Thoroughbred Owner & Breeder

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£4.95 | October 2015

Issue 134

Incorporating

A lady’s passion Lady Bamford and her love of thoroughbreds

Plus • William Haggas out to conquer the top races • Highclere Stud: the leading Berkshire nursery • Tony Morris recalls Sea-Bird’s superb Arc win

10

9 771745 435006

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1 2 3 4 53 6 7

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COUGAR MOUNTAIN Desmond Stakes-Gr.3, Leopardstown 3rd Queen Anne Stakes-Gr.1, Royal Ascot

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Yearlings at Keeneland September sold for up to

$1,000,000

Contact: Coolmore Stud, Fethard, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, Ireland. Tel: 353-52-6131298. Fax: 353-52-6131382. Christy Grassick, David O’Loughlin, Eddie Fitzpatrick, Tim Corballis, Maurice Moloney, Gerry Aherne, Mathieu Legars or Jason Walsh. Tom Gaffney, David Magnier, Joe Hernon or Cathal Murphy: 353-25-31966/31689. Kevin Buckley (UK Rep.) 44-7827-795156.

E-mail: sales@coolmore.ie Web site: www.coolmore.com All stallions nominated to EBF.

Get Cover Amlin Plus will tailor a policy for your yearling purchases to your requirements, including Fall Of Hammer.

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Oct_134_Editors_Owner Breeder 24/09/2015 11:58 Page 3

WELCOME FROM THE EDITOR Publisher: Michael Harris Editor: Edward Rosenthal Bloodstock Editor: Emma Berry Designed by: Thoroughbred Group Editorial: First Floor, 75 High Holborn, London WC1V 6LS Tel: 020 7152 0209 Fax: 020 7152 0213 editor@ownerbreeder.co.uk www.ownerbreeder.co.uk @OwnerBreeder Advertising: Giles Anderson Tel: 01380 816 777 USA: 1 888 218 4430 Fax: 01380 816 778 advertise@anderson-co.com Subscriptions: Keely Brewer Tel: 020 7152 0212 Fax: 020 7152 0213 subscriptions@ownerbreeder.co.uk Thoroughbred Owner & Breeder incorporating Pacemaker can be purchased by non-members at the following rates: 1 Year 2 Year UK £55 £90 Europe £66 £105 RoW £99 £154 Thoroughbred Owner & Breeder incorporating Pacemaker is published by a Mutual Trading Company owned jointly by the Racehorse Owners Association and Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association The Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association is a registered charity No. 1134293 Editorial views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the ROA or TBA ABC Audited Our proven average monthly circulation is certified by the Audit Bureau of Circulation at 9,340* *Based on the period July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2014.

Racehorse Owners Association Ltd First Floor, 75 High Holborn, London WC1V 6LS Tel: 020 7152 0200 Fax: 020 7152 0213 info@roa.co.uk www.racehorseowners.net Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association Stanstead House, The Avenue, Newmarket CB8 9AA Tel: 01638 661 321 Fax: 01638 665621 info@thetba.co.uk • www.thetba.co.uk

£4.95 | October 2015

Issue 134

Incorporating

A lady’s passion Lady Bamford and her love of thoroughbreds

Plus • William Haggas out to conquer the top races • Highclere Stud: the leading Berkshire nursery • Tony Morris recalls Sea-Bird’s superb Arc win

10

9 771745 435006

www.ownerbreeder.co.uk

Cover: Lady Bamford shows her affection for broodmare and dual Oaks heroine Sariska at Daylesford Stud Photo: George Selwyn

Follow us on... @OwnerBreeder

EDWARD ROSENTHAL

Time to rewrite the rules, this time in simple verse J

ust as this magazine was about to go to press, news came through that Simple Verse had been reinstated as the winner of the St Leger, after an appeal had succeeded in overturning the verdict of the Doncaster stewards. Not quite done and dusted, then.

A brief press conference held after the result was announced showed the Qatar Racing team to be pleased with the outcome, but far from jubilant. Their moment to celebrate Classic success on Town Moor had long since passed.

The overriding emotion for Ralph Beckett, Andrea Atzeni, David Redvers and the absent Sheikh Fahad Al Thani appeared to be one of relief, in that a filly they believed had won on merit had now been recognised, officially, as the best horse on the day. Beckett stated that the 11 days between raceday and appeal were not particularly enjoyable, for him or any of the connections.

Most sporting stories are played out on the pitch, court or racecourse – this one started that way but ended in a drab central London office, with not a blade of grass in sight. Hardly ideal, whichever way you look at it.

Only last month I wrote that the riding rules in this country were inadequate, as disqualification was all but a distant prospect, referencing Bondi Beach’s luckless effort in the Great Voltigeur Stakes. Amazingly, the same horse was involved again in the St Leger and while initially it appeared he had gained handsome compensation for his York defeat, ultimately he suffered the same fate, that of finishing runner-up.

If I was confused by the riding rules after the Voltigeur, I’m baffled after the Leger appeal. Does anyone know, within the current framework, how to judge which horse is best? Surely the rulebook is there to explain things clearly – not muddy the waters.

One person who believes the current rules work fine, most of the time, is former Senior Steward Julian Richmond-Watson, who succeeded Richard Lancaster as Chairman of the Thoroughbred Breeders’

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

Association earlier this year.

However, in his new guise, Richmond-Watson is not so concerned with stewarding matters. There are other priorities. The BHA has declared that it would like to see an extra 1,000 horses in training in the next five years, with an inevitable responsibility falling on to British breeders’ shoulders.

With the issue of small fields seemingly ever present, rather than hoping for a breeding revolution, perhaps the simple answer would be to cut fixtures.

On this matter, Richmond-Watson takes a different stand to most.

“I would expand the fixture list,” he says (The Big Interview, pages 46-51). “Then you would create real competition. Of course there should be a centralised programme for the major side of racing but beyond that I would allow racecourses to run more race meetings; then they would have to compete for the horses.

“There are lots of small-field races at the moment – and that is because the racecourses can just about live within this artificial umbrella so they let it happen. As an owner and breeder, do I mind if there are only three or four runners in a race? No. However the betting industry would and the racecourses would – then it becomes their problem to solve instead of us trying to control them.”

In this breeding bonanza of an issue, we also talk to leading consignor Lady Carolyn Warren and noted owner/breeder Kirsten Rausing, as well as Lady Bamford, who enjoyed Group 1 success this year in the Prix de Diane with Star Of Seville and was so narrowly denied in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot with Eagle Top. In a superb interview with Chris McGrath (pages 4044), Lady Bamford explains when her passion for thoroughbreds began, how the results on track are the product of a tremendous team effort, and why she has never been afraid to follow her own path, in racing or any other endeavour.

“Does anyone know, within the current framework, how to judge which horse is best?

”

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Oct_134_Contents_Contents 24/09/2015 20:10 Page 4

CONTENTS OCTOBER 2015

52

40

NEWS & VIEWS

FEATURES

7

20

ROA Leader Racing right offers security

9 10

TBA Leader

16

News

Daylesford Stud’s owner

Changes Tony Morris Sea-Bird was majestic in Paris

28

46

Howard Wright

76

Sales Circuit NEW! My Bloodstock Life Kirsten Rausing’s journey

The Big Interview With Julian Richmond-Watson

52

68

Europe and USA round-up

Help breeders race good fillies

News in a nutshell

26

In Britain, Ireland and France

40

Talking To...

