Caulfield Files
Bloodstock world views
Pivotal’s golden autumn: veteran sire’s influence as strong as ever across Europe
T
here has always been an understandable tendency to confuse speed with precocity. The reality is that the two do not necessarily go hand in hand – at least not in today’s world. The QIPCO British Champions Sprint acted as a useful reminder of this, with the first three places going to horses aged six, eight and six. Some of the top five-furlong events have also highlighted this phenomenon. For example, the last nine winners of the Nunthorpe Stakes have been aged between four and seven, with sevenyear-olds winning three times. It was the perceived disadvantage faced by three-year-olds against their elders in the King’s Stand Stakes and the Diamond Jubilee Stakes that led to the introduction in 2015 of the Commonwealth Cup. The King’s Stand had fallen to only one three-year-old, Equiano, in the previous 12 years. Coincidentally, the King’s Stand and the Nunthorpe provided the career
BILL SELWYN
Six-year-old Glen Shiel holds off eight-year-old Brando by a nose to give their sire Pivotal a 1-2 in the Group 1 Sprint Stakes
highlights of Pivotal, the stallion responsible for Glen Shiel and Brando, the veterans who fought out the British Champions Sprint. Pivotal was only three when he landed both of these important five-furlong events and his speed had also been evident to a lesser degree at two,
“We should not be surprised that Pivotal has proved versatile as a stallion” when he landed end-of-season events at Newcastle and Folkestone. Pivotal displayed more precocity than either his sire Polar Falcon or broodmare
sire Cozzene. A June 1 foal, Polar Falcon didn’t race at two and didn’t become a Group winner until he was four, the year he landed the Sprint Cup at Haydock. It was a similar story with Cozzene, who didn’t race at two and didn’t become a Graded stakes winner until he was five, when he numbered the Breeders’ Cup Mile among his victories. When breeders select mates for their mares, they often try to compensate for any of their mares’ shortcomings. So, if the mare needed a bit of time and distance, a reasonably quick-maturing speed horse like Pivotal has obvious appeal. However, the pedigree of the Cheveley Park veteran isn’t typical of a five-furlong sprinter: his four greatgrandsires were Northern Dancer, Jefferson, Caro and Bustino, all of whom won over at least a mile and a quarter. We therefore shouldn’t have been surprised that Pivotal has proved remarkably versatile as a stallion, with his long list of 32 Group/Grade 1 winners
THE OWNER BREEDER 67
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