Playing the long game

Playing the long game

Derek Veitch of Ringfort Stud is pleased he made the decision not to sell his Slade Power filly last November – she is now a half-sister to the dual Group 2 winner Threat

Derek Veitch

FORTUNE SOMETIMES has a strange way of turning in your favour, transforming a disappointment into a stroke of good luck.

Last December, Derek and Gay Veitch and the team from the couple’s County Offaly Ringfort Stud left Newmarket after the December Foal Sales with mixed feelings.

For the second successive December Sale, Ringfort Stud had enjoyed enormous success with a foal out of Indigo Lady, a mare owned in partnership with Paul Hancock.

In 2017, the partnership sold her Dark Angel filly to Capital Bloodstock for 600,000gns (Indie Lady is now owned by Cheveley Park and in training with John Gosden) and 12 months later her Lope De Vega colt made 500,000gns to Stroud Coleman on behalf of Godolphin.

However, not all the foals Ringfort took to Newmarket were sold and there was disappointment about the failure of one in particular. That was a Slade Power filly from a fine Niarchos family whose year-older Footstepsinthesand half-brother had sold for 100,000gns to Capital Bloodstock a year previously.

Now the Veitchs are preparing a return to Park Paddocks with the filly, only the second time since 2008 that Ringfort Farm has offered yearlings in Book 1. Significantly that first year was in 2016 when the farm sold Indigo Lady’s first foal, a Camelot filly, to Tim Gredley for 155,000gns.

The Slade Power filly overlooked by purchasers on her first trip to the sales is certain to be on the shortlists of many second time around.

What has changed since December? Two vitally important things – her Footstepsinthesand half-brother is now the Group 2 Gimcrack Stakes and Group 2 Champagne Stakes winner Threat, and her sire Slade Power has produced the Group 2 Queen Mary Stakes winner, the Group 2 Duchess of Cambridge Stakes winner and Group 1 Prix Morny runner-up Raffle Prize from his second crop.

“I normally consign foals, not yearlings, and I tried to sell this filly as a foal but she didn’t meet her reserve of €29,000 so I took her home,” reports Veitch.

“Threat has given the pedigree a big update since then and we are blessed to have her now! And with Raffle Prize coming on the scene for Slade Power, hopefully he will be more acceptable to buyers now as well.”

A veterinary surgeon by profession, Veitch is thoughtful and reflective and he allows a glimpse into the reasoning behind the mating which produced Lot 287 of Book 1.

“Slade Power is by Dutch Art and that sire line was important as the mare had produced a good-looking Garswood foal who made 80,000gns as a foal – that was a lot of money for a foal by the sire,” he remarks.

“I liked the foal enough to find another Dutch Art line stallion and Slade Power is a good-looking son of Dutch Art, a multiple Group 1 winner who was standing for a reasonable fee at Kildangan. He looked the sort to get maturing sprinting horses so the cover made economic sense.”

The resulting filly is now a half-sister to the two-time Group 2-winning juvenile, but before Threat had even set foot on a racecourse, his sibling’s looks and pedigree had secured her a place in Book 1.

That pedigree has done mothing but improve since Veitch purchased dam Flare Of Firelight for just 9,000gns at the 2014 December Mare Sale. Derek Veitch: does not often sell yearlings

Just three years old at the time, the daughter of Bigstone had been placed three times in her six runs. She was out of the Group 1 Tattersalls Gold Cup winner Shiva, herself a half-sister to an Oaks heroine in Light Shift.

The US champion Turf horse Main Sequence was also under the second dam, but Light Shift’s Group 1-winning son Ulysses and the Group 1 winner Cloth Of Stars, out of another half-sister in Strawberry Fledge, were yet to appear on the page.

Veitch was already well acquainted with the family as he previously purchased Flare Of Firelight’s Giant’s Causeway half-sister Tymora for the value sum of 10,500gns.

“The family has been a life-changing one for us,” reveals Veitch. “I bought Tymora at the 2010 mare sale and sent her to Kodiac for her first cover as I have a breeding right in him.

"When I saw Flare Of Firelight come up in the December Mare Sale I hoped she would be within my budget so I could get back in. It has been such a lucky family for us.”

“The foal turned out to be Eltezam, who was third in the Group 2 Coventry Stakes. “Subsequently I sold Tymora privately, but it meant that I then had nothing from

The pedigree holds the promise of much more good fortune to come with both Ulysses and Cloth Of Stars at the threshold of successful stallion careers.

There is a potential place alongside Ulysses at stud for Threat should he fulfil the potential he has demonstrated in his five starts so far which also include second place finishes in the Group 2 Coventry Stakes and the Group 2 Richmond Stakes. That breeding right in Kodiac has been put to good use by Veitch and he offers a colt by the sire as his second yearling in Book 1.

Lot 399 has speed written all over him as a son of the Mujadil mare Ladylishandra, a winner at two and the dam of six winners.

Three of those foals were successful in black-type contests headed by the Group 3 winner Harlem Shake, a son of Moss Vale. Her five-year-old Arcano mare Shenanigans is in training with Roger Varian and was successful in the Listed Rothesay Stakes earlier this season and has also been placed twice at Group 3 level, including on her most recent run.

Tropical Paradise, her Group 3 Oak Tree Stakes winner by Verglas, is also the dam of two winners.

The yearling has also benefitted from recent success with the victory of Hello Youmzain in the Group 1 Sprint Cup highlighting once more the prowess of Kodiac.

“He is a very straightforward colt, a typical powerful 5f or 6f horse by the sire who just got a nice 6f Group 1 horse to light him up going into the sales season again.

“I liked the Mujadil line as a broodmare sire and she was affordable and in-foal to Footstepsinthesand when we bought her.

“Tropical Paradise had yet to win her Group race and the mare was still quite young.”

As well as his Tattersalls Book 1 brace, Veitch’s Ringfort Stud consigns two colts at Goffs Orby Sale with the first a Camacho colt out of Arabian Pearl.

A winning daughter of Refuse To Bend, Arabian Pearl is from a strong Juddmonte family and shares her second dam Intermission with Interim, the dam of the Grade 1 winner and sire Midships.

Intermission is also the ancestress of Group 1 winners Continent, Zambezi Sun, who stands at Coolagown Stud, and Temida Lot 237 is a filly from the first crop of the Group 2 winner and new sire Mehmas. She is out of the proven producer Esterlina, dam of Listed winners Pepita and Redolent, who was also third in the Criterium International (G1).

It is also the family of the champion twoyear-old filly Forest Flower, Grade 1 Toyota Bluegrass Stakes winner High Yield and the 2,000 Guineas and Lockinge winner Night Of Thunder, who has made such a bright start to his stud career.

“The Mehmas filly has a big page but she is unlucky to be the first lot on the second day, she is a lovely filly, and I really like her. “The Camacho colt is a very nice horse and his half-brother made 220,000gns in Book 1 but had an unfortunate accident,” adds Veitch.

Fortune’s favours are easily won and lost, something Veitch knows only too well, but he will hope that providence will continue her favourable watch over the Ringfort yearlings this autumn.