Trainer William Haggas

The Big Picture COVER STORY Lady Bamford

British Champions Day plans

61

Highclere Stud

78

Caulfield Files Arabian Queen’s inbreeding

105 Dr Statz

Lady Carolyn Warren’s nursery

Dubawi and Galileo do battle

112 24 Hours With...

French jockey Thierry Jarnet

Different riding rules apply

INTERNATIONAL SCENE 31

View From Ireland Jezki staying at longer trips

34

Continental Tales Felix de Giles’s French lesson

36

Around The Globe Tribute to Bart Cummings

Thierry Jarnet is hoping for a third straight victory in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe on outstanding mare Treve

4

Oct_134_Contents_Contents 24/09/2015 09:08 Page 5 B

4:53 pm

Page 3

BLOODLINES Simply the right policy – without the fuss We are able to provide cover for: All risks of mortality Theft Stallion’s congenital or permanent infertility Broodmare barrenness Prospective foal Foals from 24 hours

46

Yearlings unsoundness of wind Horses at grass

FORUM 80

ROA Forum Recruiting more owners a priority

88

TBA Forum Preparing for the NH Stallion Parade

92

LEADING THE FIELD IN BLOODSTOCK INSURANCE

Breeder of the Month Newsells Park Stud for Legatissimo

93

Next Generation Club New committee announced

96

TO STAY

Vet Forum Bone bruises explained

100 Focus On... Paddock Maintenance Helpful advice as we move into autumn

AHEAD OF THE FIELD CONTACT US

DATA BOOK 106 European Pattern Latest Group winners

TODAY

110 Stallion Statistics Raise a glass to Invincible Spirit

Our monthly circulation is certified at

9,340 Can other magazines prove theirs?

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

BLOODLINES Marlow House, 1A Lloyd’s Avenue London EC3N 3AA TEL: +44 (0) 207 938 3033 FAX: +44 (0) 207 938 3055 ENQUIRIES@BLOODLINES.CO.UK WWW.BLOODLINES.CO.UK Bloodlines is a trading name of Bloodlines Thoroughbred Insurance Agency Ltd which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

5

The Aga Khan Studs

Stallions 2016

THE AGA KHAN STUDS Success Breeds Success

GILLTOWN STUD 1.

1

Sea The Stars

Triple Group 1 sire of 20 Stakes winners and 35 Stakes performers from just 3 crops of racing age.

2.

2

Born To Sea

The dual Group 1 placed half-brother to GALILEO and SEA THE STARS.

4

HARAS DE BONNEVAL 3.

Dalakhani

8 Group 1 winners, 44 Stakes winners and 74 Stakes performers.

NEW TO FRANCE IN 2016

3

4.

5

Charm Spirit

A triple Group 1 winner by the masterly INVINCIBLE SPIRIT. NEW TO FRANCE IN 2016

6 5.

Makfi

Sire of a Guineas winner in his first crop, like his sire DUBAWI and grandsire DUBAI MILLENNIUM before him.

7

6.

Siyouni

Group 1 Classic sire of triple Group 1 winner ERVEDYA and 11 further Stakes performers.

7.

Sinndar

Sire of 4 Group 1 winners and 33 Stakes performers.

GILLTOWN STUD • Pat Downes or Julie White • Tel: +353 45 48 12 16 HARAS DE BONNEVAL • Georges Rimaud or Amanda Zetterholm • Tel: +33 2 31 48 18 60

w w w. Ag a K h a n S t u d s . c o m Aga_Owner_October_2015_With_Makfi.indd 1

23/09/2015 10:43

Oct_134_ROA_Leader_Layout 1 24/09/2015 09:14 Page 7

ROA LEADER

RACHEL HOOD President Racehorse Owners Association

Racing requires security, not voluntary payments The racing right will ensure a regular income allowing sport to plan long-term

E

stablishing the racing right as the principal means of funding British racing remains by far the most important subject on the industry agenda.

Amazingly, there are people within racing who still do not acknowledge this fact and, for reasons impossible to fathom, believe we should cling on to the levy system and actually be grateful for its continued existence.

They continue to swallow bookmaker propaganda and justify their beliefs on the basis that ‘the levy is safe’, while British racing continues to lose out massively. There can be no other outcome when virtually all those bets that are struck online – and many that are made by phone – are simply diverted overseas to avoid levy payment. This so-called leakage is now estimated to be £30 million.

Without a racing right, this situation will only get worse as increasing numbers of people use smart phones and tablets while fewer horseracing punters go to betting shops.

It is true there have been some key players in the betting industry who have entered into agreements to pay racing the levy equivalent on those horseracing bets diverted overseas. But even when such an arrangement is underpinned by contract it can only ever be for a finite term.

In recent months the tectonic plates of the betting industry have begun to shift with news of mergers between Ladbrokes and Corals and then Paddy Power and Betfair. With the consequences of these developments so uncertain, it would be wrong to base a substantial part of our income on ‘voluntary’ arrangements, however wellmeaning they might appear.

It is not only that the racing right will deliver substantially more money to British horseracing – money that it is entitled to have – with absolute safety once the legislation is in place, it is also about ensuring the money will be spent in the best overall interests of the sport.

Having the racing right in place would allow a new tripartite body, made up of the BHA, the Horseman’s

Group and the racecourses, to use this money judiciously.

As the holder of the purse strings, this body would be able to take a holistic approach that would address many of the concerns that we currently have with both the race programme and fixture list.

There has never been any doubt that establishing a racing right would be challenging. Even with the full support of Chancellor George Osborne and such inspired politicians as Matthew Hancock, EU state aid law and domestic competition law remain two very big hurdles to be jumped.

But a lot of work is now taking place between racing and government officials, with a target date for including the new legislation in the 2016 Queen’s Speech. We also have to take encouragement from the ongoing dialogue between the BHA and the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, John Whittingdale, and the Sports Minister Tracey Crouch, both of whom are properly engaged in the subject.

Even discussions between racing and bookmakers are becoming less focussed on the legal challenges and more concerned with how the new system would actually work. The development of a rate card would be central to this, as it would set out the various amounts betting operators would have to pay for taking bets on British horseracing from British-based punters.

And, since we’re starting with a clean-sheet, we must ensure we return to a system based on turnover rather than gross win. Not only would this have the benefit of simplicity, but it would remove the unease associated with the level of racing’s income being in direct relation to punters’ losses.

That aside, the route to obtaining a racing right it is to identify the common interests between British horseracing and the betting industry. But, while this may be a rational approach, we must ensure that a warming of relations does not mean a compromising of our objectives.

“A rate card would set

out the amounts betting operators would have to pay for taking bets on British racing

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

”

7

Did you know?

TBA Members can save money on mobile phone bills

TBA Membership includes instant membership to the TBA Buying Group where you will have access to incredible discounts on a vast range of products – including discounts on your mobile, landline and broadband services.

Other TBA membership benefits include tours of yards and studs, social events, seminars, race meetings and networking forums, as well as advice and support.

