7 minute read
Joining the market place
On the crest of a wave
Tangi Saliou and wife Dorothee of Haras de la Haie Neuvre are looking forward to the auction debut of Scat Daddy’s yearlings at Arqana in August, writes Aisling Crowe
NORMANDIE IS THE FIRST place which springs to mind when thinking of the French thoroughbred breeding industry, but to its southwest the storied peninsula of Brittany reaches out into the Atlantic Ocean, and it is there where you will find one of the busiest stud farms in France – Haras de la Haie Neuve, near to Mondevert, in the countryside east of Rennes.
This spring, the stud’s seven stallions covered approximately 500 mares in 2021, eight per cent of all the mares covered in France.
It’s an astonishing increase in just three years since the historic farm was taken over by Tangi Saliou and his wife Dorothee, a native of Brittany.
Saliou has been managing stallions for two decades and was formerly a director of Haras de Montaigu, prior to that he worked for the French National Stud, but he had a hankering to establish his own business and stud farm.
The couple jumped at the opportunity to take over the farm where Verglas began his stud career and from where the likes of Hurricane Cat, Pedro The Great and Della Francesca have made their name.
The couple has built up a broodmare band of 60, which they use to support their seven stallions, which are split between NH and Flat.
Supporting their own sires is vitally important to the couple with three young stallions embarking on their stud careers.
“We have a lot of interesting genetics and good stallions,” says Seriou of the septet that stand at Haras de la Haie Neuve. “We have associations with Emmanuel de Seroux of Narvick International, who helps us to source Flat stallions.”
One of those Flat stallions is Seahenge, from the penultimate crop of the stallion phenomenon that was Scat Daddy. The Group 2 Champagne Stakes winner and Dewhurst Stakes (G1) third is at an exciting and delicate stage of his career – his first crop of yearlings will soon be examined in the glare of the sales ring.
“Scat Daddy is world famous and did so well from his progeny; we really wanted to stand a son of Scat Daddy in France,” says Seriou, going onto explain the Scat Daddy story full circle.
Seahenge: a $750,000 yearling, the son of Scat Daddy won the Champagne Stakes (G2) and finished third in the Dewhurst Stakes (G1)
“Scat Daddy’s breeder is French, he breeds the best trotters in the world and fantastic thoroughbreds, and he has a share in Seahenge.
The acquisition of the Ballydoyle trainee, who cost MV Magnier $750,000 at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale, is in line with the couple’s policy of offering sires with proven juvenile ability to French breeders and carries on a link with Coolmore that began with Pedro The Great.
The Group 1 Phoenix Stakes winner and half-brother to Footstepsinthesand had begun to establish himself as an exciting stallion from his Brittany base before his untimely demise two years’ ago aged just nine.
“It is very important to have good twoyear-old horses as stallions in France, there is a market for them and you can develop the business that way,” he explains. “Seahenge also comes from a good family; he is a brother to Max Player, who was one of the best three-year-olds in the US last year and won a Grade 2 recently. Their dam Fools In Love was sold at Keeneland for a million dollars to Cheveley Park Stud in 2017.”
As well as Seahenge, another former Ballydoyle trainee is at the early stages of his stud career at Haras de la Haie Neuve.
Whitecliffsofdover is a son of War Front out of a winning full-sister to Pulpit, and a grandson of the Grade 1 Frizette Stakes winner Preach.
It’s also the family of Scat Daddy’s sire Johannesburg and the Grade 2 winner Tale Of The Cat, sire of seven individual Grade 1 winners. His first crop of 62 are just two-year-olds and only two have run so far, both of them being placed.
The purchases of Whitecliffsofdover and Seahenge have led to the farm partnering with Coolmore to launch the stallion career of Taj Mahal, a Galileo full-brother to Group 1 winners Gleneagles, Marvellous, Happily and, the most recent of them all, Joan Of Arc.
Seriou believes that the Group 2 winner, one of the seven foals out of You’resothrilling to earn Group 1 black-type, has the pedigree and race record to rewrite the story of Galileo’s stallion sons in France.
“His pedigree is the best in the world,” he beams. “Taj Mahal covered 73 mares this year and 71 mares last year.
“We are very happy with his first foals, they are very strong like him and beautiful, too.
“The Galileo sons that have stood in France previously were not as well-bred as Taj Mahal or our NH sire by Galileo, Magneticjim, who won black-type at Auteutil and is a half-brother to the good sires Racinger and Recital, winner of the Group 1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud.
“He covered more than 200 mares in his fi rst two seasons and his oldest horses are two.”
THE QUARTET OF Flat stallions is completed by Le Brivido, the Jersey Stakes (G3) winner and Poule d’Essai des Poulains runner-up who is by France’s leading sire Siyouni. He was was transferred to Haie Neuve for the 2021 season after standing his fi rst season at stud in the UK.
The couple also runs a consigning business for clients and will off er around 70 yearlings at the sales over the next couple of months, including a strong draft of Seahenge yearlings.
He has 66 registered and a significant proportion of them will be sold by Haras de la Haie Neuve over the next three months.
“We are very happy with Seahenge’s progeny and are excited about the yearlings we are taking to the sales,” is the report.
Haie Neuve off ers the only yearling by Seahenge in Arqana’s August Yearling Sale – Lot 297 named Keahenge Bere. The colt has an American pedigree that includes Street Sense and Mr Greeley but his immediate relatives have enjoyed success in Europe. His Hurricane Cat half-brother Sujet Libre was third in the Group 3 Prix La Rochette and his three-year-old half-brother, by Haras de la Haie Neuve’s late Pedro The Great, was Listed-placed last season for Frederic Rossi.
There are fi ve members of Seahenge’s fi rst crop catalogued in the V2 Sale, which follows immediately from the August Yearling Sale and they again demonstrate the support which Haie Neuve has given their young sire.
Whitecliffsofdover: is out of a winning full-sister to Pulpit, his two runners so far have both placed
Le Brivido: the Group 3 Jersey Stakes-winning son of Siyouni moved to France after a year in the UK
Lot 457 is from the Midnight Lady branch of that family, which includes Titus Livius and Briseida. He is a son of the Pulpit mare Triple Witching, herself a half-sister to the Group 1 Prix Jacques le Marois third Holocene and the Listed winner It’s Midnight, who is the dam of international Group 3 winners Tusk and Midnight Sands.
NUMERICALLY, SEAHENGE’s strongest sales representation is at Osarus in September and the star of Haras de la Haie Neuve’s draft is undoubtedly the half-sister to Pedro The Great’s Grade 1 Del Mar Oaks winner Fatale Bere.
Named Kheira Des Sources she is out of the winning Saumarez mare Mofa Bere, another to be bred by Haie Neuve’s former owners, and is from the family of North American Grade 1 winner and sire Golden Act. Fatale Bere was bought for $700,000 by Katsumi Yoshida’s Northern Farm at the 2019 Keeneland January Sale.
Mary Montagu, a Danehill Dancer halfsister to Willie Mullins’ Ascot Gold Cup runner-up Simenon, has a Seahenge yearling colt catalogued as Lot 78 in the Haie Neuve draft for Osarus.
River Trebor is the dam of five winners, a full-sister to the Group 3 winner Fantastic Filly and a half-sister to the dam of Group 1 winners and sires Stormy River and Silverwave. Her Seahenge yearling colt is Lot 128 at Osarus.
While his first yearlings are going under the hammer in France, Seahenge will be thousands of miles away in Argentina at Haras Vacacion alongside Kingman’s half-brother Remote, where Seahenge’s great-grandfather Hennessy once stood.
