First-season sensations

Martin Stevens chats to Tim Lane of The National Stud and Simon Sweeting of Overbury Stud about their exciting young stallions, Time Test and Ardad

BRITISH BREEDERS operating on a small to medium budget have yearned for commercially credible proven sires at affordable fees for several seasons now. It appears their prayers have been answered with the emergence of freshmen Ardad and Time Test as exciting young stallions this year.

Up to early November, the Overbury Stud resident Ardad had supplied 21 winners, including the Prix Morny (G1) and Middle Park Stakes (G1) hero Perfect Power, the Sirenia Stakes (G3) scorer Eve Lodge and the Coventry Stakes (G2) third Vintage Clarets.

The National Stud’s Time Test, meanwhile, had notched 11 winners from just 38 runners and they included Rocchigiani and Romantic Time, both winners at Group 3 level, and Tardis and The King’s Horses in Listed contests.

However, his highest-rated runner is Gavin Cromwell’s likeable filly Sunset Shiraz, who finished placed in the Group 2 Debutante Stakes, the Moyglare Stud Stakes (G1), the Weld Park Stakes (G3) and Staffordstown Stud Stakes (L) before winning a Gowran Park maiden by 6l in October. Both sires have enjoyed significant increases in the average price for their second crop of yearlings.

Ardad’s figure has gone from 15,327gns in 2020 to 52,552gns with a high of 190,000gns paid by Manor House Stud for a filly sold by Norris Bloodstock out of the winning Dark Angel mare Be My Angel.

Time Test’s yearling average has risen from 34,090gns for his first crop to 48,261gns for the second, highlighted by Alastair Donald’s purchase of a halfbrother to Oaks third Harlequeen for 400,000gns.

Above, Ardad, the son of Kodiac, below, Time Test by Dubawi. After a “long discussion” reports Sweeting, Ardad is to stand at an affordable fee of £12,500 next year, while The National Stud’s Time Test has been allotted a still-competitive price of £15,000. Both studs are particularly keen to look after their loyal client base and supportive breeders

That colt had been pinhooked by vendor Ballyvolane Stud for just 56,000gns.

Ardad was quick out of the blocks with his debut runners, getting off the mark with a first winner in early April and then shining at Royal Ascot thanks to Perfect Power taking the Norfolk Stakes (G2) and Vintage Clarets running third in the Coventry Stakes (G2).

A fast start by the sire was to be expected, as he is by Kodiac and from a highly precocious family, and he won the Windsor Castle Stakes (L) and the Group 2 Flying Childers Stakes in his own career. But what has been a very pleasant surprise is how his progeny have held their form throughout the season, and that he was still getting new winners deep into the autumn.

“Ardad has exceeded all expectations and there’s no doubt that trainers think his runners will train on at three, from what they’ve been telling us about them,” says Overbury Stud’s manager Simon Sweeting.

“We won’t know for sure until we get there, of course, but some pretty shrewd judges have been buying Ardad’s second crop of yearlings.

Con Marnane has bought five, I believe, and the Doyles and Stephen Hillen have bought a couple each. I don’t think all those top operators would be so eager to buy them if they thought he was a flash in the pan.

“Look at Perfect Power, too. Richard Fahey could have run the horse again after he won the Middle Park, but I think he knows there’s a lot of progression still to come and he was mindful of the colt’s three-yearold career when he made plans for his back-end campaign.”

Considering Ardad has made such an encouraging start, it is a little surprising that connections have elected to increase his fee to only £12,500 for 2022.

The general consensus is that they could have charged a fair bit more. Sweeting explains that the decision was informed by a desire to do best by his loyal clientele, many of whom are not in possession of bottomless pockets, and is in recognition of the sire potentially having a quieter time of it with his progeny further down the line. He covered only 26 mares in 2020 before breeders inundated him with 156 this year after it became apparent he might be something special.

“We had a lot of discussions about Ardad’s fee over a long period of time,” says Sweeting regarding the sire, who was bought by Richard Brown from the Goffs UK Breeze-Up Sale for £170,000 on behalf of his owner Abdullah Saeed Al Naboodah.

“We wanted to be sensible – my clients over the past 20 years or so are not huge studs, able to spend large sums of money on nominations; they’re smaller operations that have to be a bit careful. I was very mindful of that, and my partners in the horse were conscious of it, too.

“Also, I hope it doesn’t happen, but we have to acknowledge that he could have a quieter season in a couple of years’ time, and I don’t want to be dragging the price back down a long way if he does. I would rather the fee went up steadily in smaller increments, than going up and back down.”

Summing up the joy of standing Ardad, Sweeting says: “There are a lot of smaller investors who’ve landed fantastic touches with his foals and yearlings, and hopefully we can get a few more breeders to do the same, then so much the better.

Hopefully, the new fee will help everybody a little bit, while ensuring the horse keeps on his upward trajectory, too.

“It’ll be fascinating to see what he can do with bigger books and slightly better mares. The only way is up, I would have thought. We’ll have to wait and see about that, but it’s very exciting.”

