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Weatherbys Stallion Scene: The Next generation
It was a superb autumn for a range of young stallions at Japan’s Shadai Stallion Station, there was a new Shadai stallion at the top of the Japanese sires’ title and two top level winners have joined the roster. It is all about...
EVENTS AT SHADAI STALLION STATION move at a rapid pace. This time last year the farm was looking forward to initiating the stud career of its new stallion, the superstar racehorse Equinox, who had retired to stud the winner of eight of his ten starts, victories that included six Group and Grade 1s with the Dubai Sheema Classic and his home nation’s Japan Cup, won on his very last outing, the highlights.
But time has certainly not stood still at the Yoshida family’s farm, stud and associated stallion operations, and it has already welcomed and added the next Japan Cup winner onto its rostrum – Do Deuce, who also brought the curtain down on his career in the November Grade 1 with his neck victory from the dead-heating Shin Emperor and Durezza.
Do Deuce, a son of Heart’s Cry , was due to run again before 2024 concluded in December’s Arima Kinen, but risk of injury intervened and connections wisely packed him off to stud. The planned racecourse retirement ceremony was aborted with promises that the six-year-old will make an appearance at Sapporo racecourse in the summer to satisfy the desires of his extensive fandom.
Shadai has allocated Do Deuce an opening fee of ¥10,000,0000 (approx £51,527), half of Equinox’s debut fee, who had retired to stud for the 2024 season as the World’s Best Racehorse, Timeform’s leading male and the Japanese Horse of the Year. A son of Shadai’s own stallion Kitasan Black, Equinox attracted an opening book of 203 quality mares, and it is is exciting times with those foals appearing on the ground now. His debut fee has been held for 2025.
Naohiro Hosoda, representative for Shadai, says: “Equinox had a superb book of mares in 2024, and we are looking forward to his first foals.
“He has been fully booked from early on for this season and he will be busy.
“But this business is always about the new stallions, and we are very pleased to be standing Do Deuce, who is a son of the late Heart’s Cry, who was such a successful stallion for us.
“We have great expectations for him, and the success of Suave Richard in 2024, also by Heart’s Cry, has increased our hopes further for him.”
Hosoda adds: “Do Deuce is now at Shadai Stallion Station and is in good health. He was fully booked shortly after the fee announcement, so I think he is highly valued by breeders.
“His outline and action are reminiscent of his father Heart’s Cry, but he has more muscle than his sire and looks impressive. His forte was over a mile and middle-distances on the Turf, but his dam has a US speed bloodline, so he could well produce a variety of successful horses.”
Do Deuce is not the only new sire at Shadai for 2025, Shahryar, a seven-year-old son of Deep Impact, winner of the 2022 Dubai Sheema Classic (G1) and the 2021 Grade 1 Tokyo Yushin (Japanese Derby), has also joined the roster.
In addition to his victories, he was six-times placed at the highest level and was something of a globetrotter – he was twice third in the Breeders’ Cup Turf, first to Auguste Rodin in 2023 and then to Rebel’s Romance at Del Mar last year.
He was also second to the Godolphin runner in last year’s Dubai Sheema Classic and third to Contrail in the Japan Cup in 2021 and going on to finish second in 2022 to Vela Azule.
In 2022 he also finished fourth to State Of Rest in the Group 1 Prince Of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot.
Hosoda says, “Shahryar has also arrived safely. He is a good-looking horse with a lightness just like his sire Deep Impact. He will stand at a fee of ¥2,500,000 – there are many competitors in his price range, but I think he will be popular.”
Shadai looks to the future
Shadai has its fine heritage on which to call – the farm was originally founded in 1955 by patriarch Zenya Yoshida at Chiba, near Tokyo before moving to its current location in Shiraoi, Hokkaido. After Yoshida’s death in 1993 the divisions of Shadai Farm, Northern Farm and Oiwake Farm were established and are run by sons Teruya Yoshida, Katsumi and Haruya.
In 1980, the racing club Shadai Thoroughbred Club was founded, with further syndicate groups subsequently emerging such as the Sunday Thoroughbred Club, the Shadai Group Owners and the G1 Thoroughbred Club.
The names of the luminary stallions who have stood under the Shadai banner are something of a Who’s Who of global influential stallions, featuring such stars as Sunday Silence, Deep Impact, King Kamehameha and Heart’s Cry.
