9 minute read
French revolution
All looks bright for French-based sires, writes Jocelyn de Moubray
The Bull Run in the French stallion market shows no sign of running out of steam and France’s stallion managers are clearly looking forward to the 2019 covering season in an optimistic mood.
The Haras de Bonneval’s Siyouni becomes the first-ever French sire to stand at a six-figure fee – even at €100,000 the son of Pivotal has been heavily oversubscribed.
In recent years stallion owners, breeders and speculators have made spectacular profits from sires such as Kendargent, Siyouni, Le Havre, Wootton Bassett and Dabirsim and have proved to be only too happy to reinvest looking to repeat these successes in the future.
Those who are planning 2019 matings with the 2021 yearling sales in mind will be considering not only the current standing of the possible choices and how these are likely to change between now and then, but also how the three crops who are now three, two and yearlings are likely to perform between now and the sales of 2021.
Siyouni: standing at a six-figure fee
Of the French sires who have already had runners the two whose ranking will change the most during this period are Siyouni and Le Havre.
Both have had huge international success since beginning their stud careers as relatively cheap domestic stallions, and both have covered large numbers of mares at greatly increased fees. The progeny of these matings will be on the racecourse before the 2021 yearling sales.
Siyouni’s fee went from €7,000 in 2014, when the three-year-olds of 2018 including his Classic winner Laurens were conceived, to €20,000, then €30,000 and €45,000 in 2017 when the mares of the three-year-olds for 2021 were covered.
The Haras de Bonneval’s stallion has always been popular, but whereas he covered an average of 120 mares a year during his first four years at stud, in the three years we are looking at he covered an average of 190 mares a year.
Over the next three seasons there are going to be many more of Siyouni’s progeny racing out of a different and far more international category of mare.
There were as many as 100 Siyouni yearlings offered at auction in 2018 – still some way behind Kodiac who had 135 but ahead of Dark Angel who had only 97 yearlings on offer.
From his first four crops Siyouni had fewer than 50 a year sold at auction, but despite the numbers his average price grew by around 50 per cent to £150,000. As many as 26 made €200,000 or more with three of the four most expensive bought by Godolphin with the top-priced Siyouni yearling being a filly out of Brynica (Lot 974) consigned by Corduff Stud at the Tattersalls October Book 2 Sale bought by Shadwell Estates for 450,000gns.
Peter Brant’s White Birch Farm also spent 200,00gns and 280,000gns on a colt and a filly by Siyouni in Book 1 (Lot 211 and 78).
The best of the Siyouni three-year-olds for 2019 have raced in France at two, and in 2018 his progeny included 18 winners of 22 races headed by the Group-placed colts Toijk and Pretty Boy.
Overall, just over half of the 129 named foals in his 2016 crop raced and included 24 winners of 30 races.
In rankings by prize-money Siyouni was in 14th place among the leading two-year-old sires standing in Europe in 2018.
The next best French sires on this table are Le Havre, Anodin and Pedro The Great in 23rd, 25th and 26th places.
From his earlier crops Siyouni produced several top two-year-olds such as Laurens, Sacred Life, Trixia and Ervedya. There was nothing of the same calibre in 2018, but Toijk, a colt trained by Stephanie Nigge for Lutz Bongen, looks very promising failing by only a short-head to win a Group 3 over 7f after an easy debut victory in Deauville.
Brant and trainer Jean-Claude Rouget have another excellent prospect in Sottsass, a half-brother to Brant’s multiple Grade 1 winner Mysistercharlie. He won a maiden at Clairefontaine impressively on his second and final two-year-old start.
Le Havre moving up the grades again
Montfort & Preaux’s Le Havre went to stud a year before Siyouni and has made a similar climb through the ranks.
His three-year-olds of 2018 were conceived from a €7,000 fee and since then his price has climbed to €20,000, €35,000 and €60,000 in 2017.
The son of Noverre has always covered large books of mares and so the numbers of his progeny on the track will not change that much, but the quality of mares he has covered has been transformed and in the years from 2015 to 2017 he attracted mares belonging to leading breeders from all over Europe.