POSITIVE MOOD has also taken hold on the opposite side of England from Gloucestershire, as Time Test continues to shine for the National Stud team in Newmarket.

Stud director Tim Lane says: “I saw just how talented Time Test was when I was managing Oakgrove Stud, and John Deer had horses with Roger Charlton at Beckhampton. Time Test was a belting looking horse with the most wonderful attitude, and showed amazing speed on the gallops.

Time Test was unlucky not to win a Group 1, but it was just as well for us that he didn’t. If he had, we probably wouldn’t have ended up with him, he’d be standing at Banstead Manor Stud instead!

Time Test, bred and raced by the late Prince Khalid Abdullah, is by Dubawi out of Criterium de Saint-Cloud heroine Passage Of Time, a Dansili half-sister to high-

class pair Father Time and Timepiece from the family of dual Champion Stakes victor Twice Over.

He was sent out by Charlton to win four Group races, including the Joel Stakes (G2) and York Stakes (G2), and to run fourth in the Group 1 Juddmonte International and third in the Eclipse Stakes (G1). He hit the crossbar at the highest level twice more after being sent to Chad Brown in the US, running second in the Manhattan Stakes and Fourstardave Handicap.

Asked to put his finger on exactly why Time Test is doing so well as a sire – apart from the many qualifications listed above – Lane says: “There’s just something in him, a deep-seated need to try his hardest for you. It might be a trait that Dubawi has passed down, as you see it a lot in his stock, too: they try and try for their jockeys.

“He became quite poorly at one point in the past covering season, but even when he was at his worst he would still want to go into the covering shed as he was walked past it. That’s him all over. He would never let you down.”

Lane has a strong emotional attachment to Time Test, as he was the first stallion he secured for the National Stud himself after he took over the reins of the operation in 2017. The late Duke of Roxburghe was also instrumental in the horse’s acquisition in his role as The National Stud chairman, and shared Lane’s passion for making the horse.

“I won’t lie, when I got to The National Stud and Toronado left the roster I wrongly took it personally and felt pretty low about it for a while,” says Lane. “But it made me even more determined to make a success of the stud and bring its stallion roster up to scratch, I wanted all the team here to be proud of the horses we stand and together we’d make money for the operation.

“So it’s been amazing that only a few years later we’ve got to the point that we have a successful sire in Time Test, who’s in strong demand from around the world, and Aclaim who’s also doing really well with lots of winners this autumn and a very good winners-torunners strike-rate.”

THE CHANGE IN CULTURE that Lane instigated at The National Stud, which has no doubt played a role in the rise of Time Test, is an open-mindedness in accepting applications to the stallions and a preparedness to help breeders as much as possible, to engender goodwill and repeat custom.

“One thing I said to the team from the outset is that we don’t turn mares down,” says Lane. “Even if we might not necessarily agree with the mating, we’ll take the booking and talk to breeders. I’m not in the business of grading mares, or dictating to people how they should mate them.

Perfect Power (yellow) starting to go clear to win the Middle Park Stakes (G1): the 2,000 Guineas is on the colt’s hit list for 2022

“We’ve also looked after people when they’ve had bad luck, and I think that’s one of the benefits of being an independent stallion farm: there can just be a bit more kindness, and helpful gestures here and there, so the breeder knows we’re all in it together to make the stallion a success.”

Time Test’s attractive credentials and The National Stud’s customerfriendly approach have helped ensure that the stallion has covered healthysized books throughout his career, even in traditionally stickier years. He was sent 92 mares in his second season in 2019, 125 in his third season in 2020 and 160 mares in his fourth season in 2021.

Just how popular Time apparent in a Tattersalls online sale of breeding rights in November – with one for each stallion on offer.

The right to send one mare to Time Test in each season that he stands at The National Stud was bought by Blandford Bloodstock on behalf of an undisclosed client for 100,000gns, while the right that offered similar access to Ardad at Overbury Stud was purchased by the same agency for Wardley Bloodstock for 75,000gns.

Both Overbury and The National Stud now face the high-class problem of standing over-subscribed stallions, which means having to disappoint a number of breeders by putting up the “fully booked” sign early. In fact, that might have already happened by the time you come to read this.

“Yes, it’s inevitable,” says Sweeting. “We’re going to cover a sensible-sized book with Ardad, and we’ve already received more applications than we have places for, so we’re going to have to reject some mares.

“But I’d rather it was that way than the opposite case. It’s just a fact of life when you’re lucky enough to have a popular stallion.

The good thing is we look like we’ll be in a position to have his book done and dusted by the Tattersalls Breeding Stock Sale.

Lane reports that breeders have also nearly knocked him over in the rush to book nominations to Time Test.

“We’ve got 150 mares on his book already – it’s been carnage!” he laughs. “It’s amazing, all the friends I have now. I’ve never been so popular!”

Time Test’s son Rocchigiani winning the Group 3 in Germany, one of four stakes winners for the sire in 2021