But, despite these bejewelled glories, the farm clearly does not dwell on the past and is pushing forward in its search for its next wave of generation-defining sires.
And things are certainly moving in the right direction as the farm enjoyed a rich vein of form last autumn with six Grade 1 victories by the farm’s vanguard of young sires, and included the four end-of-year Grade 1 races – the exciting filly Arma Veloce (Harbinger) collected the Hanshin Juvenile Fillies, Admire Zoom (Maurice) won the Asahi Hai Futurity, Regaleira (Suave Richard) collected the Arima Kinen, and Croix Du Nord was successful in the Hopeful Stakes on December 28. He is by 13-year-old sire and seven-time Japanese Grade 1 winner Kitasan Black, who achieved those early heights in his stud career producing Equinox in his first crop.
He is a son of Black Tide, who was by Sunday Silence and out of the European-bred and purchased Wind In Her Hair and so a full-brother to Deep Impact.
Black Tide’s pedigree is proof that the threads of yesteryear stretch taut between the generations at Shadai, many pedigrees on the farm still boasting strong links to those important mare purchases made in the 1980s.
“Our young new stallions are showing remarkable results,” reports Hosoda.
“It was surprising to see such a great Grade 1 winner as Equinox by Kitasan Black so early on in his career, while Croix Du Nord is from the sire’s fourth season at stud and before he even had runners – it was the second-smallest numbers’ wise and of a lower quality.
“Kitasan Black is proving to be more than capable of getting high-quality performers, the quality of his book is surely going to improve again, further success is guaranteed, and it is an exciting time for him.”
Kitasan Black is standing this spring at a fee of ¥20,000,000 (£103,000), matching his price for 2024.
Kizuna topped the 2024 table
Kizuna, who finished last season at the head of the Japanese general sires’ list, pulls on those same pedigree strands.
He is by Shadai’s late great sire Deep Impact and out of the Storm Cat mare Catequil. She was trained in Britain by James Fanshawe to no great success, but is out of the US Grade 1 winner Pacific Princess (Damascus).
Kizuna was a Grade 1 winner in Japan, his top level victory coming in the Tokyo Yushun (Derby).
Kizuna went to the top of the stallion table for the season early in the year, and stayed there. We could have predicted that early on...
On his travels to Europe, he won the Prix Niel (G2) and was fourth-placed in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe behind Treve.
He provides a significant marker on the Shadai timeline – he is the first living sire to win the Japanese sires’ championship since Deep Impact’s ten-year reign concluded in 2022 after his death as a 17-year-old in 2019.
The 2023 Japanese sires’ championship was won by Shadai sire Duramente, but, sadly, he died in 2021 as a nine-year-old.
Kizuna is a 15-year-old and makes up the third branch of the triumvirate of Shadai stallions standing at the roster-topping price of Y20,000,000, and it is the sire’s highest fee so far.
“Kizuna went to the top of the stallion table for the season early in the year, and stayed there,” says Hosoda. “We could have predicted that early on as he is a sire who gets plenty of winners, horses who perform well in Japanese Grade 1-level races as well as in the better races domestically, such as the allowance and tokubetsu [special] races.
“With the high prize-money in these races it is very good for a stallion’s earning capabilities and so his position on the stallion table.”
Kizuna covered 218 mares in 2024 and was the busiest stallion on the Shadai roster.
Suave Richard, who got his first Grade 1 winner when Regaleira won the Hopeful Stakes (G1) in 2023, has enjoyed something of a break-out year with his first crop three-year-olds.
Regaleira has continued to run consistently well for him at the top level throughout 2024, and she collared her second Grade 1 at the turn of the year in the Arima Kinen.
Her top level success was added to by Suave Richard’s colt Urban Chic.
After winning the September Grade 2 Asahi Hai St. Lite Kinen (Japanese St Leger Trial) a month later he collected the main event itself, the Grade 1 Kikuka Sho (Japanese St Leger).
Interestingly, both Urban Chic and Regaleira are out of mares by the European-raced and Shadai-based sire Harbinger.
“Suave Richard not only produced the filly Regaleira, who beat older horses and became a Grand Prix-winning horse, but also the colt Urban Chic, who won the Classic race,” explains Hosoda.