The best performers from Le Havre’s first five crops were nearly all bred either by his original owner Gerard Augustin Normand or Sylvain Vidal and the team who manage the sire, however, the horse was resyndicated before the 2015 season and since then he has been well-supported by the new shareholders.
The results have, so far, been impressive as Le Havre’s 2018 two-year-olds were his most promising group to date – although only 43 of the 146 named foals ran at two, they included 16 winners of 20 races and several who showed the potential to be high-class in 2019.
Few of Le Havre’s colts have been able to win at two in the past, but he has some Classic prospects for 2019 headed by the Richard Hannon-trained Boitron, who won three times in England before disappointing but still fourth in a Group 1 in France.
André Fabre has two good-looking Le Havre colts in Urwald, the winner of his only start for the Haras de Saint Pair, and Godolphin’s Roman Candle, the winner of a Deauville maiden.
The stallion’s fillies include the Japanesetrained Pourville, who was beaten only 2l when fifth in a Group 1, the Group-placed Montviette, as well as the promising maiden winners Commes and Ebony,.
Le Havre also has the four-year-old Tigre Du Terre, who was a promising second on his Hong Kong debut in December and who could develop into a high-class performer for new trainer Caspar Fownes.
All things considered Le Havre could well be in a very different place by the time of the 2021 yearling sales.
Wootton Bassett: could confirm his place amongst the best
Haras d’Etreham’s Wootton Bassett has risen to a €40,000 fee in 2019 from almost nowhere as he produced a total of only 77 foals from his first three crops combined while standing at between €4,000-€6,000.
His new status will be put to the test over the next three years, but all the signs are that the son of Iffraaj is going to confirm his place among the best young sires in Europe.
He has 43 three-year-olds from his €4,000 price, but they already include the Group winner The Black Album, who is being aimed at some of the best Turf races in the US.
He also has the Chantilly Listed winner Amilcar, as well as other promising colts, including the Hannon-trained Beat Le Bon and Trois Mats.
He has by far his biggest crop of two-yearolds to date with a total of 85, including the colt out of Louarn whom Godolphin bought for 425,000gns in Newmarket in October.
His next crop, the three-year-olds of 2021, are the first after Wootton Bassett was resyndicated following Almanzor’s three-year-old career and were produced off a €20,000 fee.
Newcomers to France making their marks
Dabirsim, Dream Ahead, Reliable Man and Pastorius are four sires who began their stud careers elsewhere and could well make a strong upward move between now and the 2021 yearling sales.
The Haras de Grandcamp’s Dabirsim made a spectacular start with his first two-year-olds in 2017, but things have not gone exactly according to plan since.
However, the son of Hat Trick was popular when he returned to France in 2016 after two seasons in Germany and he has 115 French-bred two-year-olds and 100 yearlings to race between now and 2021.
In his first crop Dabirsim had a total of 18 two-year-old winners of whom 11 won on their debuts and the mares he received in France may allow Dabirsim to bounce back as a sire of two-year-olds.
Dream Ahead moved to Grandcamp from Ballylinch Stud for the 2017 season, the year his best son so far Al Wukair won the Group 1 Prix Jacques le Marois.
Dream Ahead’s progeny have proved to be well suited to racing in France and many enjoy cut in the ground.
His first French-bred crop will be three-year-olds in 2021 and before then his reputation may have been changed by Dark Vision, who was purchased by Godolphin after winning a Group 2 at Goodwood last summer in the style of a top horse.
Dream Ahead also has two proven older horses to run for him in France – Gold Vibe, narrowly beaten in the 2018 Prix de l’Abbaye, and Antoine Griezmann’s Group-winning colt Tornibush.
Reliable Man was well received for his first season in France in 2018 covering 127 mares.
The son of Dalakhani covered around 60 mares in each of the four seasons he stood at Gestüt Röttgen and so has enough progeny to make a mark over the coming seasons. His son Erasmus, who was Germany’s champion two-year-old in 2017 but missed the whole of his three-year-old career, is back in training with Markus Klug and will try to confirm the ability he showed when beating Salve Del Rio, now rated 110, by 8l in Germany’s leading two-year-old race.
