Eldar Eldarov goes the distance

WITH THE LOSS of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the subsequent cancellation of the Friday and Saturday Doncaster St Leger meeting cards, including the Classic itself, it meant that the major races from those days were concentrated into Sunday’s extra day.

With Day 2 of the Irish Champions Weekend also taking place it produced a day’s racing in Britain and Ireland like no other – 25 stakes races and six Group 1s.

The Group 1 Doncaster St Leger winner boasts an interesting pedigree.

Eldar Eldarov was bred by Kirsten Rausing out of the Listed winner All At Sea, a Sea The Stars daughter of Group 1 winner Albanova so from the outstanding family of Alruccaba.

He is the third foal out of All At Sea, who won three Listed races at 2000m and 2100m for Rausing and trainer André Fabre. She is from the first crop of Sea The Stars and her first foal, a daughter of Invincible Spirit named A La Voile, was third in the Listed Rothesay Stakes at Ayr last season.

All At Sea is a half-sister to the German Listed winner Alwilda (Hernando), who is the dam of Alpinista. Her five Group 1 victories so far include a hat-trick of German wins in 2021 and a last time out success in the Yorkshire Oaks.

By the time you read this she might have run in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, too.

Luxembourg: put his interrupted campaign behind him in the Irish Champion Stakes

Eldar Eldarov was sold by Staffordstown Stud for £110,000 at the Goffs Orby Sale, held in Doncaster in 2020, to Norman Williamson. He prepared him for the Goffs UK Breeze-Up Sale and proceeded to make a handsome profit sold for £480,000 to Oliver St Lawrence Bloodstock.

Williamson is responsible for producing two of this year’s Classic winners – Native Trail, winner of the Irish 2,000 Guineas, passed through his hands before breezing at the Tattersalls Craven Sale.

What makes Eldar Eldarov of particular interest is the potency Dubawi is demonstrating with Sea The Stars mares. There are eight winners from 11 runners bred this way to date, with three of them stakes winners.

Dubawi’s effectiveness with Sea The Stars’ half-brother Galileo has been extensively covered and it would appear that Sea The Stars is mixing as well with Dubawi as his older brother does.

The sample sizes are much smaller but the six-time Group 1 winner currently boasts a 21.4 per cent stakes winners-to-runners rate as a broodmare sire with Dubawi, while Galileo’s is 12.2 per cent, but from 74 runners.

Eldar Eldarov is the second Group 1 winner this season for Sea The Stars as a broodmare sire following on from Onesto’s victory in the Group 1 Grand Prix de Paris, a race in which Eldar Eldarov was fourth.

There is every chance that he could be better over a 1m4f, he wasn’t surrendering today and his head was in the cooker a long way up that straight

With Onesto beaten just half a length into second by Luxembourg in the Irish Champion Stakes the day before Eldar Eldarov’s Classic success, it was a good weekend all round for the Aga Khan Studs’ champion.

Luxembourg probably gave connections pause to regret what might have been were it not for the injury he sustained earlier in the season, but that is in the past and his brilliant, determined victory at Leopardstown proved that the son of Camelot is one of the best around this season.

The Group 1-winning three-year-olds Onesto and Vadeni filled the lower steps of the podium at Leopardstown.

Third in the 2,000 Guineas having almost come to grief at the start, Luxembourg had looked to be Ballydoyle’s Derby hope but an injury scuppered his chances of emulating his sire Camelot at Epsom.

After around a month’s box rest to recuperate he returned to racing at The Curragh in August with a gritty but uninspiring win in the Group 3 Royal Whip Stakes when getting 5lb from the five-yearold mare Insinunedo. She went on to be a close second to Group 1 winner Above The Curve in the Group 2 Blandford Stakes, also on Irish Champions Weekend.

Speaking in the aftermath of Luxembourg’s return to glory trainer Aidan O’Brien reflected on the colt’s road to recovery.

“It was unbelievable from a lot of people, the whole team behind him,” he said. “We felt going to The Curragh he was only ready for a racecourse gallop, but we felt he couldn’t come here without a race and that is why we were so happy with him at The Curragh.

