6 minute read
Group one siblings
We kick off with Round Hill Stud’s Kingman filly (Lot107), a half-sister to the Moyglare Stakes and Coronation Stakes winner, Rizeena.
When a vision or a plan comes together it is hugely satisfying; for Round Hill Stud the purchase of Princess Serena for $150,000 at the 2003 Keeneland November Sale is now reaping fantastic rewards for the farm.
The mare hails from a champion’s family – she is a daughter of Serena’s Sister (Rahy), who, as the name rightly suggests, is a full-sister to Serena’s Song, a champion US three-year-old and the outstanding winner of an amazing 11 Grade 1s. She is also dam of Sophisticat, winner of the Coronation Stakes (G1), who was also placed twice in Group 1s as a juvenile.
“I just loved Serena’s Song – a champion three-year-old – and her page,” recounts Horona Donworth, who runs Round Hill Stud with her husband Bobby.
“We found Princess Serena in a back barn at Keeneland. She is by Unbridled Song, and he was little known then really as a broodmare sire – he has come good now though.”
Things did not get off to a flying start for the County Limerick farm’s new acquisition – Princess Serena was purchased in-foal to Thunder Gulch and sadly it was a pregnancy that resulted in a dead foal.
“We then wanted to cover her with a Storm Cat stallion as he nicks well with Unbridled Song,” continues Donworth. “We chose Statue Of Liberty as he is a son of the sire and he is a beautifully bred horse.”
The cover produced Serena’s Storm in 2005 from the Coolmore sire’s second crop, but even then the commercial market had started its move against the stallion.
“She did not make enough in the ring and so we retained her. She went to trainer John Quinn and won a race as a two-year-old, and then ran a few times as a three-year-old before returning to the farm that autumn,” recounts the breeder.
Despite the Donworth’s faith in Princess Serena’s pedigree at that point even that trust must have started to have been tested: the mare had produced that dead foal in 2004, her first sales yearling had not sold, and she then missed two years in succession to first One Cool Cat and then Singspiel.
“I had been speaking to the late Michael Buckley at Darley about what to do about her cover and I had mentioned about sending her to Shamardal because of that Storm Cat influence,” remembers Donworth. “I used to love talking to Michael, we would have great chats, he really was a genius, but he told me that Shamardal was too expensive really for the mare.
“However, we persevered and that mating resulted in Puissance De Lune, born in 2008.”
The colt had better luck than his older half-sister in the Tattersalls sale ring and was bought by Global Bloodstock for 50,000gns. He began his racing career in France and in 2012 he stepped up to Listed success in the autumn of his four-year-old season.
He then transferred to run in Australia and met with immediate success: he won the 1m4f Group 3 Queen Elizabeth Stakes on his first start in the southern hemisphere in November, the mile Group 1 Blamey Stakes on his first start in March after a break, the PB Lawrence Stakes (G2) over 7f, before he found just one too good in the mile Group 1 Makybe Diva Stakes in September.
He continued running in Group 1s until October 2014, picking up a further four placed efforts, unfortunately just not able to post a first place by his name.
Princess Serena’s Shamardal mating was repeated in 2009, the foal sold as a yearling to John Warren Bloodstock at Tattersalls in 2011 for 110,000gns – obviously an attractive horse he achieved a six-figure sale sum before his older brother had begun his winning spree in Europe or Australia.
Named Majesty, he won a July 2013 7f maiden at Warwick for Highclere Thoroughbreds as a three-year-old before he was sold to Australia. He was then renamed His Majesty, and has won a handicap and has been minor Group 3 placed.
On the back of her older son’s efforts in Australia, the market has begun to appreciate the qualities of Princess Serena as a broodmare – in 2014 her Lope De Vega yearling colt was bought at the Tattersalls December Sales for 325,000gns by Charlie Gordon-Watson (Zabeel Prince is now a Listed winner and rated 109), while her Shamardal 2016 filly was bought last October by SackvilleDonald for 500,000gns. Named Queen Power, she is in training with Ralph Beckett and reported to be going well.
