part of an exceptional group of three-year-olds this season, each posting a pair of top-level wins. Street Cry was the most successful broodmare sire of G1 winners, responsible for the dams of five top-level scorers.