“He had 20–30 per cent to improve from The Curragh and you usually don’t run a horse in a Group race like that. The plan and the dream was we had mapped out three races for him if we could get him back – The Curragh, here and the Arc.

He is obviously a very good horse, and for us, what he did in the Guineas where Ryan nearly fell off him and he was only beaten a length and three-quarters, to only be beaten that little was a massive achievement.

“Hopefully, he comes back and will be okay. There is every chance that he could be better over 1m4f, he wasn’t surrendering today and his head was in the cooker a long way up that straight and he didn’t stop. He’s brave.”

One of ten Group 1 winners for Camelot, Luxembourg was bred by Ben and Lucy Sangster out of Attire, a Danehill Dancer full-sister to the Group 3 Glorious Stakes and Wolferton Handicap winner Forgotten Voice.

Tahiyra: the filly by Siyouni was massively impressive in the Moyglare, she won’t run again in 2022

ATTIRE IS ALSO a half-sister to the Group 3 Prix de Flore winner Australie by Sadler’s Wells and she is the dam of Listed winners Hawke and Mireille. Second dam Asnieres is a winning daughter of Spend A Buck and boasts an impeccable Wildenstein pedigree.

She is a half-sister to the Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1) and Prix d’Ispahan (G1) winner Arcangues and to the Prix de Psyche (G3) winner and Poule d’Essai des Pouliches (G1) third Agathe. She is the dam of multiple Group 1-winning filly Aquarelliste (Danehill), who finished second in the Arc to Sakhee.

Interestingly, Aquarelliste’s four-year-old daughter Any Time Soon, who was a Listed winner at Clairefontaine in July, is also by Camelot.

Aquarelliste is a full-sister to the Grade 1 Charles Whittingham Memorial Handicap winner Artiste Royal and to Annenkov, who was third in the Group 1 Railway Stakes Handicap.

Luxembourg’s two-year-old full-brother was the most expensive colt sold in Ireland last year when purchased by MV Magnier for €1.2m at the Goffs Orby Sale from the draft of the Castlebridge Consignment.

Named Hiawatha, he was second on both of his first two starts and won his maiden at the third attempt, when successful at The Curragh in late August. Hiawatha holds Group 1 entries in the Dewhurst and the Vertem Futurity, a race won by both his brother and his sire.

On Irish Champions Weekend last year, the triple Group 1 winner Tarnawa was the unlucky loser who was swept across the Leopardstown home straight by the errant run of St Mark’s Basilica in the Irish Champion Stakes (G1).

Nobody will ever know if the Aga Khan’s daughter of Shamardal would have beaten the son of his leading sire Siyouni, but with only three-parts of a length between the pair at the finish, and Tarnawa closing with every stride, the question remains open.

A year on there was a modicum of revenge for the family as her two-year-old Siyouni half-sister Tahiyra took the step up from Galway maiden winner to Group 1 heroine with consummate ease on just her second start in the Moyglare Stud Stakes (G1).

Trained, like Tarnawa, by Dermot Weld, Tahiyra was the most impressive winner of the entire weekend, beating a high-class field of more experienced fillies with nonchalance.

Winner on debut of the same Galway maiden that has produced Classic winners Legatissimo and Hermosa in recent years, Tahiyra has further enhanced that race’s reputation.

Second placed was the hitherto unbeaten Meditate, whose four victories included Royal Ascot’s Albany Stakes (G3), the Group 2 Debutante Stakes and a Naas Group 3. Weld pointed to the strength of the form in noting how much Tahiyra had achieved at The Curragh.

“She did it very well,” the winning trainer remarked. “She has beaten a very high-class, multiple Group-winning filly and it was an excellent renewal of the race.

As I said beforehand, I was afraid it might have come a little bit soon in her career and I have always said what a beautiful filly she will be next spring.

“She has progressed from Galway and we have a lot to look forward to.”