To register, email info@thetba.co.uk or call for more details.

01638 661321

l

thetba.co.uk

Oct_134_TBA_Leader_TBA 24/09/2015 09:14 Page 9

TBA LEADER

JULIAN RICHMOND-WATSON Chairman Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association

Developing families one of the joys of breeding Plus 10 scheme should help to encourage breeders to race their good fillies

I

t is always interesting to hear how thoroughbred breeders are regarded by other sections of the racing industry, and I was struck by the contrast between comments made recently by two trainers.

One referred to how lucky he felt at being supported by owner/breeders, who sent him half his annual intake of yearlings and therefore provided variety and stability to his string. The other said he dreaded his owners becoming breeders, because, in his words, they sent him whatever they bred regardless of conformation or looks – and this just after a homebred two-year-old, whom he admitted he would not have bought, had won at a major meeting!

It must be the aim of the TBA, working with the Racehorse Owners Association, to encourage more owners of successful fillies to take them on to stud, where they can enjoy the involvement that goes with formulating mating plans and watching the foals grow up.

When the bloodstock sales world is dominated by agents, it is easy to believe that every horse has to conform to a preconceived set of standards and looks, if it is to be any good on the racecourse.

The reality is that horses of every shape and size win races.

While commentators are liable to point out how a particular big-race winner “has grown into himself”, or herself, and “looks magnificent,” it is hardly a surprise that they failed to spot these qualities when the horse first appeared at the sales or on the racecourse. Luckily, we participate in a simple sport, one that is all about performance, and is not a subjective beauty parade.

Now that we are in the middle of the yearling and foal auction season many commercial breeders will judge their success by the prices achieved at the sales. Of course, profit – or at worst the limitation of losses – is the essential ingredient for making any breeding operation viable, but in the end it will be racecourse performance that brings back the buyers and ensures the stud’s success.

Keeping good-class fillies to race and ultimately to breed from is often part of this cyclical process, and is one of the

reasons that the Plus 10 bonus scheme, with its bias towards fillies, was brought in.

There have been other bonus schemes over the years but Plus 10 is unlike its predecessors and is not solely salesorientated. It is designed to encourage buyers to invest in fillies at auction but also to encourage breeders to race their fillies and, hopefully, to return the winners to their studs.

As well as providing an incentive at the sales, through the realisation of higher prices, Plus 10 may also encourage breeders either to consider keeping homebreds to race for the bonus or defraying some of their costs by bringing in partners, or even, if a breeder does not wish to pay training fees, encouraging a group to lease the filly with the potential of winning the prize.

The satisfaction of owning a homebred winner and returning the successful filly to stud has many advantages. Don’t just take my word, for there have been two outstanding success stories for British-based owner/breeders this Flat season.

Golden Horn wrote two significant chapters when he won the Derby and Eclipse Stakes for Anthony Oppenheimer, whose Hascombe & Valiant Studs also owned the colt’s dam. And when Golden Horn had his unbeaten record halted in the Juddmonte International Stakes, who should break the sequence but Arabian Queen, whose owner/breeder Jeff Smith’s Littleton Stud has now raised three generations of the filly’s family over the last 20 years.

Knowing a family’s habits and traits gives the breeder a much better chance of finding the best mating, as well as an understanding of how to handle the offspring. Most of the best breeders have developed families, and whether the scale is a couple of mares or a much larger band, this should surely be our aim. Such breeders do not always follow the latest trends, which in turn gives less fashionable stallions a better chance of establishing themselves.

A system, supported by Plus 10, which encourages breeders to race their fillies must be good for all the sport.

• Julian Richmond-Watson’s Big Interview, pages 46-51

“Knowing a family’s

habits and traits gives the breeder a much better chance of finding the best mating

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

”

9

Oct_134_News_Owner 24/09/2015 10:25 Page 10

NEWS Stories from the racing world

British Champions Day 2015: a fabulous finale to the Flat season QIPCO-backed raceday reaching new heights following ten-year sponsorship deal

B

ritish Champions Day has come a long way in a short space of time. In just five years, Britain’s richest raceday – worth £4.1 million – now boasts four Group 1s, a Group 2 and Europe’s most valuable mile handicap.

This year’s renewal at Ascot on Saturday, October 17 is set to feature a host of outstanding performers that have shone over the season in British Champions Series races, including French superstar Solow and sprint sensation Muhaarar. Add in the possible appearance of Golden Horn, Jack Hobbs and Gleneagles and racegoers are in for a day to remember.

Sponsor QIPCO is determined to continue to build on the early success of British Champions Day. Earlier this year it extended its backing of the British Champions Series until 2024 – and cemented its official partner status with Ascot racecourse – in a landmark deal reported to be worth over £50 million.

Sheikh Fahad Al Thani, who owns private investment company QIPCO with his five brothers, said: “My brothers and I consider British racing to be the best in the world.

Nowhere else can match the quality and the heritage of racing in Britain which is why we choose to base our racing and breeding operations here.

“We are aware of how important this tenyear commitment is, not only to British Champions Series and Ascot, but to British racing as a whole. In making that commitment until 2024 our objective is to provide long-term stability and a strong platform from which to grow the sport further. However, it is also a good business decision for QIPCO. “Our sponsorship portfolio has undoubtedly brought benefits for QIPCO, and not just to our racing and breeding interests. We feel proud and privileged to be associated with world-renowned events like Royal Ascot, the Guineas festival and British Champions Day. The QIPCO brand benefits from that association as the meetings generate interest and coverage worldwide. For us it is a win-win situation.

“We work closely with British Champions Series, developing initiatives such as the student offer and the QIPCO Winners’ Lounge on British Champions Day. The aim is to make the day a celebration of British racing, embraced by all those within racing and providing an opportunity for the next generation of

racegoers and potential owners to see the season’s champions crowned.”

Winners’ Lounge In a repeat of a successful initiative introduced last year, owners who have enjoyed a winner in any race on the Flat during this year’s QIPCO British Champions Series (between May 2 and October 3) are invited to a Winners’ Lounge on British Champions Day. This exclusive facility, which includes a champagne reception, overlooks the course and includes access to premier viewing lawns.

The directors of QIPCO and British Champions Series are extending this invitation to those owners to celebrate their success at Ascot at the climax of the

LAURENCE SQUIRE

Sheikh Fahad Al Thani: a passion for British racing and breeding

10

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

Oct_134_News_Owner 24/09/2015 10:26 Page 11

The Winners’ Lounge will cater to owners on British Champions Day; award-winning artist Paloma Faith will play a DJ set after racing

“Our objective is to

provide long-term stability and a strong platform from which to grow the sport”

on the biggest stage of all at the Flat season’s finale.

Richard Hughes, who hung up his riding boots after this year’s Goodwood festival to become a trainer, having captured the jockeys’ title three years running, and legend Lester Piggott, an 11-times champion, will be on hand to congratulate the winners.

In a new initiative, the five-day entries for British Champions Day will be released to the public in a live online event, directly streamed from Newmarket, with involvement from

leading trainers with runners.