Reliable Man’s second crop includes Master Brewer, now in training in Hong Kong for Tony Cruz after winning Arqana’s October sales race, as wells as the stakes-winning filly Akribie, who was narrowly beaten in Germany’s leading juvenile fillies’ race and is currently among the favourites for the Preis der Diana.
In France, Reliable Man has several promising looking three-year-olds, including Astonished and A Fine Romance, who were placed is good Paris maidens on their debuts.
Flying the flag for older sires is the Haras d’Hetraie’s Pastorius, who has always been underrated – first as a racehorse and now as a sire, but his results have been consistently well above average.
The son of Soldier Hollow was a top racehorse beating Novellist to win the Deutsches Derby and Maxios to win the Prix Ganay (G1), while he also finished an excellent fourth to Frankel, Cirrus Des Aigles and Nathaniel in the Champion Stakes (G1) at Ascot.
His first crop of three-year-olds were headed by Schabau, who was sold to Australia for a huge price after winning a sales race at Hamburg by 7l at the Derby meeting.
The price may have been high but he looks like a pretty good buy now after winning a valuable handicap at Flemington on his Australian debut on New Year’s day for his new trainer Robert Hickmott.
Pastorius has only 26 three-year-olds, but they include the Group-placed colt Sibelius and the filly Dalika, who was sold to race on in the US after finishing second in a Listed race at Chantilly.
Pastorius covered 81 mares in his first French season.
Batch of four first-season sires from 2018 have chances to progress
Haras du Quesnay’s Anodin was leading French first-season sire and the success of his first two-year-olds saw the son of Anabaa’s fee go up to €15,000 for the 2019 season. The half-brother to Goldikova had 47 two-year-old runners of whom 20 won 25 races. His winners include two potential top horses in the Group winner Anodor, who beat Persian King on their debuts and then disappointed his trainer Freddy Head when only third, beaten a length, in the Group 1 Prix Jean Luc Lagardère.
It was Anodor’s first test after two easy wins and he is likely to improve further as a three-year-old.
Anodin’s other Classic prospect is the Wertheimers’ colt Harmless, who is unbeaten after three starts but did not run last summer after winning a Listed race over 7f in July.
The other successful first-season sires included Al Shaqab’s pair Toronado, who started his stud career in England, and Olympic Glory.
Both had enough success to suggest they can make a mark without having done quite enough with stakes performers.
Toronado had 24 two-year-old winners, including the Group-placed colts Watan and Revelstoke and the top filly Zagora’s daughter Tuned, who won her only start in Deauville.
Olympic Glory had 21 winners of 23 races headed by the Listed winner Watch Me, and the promising maiden winners Helcia and Pythion.
Finally, among the first-season sires, the Haras de Saint Arnoult’s Sommerabend showed considerable promise. His 42 foals of 2016 conceived at a fee of only €3,000 included five winners of ten races headed by Prince Hamlet, a colt trained by Maurizio Delcher Sanchez, who won three times after finishing third to Anodor and Persian King on his debut in Deauville in August.
The son of Shamardal has enough progeny on the ground to maintain a position and will be popular in 2019.
Shalaa’s foals well received last autumn
Of the French sires yet to have runners Elvstroem, Shalaa, Dariyan, Scissor Kick and Goken are among those who will have three-year-olds racing before the yearling sales of 2021. The Haras de Boquetot’s Shalaa, son of Invincible Spirit, is clearly the star if going on what he has achieved in the sale ring to date.
Shalaa had 27 foals sell for an average of around £90,000, which will be more than enough to ensure he is well supported in 2019.
Elvstroem’s first yearlings were, at a different level, well received with Gerard Larrieu giving €100,000 for a colt at the Arqana October Sale.
Haras de Bonneval and Haras d’Etreham have both succeeded in making top sires recently and both Dariyan and Scissor Kick’s first foals included good individuals suggesting they too have every chance of making a mark in 2021 if not beforehand.
