Coolmore's dual Group 1-winning juvenile Blackbeard is the 6/5 favourite with Fitzdares to be crowned Britain and Ireland's leading first-season by number of winners in 2026, ahead of Shadwell's Minzaal at 7/4.Fitzdares launched its market on Tuesday, four days out from the Brocklesby Stakes at Doncaster, the first two-year-old race of the year in Britain. Whilst both Blackbeard and Minzaal are without a representative among the 22 entries published on Monday, it's likely to be just a matter of time before their two-year-olds start to appear in large numbers, with each of them having 115 juveniles to go to war with in 2026, according to Global Stallions.Meanwhile, Persian Force is available to back at 9/2, with three of his 99 two-year-olds in contention to debut at Doncaster in the race he himself won back in 2022.Based at Tally-Ho Stud, Persian Force's first runner, Force Noir, was recently beaten just a head in the first two-year-old race of the year in Ireland for Amo Racing and Robson Aguiar. Aguiar also trains each of Persian Force's three Brocklesby entries for Kia Joorabchian of Amo Racing, who has supported the young stallion strongly in his second career.“It's a finger in the air kind of thing to start with,” Mark Cancea of Fitzdares said of how he priced up the market. “We didn't go through every mare that every stallion covered, but the number of mares that they covered is a good starting point. Then, we looked at the sires that were precocious themselves and, potentially, would be more likely to have two-year-old winners from their stock, particularly early on. We sort of formulated the prices from there. We did look at the stud fees as well, but that didn't really play a major factor.“We also looked at previous years and how the first-season sires had performed, in terms of the numbers they had produced and what sort of range we were looking at. Around 35 would probably be a winning number.”Whilst the claims of Blackbeard and Minzaal are obvious, Cancea was mindful of what could be a fast start for Persian Force, as well as giving a positive mention to Starfield Stud's Space Traveller. He is currently trading at 5/1.“All three entries for Amo Racing in the Brocklesby are by Persian Force,” Cancea added. “He wouldn't have covered the amount of mares that Blackbeard and Minzaal covered, but they [Amo] look like they're trying to get numbers on the board as quickly as possible. That's weighted in, in terms of his price.“Space Traveller is an interesting contender as well. He covered a lot of mares, but we felt that his progeny might come to the fore more from the middle of the season onwards. That's not to say that he won't have any precocious ones in there, but probably less so than the front three in the market.”Overbury Stud's Caturra, who could be represented by the Kathy Turner-trained Nevernotrememberu in Saturday's Brocklesby, completes the top five in the betting at 25/1. He is followed by Shadwell's Baaeed at 50/1 and the Darley duo of Perfect Power and Naval Crown, currently trading at 66/1 and 100/1, respectively. Naval Crown is responsible for Ralph Beckett's Brocklesby contender, Dance A Jig.The post Blackbeard the 6/5 Favourite with Fitzdares to be Crowned Leading First-Season Sire appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.