This year’s British Champions Day will have an earlier start time, with the first race due off at 12.45pm to ensure there is no clash with the Rugby World Cup quarter final, which will be shown on big screens at Ascot.

Following the conclusion of the racing on British Champions Day, racegoers will have the opportunity to enjoy an after-party, headlined by Brit Award-winning artist Paloma Faith, who will be playing a special DJ set.

GEORGE SELWYN

Flat racing season and as a thank you for their contribution to British racing.

Qualifying owners have been sent an application form, which needs to be completed and returned. Those owners will then be sent two complimentary tickets to QIPCO British Champions Day, with badges to grant access to the Winners’ Lounge.

In the case of partnerships, a limited number of additional tickets and badges will be available to purchase on request, strictly on a first come, first served basis. These will be priced at £30 each. (To purchase extra tickets, please contact Ascot racecourse via telephone on 0844 346 3000, quoting ‘Winners’ Lounge’, from October 3. Please note that all applications must be received by October 9.)

Champions crowned For the first time, the champion jockey, champion apprentice and champion owner will be crowned on British Champions Day, enabling the victors to enjoy their big moment THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

French raider Solow bids to land a third British Group 1 in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes

11

Oct_134_News_Owner 24/09/2015 10:26 Page 12

NEWS

It’s black and white: Newmarket is world-leading thoroughbred centre New report recognises the town’s unique status as Hatchfield Farm verdict is due

T

he long-running battle over Lord Derby’s plan to build houses on his Hatchfield Farm in Newmarket took a new turn in September, with the publication of an extensive report into the town’s global importance as a thoroughbred centre.

Commissioned by Forest Heath District Council (FHDC) in November last year, the report by Deloitte illustrates the vital role Newmarket fulfills not only locally and nationally but also on an international level. Its release has fuelled the hopes of those fighting against the development on a number of grounds, including that it would be immensely damaging to the town’s character and reputation.

While stating that Newmarket’s horseracing industry employs over 8,500 people and makes a contribution of over £200 million to the UK economy, the report highlights the fact that the town is a unique racing community, unrivalled anywhere in the world with regard to its scale, diversity and history, all of which has helped attract massive global investment.

Home to over 2,600 horses in training and the major bloodstock operations of the likes of Sheikh Mohammed and Khalid Abdullah, as well as the world’s biggest bloodstock auction house in Tattersalls, Newmarket is described as a significant asset to UK plc.

A decision on whether to approve an application to build 400 new homes on

Opponents of increased development are worried about the impact on the town’s horse

Hatchfield Farm, in the north-east of the town, now rests with Greg Clark MP, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, who is set to deliver his verdict by October 12.

Welcoming the report’s findings, the Newmarket Horsemen’s Group (NHG) expressed a number of concerns regarding Hatchfield Farm, including the potential

Campaigners are determined to protect the unique character of Newmarket

12

economic impact of such a large-scale development, which it says has not been fully assessed by FHDC, the prospect of Newmarket’s unique character being changed beyond measure and the safety issues associated with increased traffic in a town where so many thoroughbreds are based.

With regard to the requirement on the local authority to fulfill its statutory obligation to provide more housing, NHG points to the suitability of RAF Mildenhall in west Suffolk, a US military base that is set to close by 2020.

Having previously been critical of the Hatchfield Farm plans, William Gittus, Chairman of the Newmarket Horsemen’s Group and Managing Director of Jockey Club Estates, said: “This confirms Newmarket’s status as one of international importance on account of its horseracing heritage and the scale of its racing industry today.

“The racing and breeding industry is already Newmarket’s biggest asset in terms of its £200m-plus per annum economic contribution to the region, as an employer and as a driver for tourism. Working with FHDC we would like to build on this further for the benefit of Newmarket, all of its residents and the racing industry.”

Matthew Hancock, MP for West Suffolk, THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

Oct_134_News_Owner 24/09/2015 10:26 Page 13

NEWS

GEORGE SELWYN

Endoscopy practices under the microscope at Irish conference

population, which stands at over 2,600

also praised the Deloitte document.

He said: “This powerful report shows just how important racing is to Newmarket, for local jobs and growth, and how important Newmarket is to racing, as the home to more than a third of the UK’s horses in training.

“It is a tribute to the town that racing in Newmarket has grown while shrinking elsewhere. If you ever needed proof that Newmarket was unique, here it is.”

Lord Derby, whose Oaks heroine Ouija Board produced last year’s Epsom and Irish Derby victor Australia, first submitted an application to build up to 1,200 residential dwellings, plus industrial/employment usage, on 167 acres of land at Hatchfield Farm in 2009. The application was refused in June 2010. An appeal was lodged, however this was dismissed by the Secretary of State in March 2012.

A further application for up to 400 dwellings was submitted in October 2013, which was opposed by NHG. (Lord Derby has also sought to have the entire Hatchfield Farm acreage approved for development.) The Secretary of State stepped in to recover the application, understanding it was potentially a matter of more than just local significance. His judgement is now awaited by all parties.

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

Delegates from 36 countries attended the International Thoroughbred Breeders’ Federation Annual Congress in Kildare in September, with a series of presentations at the K Club and Goffs, writes Lissa Oliver.

A symposium that really sparked the interest of breeders focused on endoscopy and radiograph practices at the sales. Dr Jeff Berk, current chair of the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP), and Dr Scott Pierce, a partner in Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, questioned the emphasis placed on results.

Dr Berk warned that assessing radiographs was not a clear-cut pass or fail. “The goal for vets is to correctly identify a problem and the level of risk it represents,” he said. “We must realise that some horses can function quite well with the problems we find.”

He suggested vets speak in terms of moderate risk when assessing a problem.

“Bloodstock agents who are the most consistently successful will have in their team a vet who does not simply identify a problem, but categorises it.”

Dr Scott Pierce warned of factors affecting an endoscopy such as means of restraint and position of head and neck, as well as the limitations of carrying out an endoscopy on a horse at rest. Many of what he considered to be poor scopes, and likely to have a detrimental affect on performance, were acceptable in the conditions of sale and he recommended a change to the conditions.

Revealing the results of research into racing performance, Dr Pierce found that scopes graded at I, IIa and IIb, as well as epiglottis problems up to E0-E2, had no affect on performance. There were “bargains to be had” among many of these yearlings. Grade III scopes performed poorly and while epiglottis problems up to E0-E2 presented no problems in performance, those with flaccid or short epiglottis didn’t perform as well.

A marked distrust of genomics was notable, particularly when the symposium concluded with a survey, with 68% of those present in favour of a worldwide ban on retrospective access to the DNA held by registration authorities, and 74% against sales companies providing links to DNA performance profiles in their catalogues.

However, Dr Brandon Velie, of the Animal Breeding & Genetics Department at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, assured the audience of the positive benefits of genetic profiling, already used in the verification of parentage and monitoring

Teo Ah Khing hopes racing can stage a global series similar to Formula One

fertility. “It’s about bettering the breed as a whole and trying to eliminate a problem. We should use technology to make the horse more capable of competing, more durable, rather than faster or better,” he suggested.

Showing how genetic profiling has been put to good use in other livestock industries, Professor Max Rothschild highlighted the speed with which DNA technology has developed and become more accessible and warned the thoroughbred industry not to get left behind.

