Droopys Sydney & Coaimhe Doherty
The death last week of the champion sire Droopys Sydney presents a fabulous opportunity to consider some of the most significant aspects of breeding, including one that seldom gets mentioned – writes Floyd Amphlett.
In the past, we have highlighted the tenuous relationship between significant racing careers and breeding, recalling dozens of track superstars who flopped at stud.
We have also considered the flip side; dogs whose track careers have offered limited breeding opportunities but have risen from obscurity.
Droopys Sydney – retired after one race – is a poster boy for that second camp. He produced a total of five litters in his first two seasons at stud but had an immediate breakthrough by throwing the brilliant Bubbly Bluebird and never looked back.
Droopys Sydney has been the champion sire for the last two years and has an unassailable lead as the leading open race sire of 2024.
So – what was his secret? What was it that made Droopys Sydney such a sensational stud dog?
I have a suggestion that – like so many breeding theories, cannot be proven. It may not be widely accepted. But here goes . . .
Breeders traditionally look at sire lines as the source of ability.
But what if Sydney was more of a ‘mummy’s boy’?
We would need to start by looking at sire, Duke Special.
Now I don’t want to dismiss the racing ability of Steve Locke’s 2009 Produce Stakes winner. He was an exceptionally good, if unlucky, greyhound.
As a sire though, he didn’t pull up any trees. His big winners included the likes of China Special (Drumbo Gold Cup) Olympic winner Jaytee Lightning, Springbok winner Droopys Rex and Derby finalist Judicial Ruling.
Juvenile Classic finalist Broadstrand Xola (dam of Bubbly Bluebird) and Oaks runner-up Droopys Areetha were among his better daughters.
Duke’s outstanding daughters also included Sydney’s litter sister, Racenight Jenny, who was a double Golden Jacket finalist and Cesarewitch runner-up for Tony Collett.
Duke produced over 100 litters but was always up against it, not least because he was competing with his sire who was still in the ascendancy. The blue Duke was eventually exported to Argentina.
Duke’s sire, Ballymac Maeve was an interesting cross, being by the outstanding Queensland import Roanokee out of Liam Dowling’s greatest-ever brood, Blonde Returns.
Maeve’s offspring included Central City, College Maybe, Me Buddy, Mileheight Alba, Sheepwalk Mac and Westmead Shaw.
He was also particularly effective for his breeder-producing Ballymacs: Best, Bull, Ruso, Tony and more.
Maeve’s most notable achievement, by far, was injecting early pace into bloodlines. At the peak of his powers, 2011, he finished second to Westmead Hawk in the UK open race sires table. But with an average winning distance of his progeny of 414m, he was always going to struggle to be the champion sire.
Over distances up to 450m, Maeve was an exceptional producer.
To be a ‘legendary’ stud dog though, you need greater flexibility. With 480m the most common distance raced, and 500m as the Derby trip, anything under 430m just won’t cut it.
So what of Sydney’s dam line?
Well, his dam Droopys Laramie was a bit special. Weighing in at 68lbs, she raced four times with two wins and two seconds, the last being a win on final night of the Juvenile Classic at Tralee.
The €25K decider was won by Paradise Miami in 28.60. At barely two years old, Laramie came from off the pace, led at the third bend, and won by six in 28.63.
She is a daughter of the greatest sire of dams in recent years, the brilliant Westmead Hawk.
Hawk was the leading open race sire from 2010-2011, the average winning distance of his progeny in each of those years was 591m and 584m.
He would find it tougher today given the much smaller number of stayers races.
Sydney’s grand dam Droopys Sport was a prolific open race stayer for Barrie Draper winning a Cock of the North and Angel of the North, as well as finishing runner-up in a Futurity.
Sport’s dam Droopys Graf was a litter sister to another champion sire in Droopys Vieri, one of three fabulous litter brothers along with Derby finalist Droopys Honcho and Gymcrack winner Droopys Woods.
All of which traces back to one of the Dunphy brothers’ foundation broods, Droopys Fergie. Bred by Tom Barry, Fergie ran up in both an English Oaks and Puppy Oaks final plus a Wexford Lager final.
Her influence has been immense as this dam line chart (below) demonstrates.
There is more to Sydney than that though.
For a start, although he throws champions over all distances – see the table of big winners – the average winning distance for his progeny in 2022 was 499m.
Sydney was a strapping lad, and his dam was a strapping wench. Not only does Sydney throw a significant number of top-class females, most of them are strong and athletic with a number weighing in at around 32-34 kilos.
Finally – and one of the most important factors of all in a champion stud dog, the vast majority of Sydney offspring are extremely genuine.
There are a few hurdlers among them, notably Coppice Fox, but not an excessive amount, given his overall success.
He was also blessed with good fertility and longevity, essential with a dog whose stud career didn’t get underway until some of his contemporaries had already been found wanting.
However, even in trying to build a case to suggest that Droopys Sydney’s brilliance was due to his fabulous distaff line, there are still a couple of points worth mentioning.
Firstly, would any of this be possible without the early-paced influence of Ballymac Maeve in turning a stamina-laden damline into such a rich source of 480/500m hounds?
(Maeve is named on the basis of him being more successful than either his son or sire)
Secondly, even allowing for all of the above, what was it that elevated Sydney above the rest of this fabulous family into ‘supersire’ status?
As so often with breeding – it’s easy to pick a winner AFTER he has crossed the line
*King Capaldi was promoted post race to win the Ladbrokes Winter Derby
Star editor Floyd Amphlett began writing breeding articles in Greyhound Magazine in the early 1980s. He produced a weekly breeding column in The Sporting Life from 1986 until the closure of the paper. He was also a specialist contributor to The Sporting Press, Ireland’s Greyhound Weekly, the Greyhound Stud Book and the Star itself. He is the author of two specialist books on the subject, In The Blood and Savva.