“Suave Richard broke into the top level of proven stallions and has been a bit of an improver with his first crop of three-yearolds, his success is perhaps more than we expected.”
Suave Richard’s pedigree features those same long-term and international influences –like Do Deuce, he is by Heart’s Cry, while his Unbridled’s Song dam, Pirramimma, who has a US suffix, is out of a US Grade 2-winning mare.
Shadai first-season sires’ exacta
The younger generation of sires are also doing their thing, and the 2024 first-season sires’ table saw a Shadai first and second courtesy of the table-topper Nadal and runner-up Saturnalia.
The US-bred and raced Nadal, an unbeaten winner of the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby, is a son of Blame, out of the Pulpit mare Ascending Angel and from the extended family of the champion juvenile Pleasant Stage, while Saturnalia is a Northern Farmbred champion three-year-old by Lord Kanaloa.
He won the Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes at two, the Grade 1 Satsuki Sho at three and is a half-brother to the Shadai stallion Epiphaneia, sire of seven Grade 1 winners, including four in 2024, headed up by the Yushun (Japan Derby) winner Danon Decile.
It was a Shadai-stallion nip and tuck race throughout 2024 for the young sires’ title.
“On the final day of the JRA racing season on December 28, Nadal, whose progeny have excelled in Dirt races.
“Despite the limited number of races on the surface in the JRA, he achieved his 30th winner and topped the first-season sires’ table,” says Hosoda.
“It was very tight all year and Saturnalia had overtaken him after having a fifth-placed horse in the Hopeful Stakes.
“He is a rising star whose progeny are expected to do well mainly on Turf.
“Both new boys have had done so well with many winners in the JRA – it’s an extremely competitive sphere so we are very pleased with their performances with the results from their first-crop.”
Contrail: an auction success
The farm’s Japanese Triple Crown winner and five-time Grade 1 winner Contrail, whose first crop of two-year-olds are set to race this year, covered 205 mares in 2024.
By Deep Impact, he is out of a well-bred mare by Unbridled’s Song – his dam Rhodochrosite ran as a two-year-old and three-year-old in Japan without success, but her pedigree traces to a top-performing US mare –her dam Folklore (Tiznow) was a Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies winner and a champion US juvenile filly.
Contrail’s popularity in the covering shed reflects the commercial popularity of his stock seen so far in the sale ring – at last year’s JRHA Select Sale, he had two yearlings, both of whom were consigned by Shadai, sell for the ¥250,000,000 ($1,522,796), and another two fetch nine figure sums – ¥105,000,000 and ¥100,000,000.
From his 25 foals offered, his top price was ¥300,000,000 ($1,863,355) with nine sold for over the equivalent of $1 million, and he had three foals in the top ten prices.
In 2023, his top-priced foal from 20 offered made ¥520,000,000 ($3,636, 364).
He was sold by Northern Farm and the colt became the third top-priced foal ever sold at the sale and was easily the most expensive at year’s auction.
With such strong commercial results, Contrail’s fee for 2025 has been tweaked upward by ¥3,000,000 to ¥18,000,000.
Maurice and Harbinger
Stallions also worthy of a mention on the 36-strong roster include Maurice, who got a new Grade 1 winner in 2024 with the Asahi Hai Futurity winner Admire Zoom and he stands at an affordable ¥8,000,000.
And, of course, well known to the European readers is Harbinger, winner of the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes (G1) in 2010, and sire of the admirable top-level-winning mare Deirdre, who spent so much time in the UK as part of her global racing tour.
Harbinger collected two new Grade 1 winners in 2024 – his now four-year-old daughter Cervinia won the spring’s Yushun Himba (Japanese Oaks) and the autumn’s Shuka Sho, while his two-year-old filly Arma Veloce was successful in the Hanshin Juvenile Fillies.
Like his own sire Dansili, Harbinger has a way with the ladies and he is also beginning to make a mark as a broodmare sire with seven stakes winners, and three Grade 1 winners (as noted earlier, two are by Suave Richard).
Looking ahead to the spring Shadai is looking forward to a busy spring in the covering sheds with its exciting roster of stallions.
“They are all fit and ready!” smiles Hosoda. “We have our stallion parade at the beginning of February and then the covering will be underway.”
While time stops for no man, Shadai’s long-term strategic planning ensures that its stallions are the ones who are setting the pace.