He was joined in the rainswept Curragh winners’ enclosure by a delighted Princess Zahra Aga Khan, who was thrilled that her family’s operation has another star in such an important year for the Aga Khan Studs.

“It was wonderful for all of us on the breeding team; to see this family produce another fantastic filly is a really great thing and to watch her do that all by herself was just brilliant,” she said. “Dermot had given Chris [Hayes] some very clear instructions which he followed very well.”

The race victory came with an automatic berth in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies’ Turf at Keeneland in early November. but with her juvenile Group 1 success secured, Tahiyra will not be asked to attempt to emulate her sister by winning a Breeders’ Cup contest at this stage of her career.

“Breeding racehorses is very much about patience and it has been 100 years of the Aga Khan Studs this year so to see this filly coming up in the centenary year is very special,” Princess Zahra Aga Khan commented.

“We will discuss her future plans but that is it for this year,” Weld remarked in response to inquiries about further late autumn targets, as Tahiyra’s owner indicated they would draw stumps with the filly for 2022.

There is tremendous stamina in the pedigree, brilliance and speed. We will review it in the spring, but she will probably go for a Classic trial and one of the Guineas, but that is a long way down the line.

Al Riffa’s success in the Group 1 Goffs Vincent O’Brien National Stakes was a milestone for young Donegal jockey Dylan Browne McMonagle, but it may also prove to have been the trickle that led to a dam burst in years to come as the colt is the first Group winner of any number by Wootton Bassett out of a Galileo mare, a cross that Coolmore in particular has placed a lot of faith in.

There have been just nine runners bred on the cross as Wootton Bassett’s early fee level would not have attracted many of the blueblooded daughters of Galileo he now regularly courts.

From five winners, Al Riffa is the first to earn black-type of any hue. Like Tahiyra he was having his first start in Group company after finishing second to Hans Andersen on debut and winning a Curragh maiden five weeks prior to this Group 1 victory, a race for which he was supplemented at a cost of €40,000.

“He was very straightforward from the gates, jumped, travelled great, he loved the soft conditions and I was very happy the whole way through,”said a delighted jockey. “I gave him a little kick in the belly, he picked up well and put it to bed very quickly. It’s only the horse’s third run, he loved the ground and it was great to win with the owners here.”

Plans for Al Riffa could include a trip to Paris for the Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagadère on Arc day.

Trained by Joseph O’Brien for Jassim Bin Ali Al Attiyah, Al Riffa is bred to be a middledistance star at the least.

His dam Love On My Mind is an unraced Galileo full-sister to the Group 3 Sagaro Stakes winner and Ascot Gold Cup second Mizzou.

Highfield Princess: made it three Group 1 wins in three countries and on a variety of surfaces

She is also a full-sister to the Group 3 Give Thanks Stakes third Eternal Bounty and a three-parts sister to the Listed Salsabil Stakes and Martin Molony Stakes second Unity, dam of Listed Wildflower Stakes winner Crimean Tartar.

His second dam Moments Of Joy is a Listed-winning daughter of Darshaan and the Yorkshire Oaks and Prix Vermeille winner My Emma (Marju).

Al Riffa was bred by Haras d’Etreham et al and sold for €31,000 by Etreham to Stroud Coleman Bloodstock as a foal at Arqana in December 2020. Joseph O’Brien had to shell out significantly more for him as a yearling at Book 1 last year – 150,000gns – where Kilminfoyle House Stud consigned him.

Arqana’s North African representative and bloodstock agent Zied Romdhane picked up a bargain at the same Arqana sale where Al Riffa was sold.

He bought Love On My Mind, in-foal to Land Force, for just €11,000.

The fastest horse over the Irish Champions Weekend was the five-year-old Highfield Princess, who took the Group 1 Flying Five.

The daughter of Night Of Thunder has now won three Group 1s in three countries and on all sorts of ground.

She is a horse of a lifetime for owner-breeder John Fairley and jockey Jason Hart. who said: “She’d run through a brick wall for you."

She heads to the Breeders’ Cup Sprint.