“Modern animal breeding and genetic improvement began around 85 years ago,” he said, “with selection and mating systems and genetic evaluation based on phenotype, but horse breeders are the big exception – they have been doing this for over a 1,000 years, so they are ahead of the game.

“Genotype and environment create the phenotype. Genotype is the unknown. For horse people, it’s the pedigree and that’s where DNA comes in. We have the ability to take information using genomics and add that to pedigree information.”

Owners Teo Ah Khing, founder of the China Horse Club, and QIPCO’s Sheikh Fahad Al Thani, expressed hope that racing could one day stage a global series similar to that of Formula One. Teo Ah Khing said he was optimistic that China would play a part in such an event.

“We have a partner in Coolmore and have started to breed horses in Ireland, but let’s not forget China is an incredibly big agricultural country and is the last frontier for breeding opportunities,” he said.

Champion trainer Dermot Weld was concerned that red tape and extreme quarantine regulations might restrict international competition. The panel agreed that 36 hours in quarantine should be the maximum.

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Oct_134_News_Owner 24/09/2015 10:26 Page 14

NEWS

Clive Brittain, the multiple Classic-winning trainer and international pioneer, is to retire at the end of the season.

The 81-year-old’s wife Maureen, for so long a vital cog in the Carlburg Stables operation, is suffering from ill health and the trainer intends to devote his time to looking after her.

Brittain started his racing career as a stable lad in the late 1940s and rose to become one of Newmarket’s most decorated and popular trainers.

Asked why it was time to call it a day, he said: “Old age would probably be a hint, but I want to spend a few years looking after my wife.

“She’s spent 60-odd years looking after me, so I think it’s only fair I spend some time looking after her.

“Where there’s a beginning there’s an end, and I just felt the end was nigh. This is the right time to do it.”

He added: “I’m retiring with some regret, as I’ve had some fantastic owners over the years and still have, as well as great staff. I’ve lived a charmed life.

“I’ve had a good innings and enjoyed nearly all of it. It has been a fantastic life and lifestyle, but it has come to the time where I want to retire.”

“I’ve had a good

innings and enjoyed nearly all of it. It has been a fantastic life and lifestyle” That life includes some of the most famous horses to have graced the Turf, none more so than Pebbles, whose breathtaking talent came with a big slice of temperament, and it took all of her trainer’s skill and guile to elicit success in the 1,000 Guineas, Eclipse, Champion Stakes and Breeders’ Cup Turf.

Brittain said: “Pebbles winning the Breeders’ Cup was really out of this world, along with Jupiter Island winning the Japan Cup.” Jupiter Island’s place in racing history is assured, for in 1986 he became the first Britishtrained winner of the Japan Cup – to this day there have been only four in total. Campaigned

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GERRY CRANHAM

Clive Brittain calls time on 43-year career

One of the best: Clive Brittain with his outstanding filly Pebbles at Carlburg Stables

fearlessly overseas by Brittain, he also ran third in the Washington DC International and in Santa Anita’s Grade 1 San Juan Capistrano Handicap.

“Two great moments were when he won the Ebor Handicap and the Japan Cup, where he had to show so much courage and fight every yard to the line,” said his trainer. “It was so typical of the horse. He was a great fighter.”

Brittain is famous for beating all others to utilise the Newmarket gallops before dawn – figuring horses are more alert and cautious when they have to rely more on their rider in the near-dark – and for consistently defying the odds in big races with seeming no-hopers, the best example of which was Terimon’s excellent effort to finish second to Nashwan in the 1989 Derby at odds of 500-1. The Derby is the only one of the UK’s five Classics to have escaped the trainer, who won six in all.

First up was Julio Mariner in the St Leger in 1978. His outstanding filly User Friendly won both the Oaks and Leger in 1992, while Mystiko took the 2,000 Guineas in 1991. His two wins in the 1,000 Guineas came with Pebbles (1984) and Sayyedati (1993), another of his outstanding fillies.

Like Terimon, a gallant runner-up on the big stage was Bold Arrangement in the 1986

Kentucky Derby, a challenge Brittain considers the toughest he ever took on. But it was well worth it – no British-trained horse has ever gone as close to winning America’s signature race.

All this – not to mention Brittain’s personal favourite Warrsan, who won two Coronation Cups and Germany’s best race, the Grosser Preis von Baden, twice – came from humble roots.

Brought up in Wiltshire as one of 13 children, Brittain’s only options as a kid were riding ponies or working in a bacon factory, and his size enabled him to earn a job as a stable lad for Sir Noel Murless at Beckhampton.

While he didn’t make the grade as an apprentice, he specialised in handling difficult horses. Brittain moved with Murless to Newmarket and after more than two decades was eventually able to take out a licence himself in 1972, largely funded by a successful ante-post bet on Altesse Royale in the 1971 Oaks.

Brittain may or may not have danced with delight after that victory, but he was certainly to become known for his celebratory jig, one recent example coming after Rizeena won the Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot last year.

A new chapter as a broodmare awaits Rizeena, and her trainer will follow her into honourable retirement in the next month or so.

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Oct_134_News_Owner 24/09/2015 10:26 Page 15

NEWS

Tributes paid to leading owner Raymond Mould said: “We had some tremendous fun together, on and off the racecourse. He loved life, loved racing, loved people and loved to party. He was also a very big part of National

Hunt racing and Cheltenham won’t feel the same without him.

“Our thoughts are with Caroline and their daughters, Katie and Samantha.”

Bindaree’s Grand National triumph was one of many big-race wins for owner Raymond Mould (inset)

GEORGE SELWYN

The world of jump racing was saddened in September by the death of leading owner Raymond Mould at the age of 74.

Mould triumphed in four of the sport’s most coveted prizes – the Gold Cup, Grand National, Champion Chase and King George – and most recently owned, in partnership with wife Caroline, Sprinter Sacre, widely acclaimed as the best chaser since Arkle.

Mould, a property entrepreneur and former Chairman of Arena Leisure, first owned horses with his late first wife Jenny, and they shared, along with Colin and Claire Smith, Charter Party, the 1988 Gold Cup hero.

Mould’s familiar green and white colours were carried by such stalwarts as Tipping Tim, Barton Bank and Bindaree.

Among Mould’s other notable horses were Cheltenham winners Tug Of War (1992 Kim Muir) and the Nigel Twiston-Davies-trained Pigeon Island (2010 Grand Annual), the latter having raced at Prestbury Park no fewer than 24 times.

Mould died at his holiday home in France, from where Twiston-Davies was returning when he learned the news.

He said: “Raymond owned my first Festival winner, Tipping Tim. However he told me that the horse’s win in the Mackeson Gold Cup in 1992 was the one he enjoyed the most. Tipping Tim was the first horse I ever had for anybody.

“Without Raymond I wouldn’t be here. He saved my bacon financially in the first place.

I was then ready to give up training when Bindaree came along. He has been my greatest friend and greatest supporter. He’ll be very sadly missed.”

Sprinter Sacre’s trainer Nicky Henderson

Nominate your favourite stud and stable staff Racing’s hardworking heroes will take centre stage at the 12th Godolphin Stud and Stable Staff Awards, nominations for which open on Wednesday, October 7.

