A spread of success
A fantastic four days at The Festival saw success for 24 different stallions, writes Aisling Crowe
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HE CROWDS were back at Cheltenham and so too were the French-breds, back with a vengeance. Of the five Championship races, three went to horses bred in France, all of them over fences. The Gold Cup, the Champion Chase and the Ryanair Chase were won by horses bred under the blue, white and red tricolour, while Britain and Ireland split the hurdling championships apiece with reigning champions Honeysuckle and Flooring Porter defending their titles in the Champion Hurdle and Stayers’ Hurdle respectively. In total, the winners of 15 of the 28 races were bred in Ireland with French-breds
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winning nine and four races going to Britishbred runners. When it came to stallions, only two, both prematurely deceased, managed to sire more than one winner with Jeremy earning the 2022 title on a countback by virtue of Scarlet And Dove’s third place finish in the Grade 2 Mares’ Chase for Joseph O’Brien. The Jersey Stakes-winning son of Danehill Dancer supplied Grade 1 Ballymore Properties Novice Hurdle winner Sir Gerhard, who won last season’s Champion Bumper, and the Grade 3 Ultima Handicap Chase winner Corach Rambler. Fame And Glory was the sire of the Grade 1 winner The Nice Guy and Commander Of Fleet, who won the Grade 3 Coral Cup.
That ensured that 24 different stallions sired a winner over the four days with the Sadler’s Wells line dominating. His sons Sholokhov, Kayf Tara, Milan and Yeats and grandsons Galiway, Walk In The Park and Fame And Glory all sired Grade 1 winners, while Galileo, Doyen and Well Chosen also sired winners during the four days. Sadler’s Wells sons and grandsons also shone as broodmare sires with the stunning Supreme Novices’ winner Constitution Hill out of a King’s Theatre mare and Sir Gerhard’s dam by Authorized. Old Vic, Beat Hollow, Saffron Walden and Hurricane Run were other broodmare sires from that line to feature in the pedigrees of Festival 2022 winners.
