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Weatherbys Stallion Scene
Profitable and Elarqam popular with breeders in Turkey
PROFITABLE has lived up to his name so far through this European Flat season with 52 winners on the board and dual Group 2 success courtesy of the Weatherbys Ireland Greenlands Stakes winner Mitbaahy, who is now the sire’s leading earner with career prize-money of $282,804, and the Temple Stakes winner Kerdos.
The stallion is no longer resident in Ireland, the son of Invincible Spirit having moved from Kildangan Stud to be domiciled in Turkey having been purchased for stud duties by the Jockey Club of Turkey.
He stands alongside the former Shadwell stallion and 2024 first-season sire Elarqam, who made the move eastwards for the 2023 season from Haras de Saint Arnoult in France.
And the first-season son of Frankel has a first winner under his belt (from just three runners in the UK) thanks to the Mick and David Easterby-trained two-time winner
Scatter Penny, successful at Nottingham and at Pontefract, her two starts to date.
There are around 250 thoroughbred stallions in Turkey with 15 stallions standing for the Jockey Club of Turkey and Kutay Yusufoglu, breeding manager for the Jockey
Club, explained why the two stallions were pinpointed for duties in the country.
“In Turkey 60 per cent of the races are on Dirt and over the last decade we have invested strongly in stallions from the US for those Dirt races, so we need to focus now on Turf sires in order to fill a bit of a gap in that division,” he reported.
“Two years ago we lost Powerscourt, the three-quarters brother to Frankel, and we wanted to replace him with a son of Frankel.
“Profitable was a fast horse and gets fast runners on Turf. The largest proportion of our races are over shorter trips, while we have 24 Group 1 races, 15 of them are on Turf.”
The Jockey Club of Turkey is able to stand its sires at fees attractive to breeders, the aim being to improve the quality of stallions that breeders can patronise.
Yusufoglu explains: “We subsidise the breeding sector in the country and Profitable and Elarqam both stood this spring at TL100,000, which is equal to €3,000.
“Victory Gallop is our most expensive sire at TL250,000, around €7,000.”
The Jockey Club owns seven farms, four of which are focused stallion stations, with Profitable and Elarqam standing at Izmit Farm.
“The main breeding region is in the Marmara region around Istanbul, Izmit and Bursa, and we have six farms there and close to breeders – we want them to spend money on horses not on transport!” reasons Yusufoglu.
The Jockey Club’s investment in both stallions has been well received by private breeders – Profitable covered 113 mares this spring with 82 already reported to be in-foal.
Of the younger sire Yusufoglu adds:
“Elarqam saw 118 mares and in 2023 was the busiest stallion in Turkey. Many of the owners are very happy with the yearlings they have by Elarqam – generally they look well put together, look sharp, have bone and are strong.
“We have a saying in Turkey that ‘praise comes one by one, but criticism comes 100 times!’
“We are happy to see good comments from the breeders with the stock that they have.”
The long-term goals for the Jockey Club are two-fold – to increase the number of Turkish-bred horses possessing the ability to compete on the international stage, and to improve the quality of homebred fillies who will form the country’s future breeding stock.
Stallions able to be imported to the country have to meet certain criteria before they can take up duties in Turkey, and either must have run to a certain stakes race level or have produced progeny of that standard.
Of course, the Turkish Jockey Club has not just acquired stallions, it has sold too, and notably in the last eight months Authorized, who had four covering seasons in Turkey, has found a new home in Ireland at Capital Stud.
“It was a tough decision, we had lots of interest in him for some time,” reports Yusufoglu. “He saw around 80 mares each year and did a good job for us. However, as he is perhaps more successful with his older progeny, we decided that maybe it was a good time for him to move back to Ireland.
“It was a tough decision, we had lots of interest in him for some time,” reports Yusufoglu. “He saw around 80 mares each year and did a good job for us. However, as he is perhaps more successful with his older progeny, we decided that maybe it was a good time for him to move back to Ireland.