The Awards, sponsored by Godolphin and run by the British Horseracing Authority in association with the Racing Post, offer over £120,000 in prize-money, with £40,000 available to a single yard or stud.

The winners and runners up in each of the six categories will be revealed by Clare Balding at the Awards evening. The finalists, together with their friends and family, will be invited to attend the unique ceremony

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

held in London on Monday, February 22, 2016.

The nomination process is very simple and this year is available to trainers online via the Racing Administration website. Nominations are accepted from anyone within the industry so owners, trainers, colleagues and managers can all show their appreciation for their hardworking members of staff.

Nomination forms can be downloaded at www.britishhorseracing.com/stablestaff and via www.racingpost.com.

Alternatively, text AWARDS to 07584 171551 and a member of the team will arrange for a form to be sent to you.

Jessica Fortt, Employee of the Year in 2014, accepts her winner’s prize

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Oct_134_Changes2pp_Layout 1 24/09/2015 09:11 Page 16

in association with

Racing’s news in a nutshell PEOPLE AND BUSINESS Alan McCabe Returns to Newmarket after training a mixed string for David Loder in Shropshire.

Bath racecourse ARC-owned track will undergo £4.5 million investment with new grandstand and restaurant planned, and potential to install a watering system (see page 82).

Graham Bradley Former jockey drops his application to train after the BHA states it does not consider him a suitable person to hold a licence.

David Casey Jump jockey, 39, who enjoyed Grade 1 successes on Rule Supreme at Cheltenham, Auteuil and Leopardstown retires to work for trainer Willie Mullins.

Clive Brittain Trainer of brilliant fillies Pebbles, User Friendly and Sayyedati, all Classic heroines, will relinquish his licence at the end of the year (see page 14).

Jack Kennedy Rising star of the Irish jockey scene faces spell on the sidelines after fracturing his toe following an unseat at Kilbeggan.

Mark Pitman Sends out his first runner since returning to the training ranks from his previous base at Weathercock House in Lambourn.

James Toller Newmarket trainer who sent out Compton Place to win the 1997 July Cup and maiden Bachelor Duke to win the 2004 Irish 2,000 Guineas is to retire.

Davy Russell Irishman undergoes surgery on fractured left arm following parade ring fall at Cork.

Hayley Turner Britain’s most successful female jockey, the winner of three Group/Grade 1s, will retire at the end of the season.

Also...

Patrick Davis, ex-Plumpton Chief Executive, will take up new role as Racing Director of Weatherbys after time with South African firm Phumelela. Erika Mader, the first female trainer to saddle a Group winner in Germany – Bin Shaddad in 1990 Spreti-Rennen at Baden-Baden – will retire at the end of the year.

Paddy Power Betfair plc in £6 billion merger to create a betting giant, with Betfair Chief Executive Breon Corcoran heading the new company.

Jump jockey Danny Cook returns to action after six-month ban for cocaine use. France Galop gives go ahead for rebuilding of Longchamp, with a budget of €131 million; another Paris track will eventually close as a result. One of Epsom’s oldest stables, Downs House, is sold for £1 million and will be refurbished as a racing yard. Towcester Chief Executive Kevin Ackerman is found guilty of corrupt and fraudulent practice by the BHA. Trainer Roger Teal, based at Epsom’s Thirty Acre Barn, is seeking new premises after the yard’s owners close it down. Anthea Morshead returns to Kelso as clerk of the course, with Hazel Peplinski moving to Perth. Robert Thornton announces decision to retire, forced by a run of bad injuries. Paul Carberry could be out for six months after breaking his leg in a fall at Listowel.

We’ve advised buyers of prime property for over thirty years.

It’s all we do. We are your unfair advantage.

Unrivalled Access. Astute Advice.

Please contact either Robert Fanshawe or Henry Hannon on 01635 813 130

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>>

Oct_134_Changes2pp_Layout 1 24/09/2015 09:11 Page 18

RACEHORSE AND STALLION MOVEMENTS AND RETIREMENTS Hurricane Fly Outstanding two-mile hurdler, winner of a record 22 Grade 1s including two Champion Hurdles and five Irish Champion Hurdles, is retired aged 11.

Conduit

Night Of Thunder

Ten-year-old son of Dalakhani, winner of the 2008 St Leger, moves to Tullyraine House Stud in County Down having spent six years at stud in Japan.

Kildangan Stud in Ireland is the destination for Darley’s son of Dubawi, who retires to stud as the winner of the 2,000 Guineas and Lockinge Stakes.

Tac De Boistron Soft ground-loving stayer, latterly in the care of Marco Botti, for whom the gelding won back-to-back renewals of the Group 1 Prix Royal-Oak at Longchamp.

Tiggy Wiggy Exceptional two-year-old filly last year, winning six races including the Group 1 Cheveley Park stakes, is retired after failing to win this season.

Due Diligence Talented sprinting son of War Front, runner-up to Slade Power in the 2014 Diamond Jubilee Stakes, will begin his stallion career at Whitsbury Manor Stud.

Telescope Emphatic winner of the 2014 Hardwicke Stakes for Highclere Thoroughbred Racing and Sir Michael Stoute is retired aged five due to injury.

Rizeena Dual Group 1 heroine for owner Sheikh Rashid Dalmook Al Maktoum and trainer Clive Brittain is retired aged four.

Bahri Sire of Arc winner Sakhee is retired from covering duties at Girsonfield Stud in Northumberland aged 23.

Wise Dan Horse of the Year twice in the US, where he won 11 Grade 1s including two Breeders’ Cup Miles, is retired aged eight.

HORSE OBITUARIES

Times Up Evergreen stayer for John Dunlop and his son Ed, dual winner of the Group 2 Doncaster Cup and victorious in ten of his 44 races, is retired aged nine.

PEOPLE OBITUARIES Lindsay Charnock 60 Northern-based jockey who won many of the big handicaps and captured the 1991 Lowther Stakes on the Tim Easterbytrained Jemima.

Sarah Leigh 53 Daughter of prominent owner/breeder Gerald Leigh, she bred 21 individual winners and was a theatrical agent based in New York.

Susan McIntyre 72 Managed Copgrove Hall Stud in Yorkshire for the late Guy Reed, the nursery for stars such as La Cucaracha and Tiddliwinks.

Valerie Greaves 70 Mother of Group 1-winning jockey Alex Greaves, she acted as assistant to trainer David Barron for nearly 40 years and also rode as an amateur jockey.

Raymond Mould 74 Owner of a string of top-class chasers, including Charter Party, Barton Bank, Bindaree and Sprinter Sacre, who raced for his wife Caroline.

Also...

Bart Cummings, 87 A legend in Australian racing, winning the Melbourne Cup on 12 occasions and regarded as the greatest trainer in the country’s history (tribute, pages 36-37).

Roy Street, 79 Former point-to-point rider, box driver and professional stuntman who appeared in Fast & Furious 6. Ossie Dale, 98 Enjoyed a long association with Aintree, starting work at the track in 1953 and employed as stable manager until the 1980s. David Naughton, 48 Popular manager of Loughtown Stud in County Kildare for nearly 20 years, he dedicated his life to horses.

