On 2 November 2014 Juddmonte announced that Noble Mission (Galileo) had been retired to stud in Kentucky. Exactly twelve years later, on Monday 2 November this year, Sweden’s Kirsten Rausing was able to announce that Frankel’s own brother is returning to the town where he was trained. The triple Group 1 winner will cover at Lanwades Stud in Newmarket in the coming season at a fee of £9,000 – and with a strictly limited book.
“We are delighted to welcome Noble Mission here. He fills a much-needed place in the UK breeding industry, being a Champion racehorse with an outstanding pedigree and an excellent conformation. He is also an established international sire, now available to European breeders at a very competitive fee,” says Kirsten Rausing, who thanks the Japanese breeders’ association JBBA for their co-operation in the deal. It was brokered by John Tyrrell of BBA Ireland, and the stallion is already at Lanwades, where he can be viewed by appointment.
Noble Mission was bred and owned by Juddmonte Farms and was trained by Sir Henry Cecil at Warren Place in Newmarket – and, after Cecil’s death in June 2013, by his widow, Lady Jane Cecil. He was ridden first by Tom Queally, who was also Frankel’s partner, and later by James Doyle. It came to 21 starts, nine wins, eight of them in Group or Listed company, £1,364,058 and a Timeform rating of 128.
The breakthrough did not come until he was five. He opened 2014 by winning the Gordon Richards Stakes (Gr.3) at Sandown by nine lengths from Telescope, followed up in the Huxley Stakes (Gr.3) at Chester and was then supplemented for the Tattersalls Gold Cup (Gr.1) at the Curragh. He led all the way and won by a length and a quarter from Magician. It was the first Group 1 victory for both the horse and Lady Cecil.
In the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud (Gr.1) in June he was three lengths clear turning for home, but was passed in the final stride by Spiritjim – another son of Galileo. Following an inquiry by France Galop, Spiritjim was disqualified for a banned substance and the race was awarded to Noble Mission.
But it was on 18 October 2014 that he wrote himself into the history books. In the Champion Stakes (Gr.1) at Ascot, the race in which Frankel had ended his unbeaten career two years earlier, Noble Mission led all the way on heavy ground and held Al Kazeem at bay in a duel that was not settled until the line. Noble Mission won by a neck, Free Eagle was third, and the favourite Cirrus Des Aigles had to settle for fifth.
The first prize was £770,547, and a few weeks later Noble Mission was voted Cartier Champion Older Horse.
The pedigree is one of the best documented in the stud book. His dam Kind (Danehill) won six races, two of them Listed, and is the dam of seven winners from eight runners. Frankel won all 14 of his starts and ten Group 1 races and is today one of Europe’s leading stallions with more than 40 Group 1 winners.
Bullet Train (Sadler’s Wells) won the Derby Trial Stakes (Gr.3) and later stood as a stallion in Australia, while the half-sister Joyeuse (Oasis Dream) is the dam of Amusingly (No Nay Never), winner of this year’s Prix Jean-Luc Lagardère (Gr.1).
Noble Mission himself has had a long and international stud career: six seasons at Lane’s End in Kentucky from 2015 and then six seasons at the JBBA’s Shizunai Stallion Station in Hokkaido from 2021.
By Lanwades’ count he has more than 290 winners of over 810 races for total earnings of more than 36 million dollars, and the Racing Post puts his tally of Group and Graded winners at nine. The best are Code Of Honor, winner of the Travers Stakes (G1) and the Jockey Club Gold Cup (G1) and second in the Kentucky Derby (G1), and Nobals, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint (G1).
In Europe Spanish Mission is remembered for his wins in the Yorkshire Cup (Gr.2) and the Doncaster Cup (Gr.2).
And Noble Mission is no stranger to Scandinavian racecourses either. Noble Justice, owned by Stall Trick Or Treat and trained by Niels Petersen, won both Malmö Stads Pris at Jägersro and the Herbert Sachs Memorial at Bro Park in 2021 and was third in the Norsk Derby, a length and a half behind Stroxx Carlras. Money Mission is still in training with Marianne Lian in Norway and has won this year, and Noble Dance has raced in Sweden for Francisco Castro.
Lanwades’ two other stallions have both enjoyed Group 1 success in 2026. Study Of Man (Deep Impact) is the sire of the champion mare Kalpana, who won the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes (Gr.1) at Ascot and the Yorkshire Oaks (Gr.1) at York, while Sea The Moon (Sea The Stars) is the sire of Rayif, who took the Poule d’Essai des Poulains (Gr.1) and the Prix Jacques le Marois (Gr.1) and now goes to stud himself at Haras de Bonneval.
In 2026 Study Of Man stood at £35,000 and Sea The Moon at £20,000, so Noble Mission arrives at a fraction of his stablemates’ fee.
Kirsten Rausing has lived her adult life in England, but she has never let go of Scandinavia, and Lanwades is a name on the Scandinavian racecourses right now: Study Of Man’s daughter Lady Irene became this year the first horse in history to win all three Scandinavian Oaks. Scandinavian breeders already know the stud’s stallions. Now they can send a mare to Frankel’s brother.
