With more than a month to go in the current racing season, the stallion Captain Al has already easily broken his own record as the leading sire of South African two-year-olds.

As of June 23, the son of Al Mufti had 26 juvenile winners of 30 races and recorded juvenile earnings of R2.18-million. He has had 63% two-year-old winners and 15% two-year-old stakes winners in setting four new records, according to his agent, The Thoroughbred Group's John Freeman.

Captain Al set the old record in 2004 with 22 winners, as a freshman sire, in a tussle with another debut sire, Jet Master. That contest was a protent of things to come: the same two stallions are currently first and second in the overall stallion rankings for 2008/2009.

Captain Al lies second to Jet Master on the general log in terms of stakes, but with 56% winners he leads the field. His 71 individual winners of 115 races also put him at the head of the class (all ages). His 10% stakes winner / winners put him amongst the top three and he is second by earnings per runner as well.

“It is going to be exciting to watch just what the next five weeks will reveal,” says a Thoroughbred Group press release. The release charts the history of the sire of juveniles record: “In 1983 Harry Hotspur set an unparalleled record for number of individual 2yo winners – with an almost unimaginable 16. Four years later, Russian Fox came close with 15. Golden Thatch set a new standard in 1988 with 21 individual 2yo winners but National Assembly was the first freshman sire to produce 21 winners and he became the first sire to break the R1m 2yo earnings barrier a few years later until Count Dubois set a new 2yo earnings record at R1.78m in 2006.”