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Green Desert 32 Top sprinter, winning the July Cup in 1986, later a leading stallion for Shadwell, siring Cape Cross, Invincible Spirit and Oasis Dream.

Brown Panther 7 Tough and talented stayer, bred and owned

by Michael Owen, winner of 11 races including the 2014 Irish St Leger and 2015 Dubai Gold Cup.

Extortionist 4 Gave trainer Olly Stevens a Royal Ascot winner in his debut season, winning the 2013 Windsor Castle Stakes.

Compton Place 21 Sprang a 50-1 surprise in the 1997 July Cup, the son of Indian Ridge spent his stallion career at Whitsbury Manor Stud, siring dual Group 1-winning sprinter Borderlescott.

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Oct_134_BigPic-StLeger_Owner Breeder 23/09/2015 17:39 Page 20

THE BIG PICTURE

LEGER OUTCOME NOT SIMPLE This year’s St Leger was not short on drama, as the close finish between first past the post Simple Verse (right) and Bondi Beach was referred to the stewards owing to interference in the home straight. To the surprise of most observers, the finishing positions were reversed, with the Aidan O’Brien-trained Bondi Beach placed ahead of the Ralph Beckett-trained Simple Verse. However, that was not the end of the story. The team behind Simple Verse appealed the decision and on September 23, after a BHA hearing, Qatar Racing’s filly was reinstated as the winner Photos George Selwyn

Oct_134_BigPic-StLeger_Owner Breeder 23/09/2015 17:39 Page 21

DONCASTER

As it happened on the day, top to bottom: Colm O’Donoghue takes the plaudits after St Leger glory; the Simple Verse team of David Redvers, Sheikh Fahad Al Thani and Kevin Darley look dejected after their filly’s demotion; Andrea Atzeni appears relieved after the race, only to be denied in the stewards’ room

Oct_134_BigPic-Golden_Horn_Owner Breeder 23/09/2015 17:41 Page 22

THE BIG PICTURE

GOLDEN IS CHAMPION The Irish Champion Stakes saw Anthony Oppenheimer’s Derby hero Golden Horn (5) regain the winning thread after his shock defeat in the Juddmonte International – but it was anything but straightforward. The John Gosden-trained colt veered right under Frankie Dettori in the run for home, badly impeding Free Eagle, and had to survive a steward’s enquiry to secure the valuable prize Photo Bill Selwyn

Oct_134_BigPic-Golden_Horn_Owner Breeder 23/09/2015 17:41 Page 23

L E O PA R D S T O W N

Oct_134_BigPic-Longchamp_Owner Breeder 23/09/2015 17:45 Page 24

THE BIG PICTURE

KEEPING A STEP AHEAD Frankie Dettori and Colm O’Donoghue have plenty to discuss at Longchamp on Arc trials day, after both men had secured big-race victories at Leopardstown and Doncaster the previous day on Golden Horn and Bondi Beach; unfortunately for the latter’s jockey, his St Leger win on Bondi Beach was wiped out on appeal Photos George Selwyn

Oct_134_BigPic-Longchamp_Owner Breeder 23/09/2015 17:42 Page 25

LONGCHAMP

From top: New Bay and Vincent Cheminaud underline their Arc credentials with an easy victory in the Prix Niel; Thierry Jarnet gives the thumbs-up after Treve’s demolition job in the Prix Vermeille; Postponed and Andrea Atzeni grind out victory in the Prix Foy

Oct_134_Tony_Morris_Owner 24/09/2015 09:15 Page 26

THE MAN YOU CAN’T IGNORE COMMENT

Tony Morris So good was the field for the 1965 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe that our columnist sought a temporary passport to make his first overseas trip – 50 years on, he’s still so glad he did

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APRH

I

grew up as one of the first generation for whom foreign travel became commonplace, but I was a late starter in that respect, never leaving England until I was 21 years old. In time my acquired wanderlust would be satisfied by visits to every continent, many of them memorable for a variety of reasons, but initially limited funds meant that there had to be something special to persuade me to adopt the necessary spirit of adventure.

I found that something special exactly 50 years ago, hastily obtaining a temporary passport and planning a journey by rail to Paris. I was anticipating an exciting experience; what I could not foresee was that I would witness an event that would be recognised half a century later as a landmark occasion in the history of thoroughbred racing. It was no less of a landmark in my life – an occurrence forever to be relished. I was there when Sea-Bird won the Arc. I had been present for Sea-Bird’s Derby, which he won so effortlessly that my first impression had been that his victims at Epsom could not be up to much; after all, his runner-up Meadow Court had reputedly been only number four in the pecking order among the three-year-olds in Paddy Prendergast’s stable. But Meadow Court then won the Irish Derby. And followed up in the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes.

Meanwhile, Sea-Bird had himself crushed older foes in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud.

Second impressions had to be that Sea-Bird was outstanding. Shame on me for underestimating him. His cantering romp at Epsom was truly all about superior class, not about the inadequacies of his opposition. But was he really so exceptional? He was not the only French colt of his generation with claims to greatness. Reliance – brother to Match and threeparts brother to Relko – was still unbeaten, and in his last three starts he had notched convincing victories in the Prix du Jockey-Club, the Grand Prix de Paris and the Prix Royal-Oak. Sea-Bird and Reliance were at last going to meet in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, and that, on its own, represented an enticing attraction for any lover of top-quality racing, even a formerly committed homebody like me. Yet who was to

Sea-Bird trounces an exceptional field in the 1965 Arc under Pat Glennon

say it was going to be a two-horse race? There was plenty to like about a lot of the other contenders, with 20 due to face the starter in what surely had to be regarded as a vintage field.

Twelve of the runners represented the home nation, the principals joined by seven four-yearolds and three more from the Classic generation.

The other three-year-olds – Diatome, Carvin and Blabla – had all shown high-class form. Diatome had won the Prix Noailles and Prix du Prince d’Orange, also registering second places to SeaBird in the Prix Lupin and to Reliance in the Prix du Jockey-Club and Grand Prix de Paris; Carvin’s only recent victory had come in the Grand Prix de Vichy, but he had acquitted himself nobly when close behind Reliance on three occasions. Blabla was the only filly on parade, but she had scored a resolute victory in the Prix de Diane, and in her first season had been beaten only a short neck by Sea-Bird in the Criterium de Maisons-Laffitte.

Baron Guy de Rothschild was doubly

represented, as in addition to Diatome he had Free Ride, victor of the Prix Ganay and many people’s idea of the best home-trained four-yearold. That colt’s contemporaries included Sigebert, winner of the Prix Henri Foy last time out and two others, Francilius and Demi Deuil, who along with Free Ride had finished behind Sea-Bird in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud.