In the interim, Princess De Lune, a 2014 full-sister to Puissance De Lune, was retained by the farm. She won her first start as a juvenile last April, and visited Oasis Dream this spring.
By 2010, Princess Serena’s first foal, Serena’s Storm, that Statue Of Liberty filly who no one wanted at the yearling sales, had also joined the Round Hill Stud broodmare band. Her first foal by Notnowcato was sold for 7,000gns but failed to find the winning post and it looked initially as though retaining Serena’s Storm as a breeding prospect could have been just a breeders’ act of folly… but once again history started to repeat itself.
“We sent her next to Iffraaj because it was a stallion Michael Buckley had recommended to us,” smiles Donworth.
The subsequent filly was bought as a yearling by Rabbah Bloodstock for 50,000gns and was sent into training with that master trainer of fillies, Clive Brittain. Despite being a sizeable girl, she was next seen in public with the name Rizeena due to be ridden by Freddy Tylicki in a two-year-old maiden at Newmarket’s April Craven meeting.
“We were really quite shocked that she was out so early,” recalls Donworth. “She was a big filly – I even rang Clive to talk to him about her to say she was too big for it, he just said ‘when they are fast and they are good, then you know!’
The Kingman half-sister to Rizeena (Tattersalls , Lot 107)
“She won her maiden next time out, then the Listed National Stakes, then the Group 2 Queen Mary, was second in the Group 2 at Newmarket’s July meeting, third in the Prix Morny (G1), won the Moyglare Stakes (G1) and was second in the Fillies’ Mile (G1).” Through that opening season Rizeena ran eight times, was only campaigned twice out of stakes company and stepped up in distance through the summer from 5f to a mile.
And she was not finished. At three she won the Coronation Stakes (G1), finished second in the Falmouth Stakes (G1), fourth in the Prix Jacques les Marois (G1) behind Kingman and rounded the year off with a second in the Matron Stakes (G1).
At four, her best-placed finish was a second in the Duke of Cambridge Stakes (G2) at Royal Ascot.
It was a truly remarkable career, put together by a truly remarkable trainer who called time on his own profession in 2015 just a month after Rizeena’s last outing in the Prix Rothschild (G1) at the August Deauville meeting.
Rizeena has been retained by Rabbah and, after missing to Dubawi on her first cover, produced a February-born Frankel colt this spring. She is due to Dubawi in 2019.
In the spring of 2015, Round Hill welcomed a full-sister to Rizeena. Named October Queen, she was purchased at Goffs for Sheikh Rashid, the owner of Rizeena, and she has been retained for his broodmare band. She is in-foal to Sea The Stars.
The following year Serena’s Storm missed to Kingman before producing this autumn’s sales filly in 2017.
“We loved Kingman as a racehorse,” reports Donworth. “He had such ability, he couldgo from zero to hero and produce such speed at the end of the race – he seems to be passing that onto his progeny too. I think he will be a phenomenally successful stallion.
“We wanted to cross to a Danzig line horse and bring in his strength – the Unbridled Song in the grand-dam can make them a bit tubular, we wanted to get some more depth back.
“This yearling is powerful, she is built like a tank and should be an early sort – because we missed to the sire the first time around we were able to get back to him good and early and she was born in January. She has a great temperament, too – she just loved these photos being taken!”
With such a wealth of fillies around them from such a wonderfully active family, Round Hill is looking to cut back a little from the 20 mares it has in its broodmare band to around 15 and concentrate on developing its current families and producing top quality stock.
The Round Hill 2018 Book 1 draft is due to be made up of three fillies – the Kingman ex Serena’s Storm filly (Lot 107) is joined by a Dark Angel filly out of the Listed winner Ventura Mist (Lot 180) as well as a Kodiac half-sister to Jacqueline’s Quest (Lot 309). She was a Classic winner for 15 minutes until she lost the British 1,000 Guineas in the Newmarket stewards’ room.
And what of that matriarch, Princess Serena bought those 15 years ago? Now a 19-year-old, she had a Gleneagles filly this spring and is carrying to Lope De Vega.
Fifteen years after her purchase at Keeneland, she could be on the verge of creating a Round Hill Stud pedigree dynasty of her own.