Demi Deuil, when winning the Grand Prix du Printemps, had four of his Arc rivals behind him – the aforementioned Sigebert and Francilius, in addition to Timmy Lad and Emerald, the lastnamed being a Boussac colour-bearer who would be joined in the Arc by stablemate Ardaban. Demi Deuil’s later emphatic victory in the Grosser Preis von Baden indicated that he was strongly on the upgrade. Timmy Lad, a tough and consistent performer over three seasons, had won six times and regularly finished in the frame in top company; he had reached an honourable fourth place in the 1964 Arc. THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

Oct_134_Tony_Morris_Owner 24/09/2015 09:16 Page 27

The only English-trained contenders were Oncidium, trained by George Todd, and Soderini, representing Staff Ingham’s stable. They were fully entitled to take their chances as the best of England’s older horses over middle distances, having finished first and second in the Coronation Cup before filling the minor places behind Meadow Court in the King George. However, their form earned scant respect from the Longchamp public, who sent Oncidium off at 75-1 and Soderini as an even more forlorn outsider at 90-1.

The Irish party consisted of a trio of three-year-olds from Paddy Prendergast’s yard. The obvious number one was Meadow Court, whose St Leger reverse had come as a shock after his triumphs in the summer, and he was joined by Desmond Stakes winner Khalife and Ragazzo, whose fine victory in the Great Voltigeur Stakes had been followed by a better display, as close runner-up to Reliance in the Prix Royal-Oak. Khalife’s presumed role was to act as pacemaker for his stable companions.

Marco Visconti was no Ribot or Molvedo, but he clearly ranked among the best three-year-olds in Italy, having shown progressive form. Third behind Varano in the Derby Italiano, he subsequently had that colt well behind when missing victory by a head against Accrale in the Gran Premio di Milano, a defeat attributed by many to jockey error.

Completing the field were an intriguing pair in Anilin and Tom Rolfe, representing the Soviet Union and the USA respectively. Anilin was a fouryear-old who remained unbeaten in his home country, where he was already celebrated as the best thoroughbred ever bred there, and he was proven at the top level outside Russia, having finished third behind Kelso and Gun Bow in the 1964 Washington D.C. International.

Tom Rolfe was heading for honours as America’s champion three-yearold. He had been third in the Kentucky Derby, won the Preakness, and was beaten only a neck in the Belmont. He had won all four of his subsequent races, most recently the American Derby at Arlington Park.

Had there ever been a field of comparable quality for any international contest? I thought not, which was why I was determined to be there to watch the drama played out. I went expecting something special, but I could not have envisaged a performance so spectacular that it was hailed by sound and experienced judges as the greatest of all time on any racecourse. I was anything but a sound and experienced judge at the time, but, having witnessed it, I acquired a reference point for everything I would ever see in my racegoing career. And, half a century on, Sea-Bird’s Arc victory still ranks as the finest performance by a middle-distance horse I ever saw. I know I shall never see one better.

Sea-Bird won that Arc by six lengths over Reliance, who was otherwise unbeaten. Diatome was five lengths back in third, just ahead of Free Ride, who had half a length in hand of Anilin, who in turn was five lengths clear of Tom Rolfe. Of course, Sea-Bird’s career ended that day; there was nothing else he needed to prove. But his victims continued to pay tribute to him, Diatome and Carvin as first and second in the Washington D.C. International, Demi Deuil as seven-length victor of the Premio Roma, Anilin as four-length winner of the Preis von Europa. They were all stars in their own right, genuine top-class performers. But Sea-Bird trounced them.

What a way to mark my debut as an international traveller!

“Sea-Bird’s Arc

victory still ranks as the finest performance by a middle-distance horse I have seen”

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

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Oct_134_HowardWright_Owner Breeder 24/09/2015 09:13 Page 28

HOWARD WRIGHT COMMENT

The International Federation of Horseracing Authorities has enjoyed some success in trying to harmonise rules, but the US and France remain outliers

Rules is rules, only different

W

oe betide the French racing authorities if a worthy British- or Irish-trained winner of the upcoming Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe is thrown out for hampering an also-ran who might have finished fifth but for the interference. The inevitable media furore would make debate following Simple Verse’s demotion (later reversed) in the St Leger, after Secret Gesture’s disqualification at Arlington in August, seem like an argument over first prize in the village fete cake competition.

It could happen, for the French rules, which legally but unjustly demoted Dar Re Mi from first to fifth in the Qatar Prix Vermeille six years ago, are out of kilter with what applies in every other major racing jurisdiction beyond the US, which has its own quaint, state-by-state legislation and cannot be regarded as a single entity on virtually any law-making issue.

Those who crammed in Belmont Park on the first Saturday in June to watch American Pharaoh, particularly the non-aficionados, can be thankful that in the last two furlongs the latest Triple Crown super-hero did not hamper a weakening fourth-placed finisher who might otherwise have finished third. Under strict application of the NYRA rules, American Pharaoh would have been placed behind the horse who suffered from his casual interference.

Leaving aside the US peculiarities, France’s isolation is complete, its interference rules having been honed at the altar of its biggest betting event, the Quinte+, which depends on a strict interpretation of the first five placings. The Arc is normally a Quinte+ race.

Ideally, in an age of increasing internationalisation, the same rules should apply around the world, and for the last ten years the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities, which holds its annual conference in Paris the day after the Arc, has been doing its best to encourage harmonisation. To criticise the IFHA for ineffectiveness, as at least one commentator did after Secret Gesture’s misfortune, is to overlook – through ignorance or otherwise – two vital factors. The first and more fundamental point is that unlike, for example, the International Cricket Council, World Rugby Dar Re Mi’s disqualification in the Vermeille six years ago was unjust

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and the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA), the IFHA is not responsible for the organisation of major international tournaments, and therefore cannot produce and implement a set of worldwide rules.

The IFHA can only advise, identify those areas and rules where a common approach would most benefit international racing, and encourage members to adopt best practice. In

“Ideally, in an age

of increasing internationalisation, the same rules should apply worldwide” this respect, the second point not universally accepted is that the IFHA’s international harmonisation of raceday rules committee has had some success, particularly with interference.

Initial progress was slow, and a previous committee chairman, South Africa’s Rob de Kock, left office admitting there came a time when banging his head against a brick wall started to hurt and was not worth repeating.

However, under his stewardship the vast majority of Asian Racing Federation countries,

stretching from South Africa to New Zealand, came together with Britain, Ireland and Italy to form a bloc in which ‘worthy winners’ keep a race when interference is not deemed to have involved dangerous riding or worse.

The fact that so many countries have adopted this stance is the perfect answer to those who would as a matter of course hand any benefit of the doubt to victims, regardless of the fact that to do so would lead to chaos and uncertainty on a vast scale. Furthermore, the IFHA’s harmonisation committee has persuaded the Japan Racing Association to switch sides on interference, and, following discussions after the controversial demotion of Buena Vista from the 2010 Japan Cup, this most conservative body left the French camp in 2013 to join the rest of the world, bar the US. The impact has been illuminating. In 201112, under the old rules, the JRA ran 6,908 races and oversaw 328 inquiries, which led to eight disqualifications and 33 demotions. In 201314, under the new rules, there were 45 inquiries, no disqualifications and just three demotions from an equal number of races.

What’s more, the JRA reported “no tangible increase in careless, reckless, improper or foul riding since the change.”

The French, it seems, remain happy to go it alone. But at what cost? Another uneasy atmosphere at the IFHA conference this month perhaps.

CC2896 TOB Oct 2015 (Roster)_Layout 1 18/09/2015 15:48 Page 1

SHADWELL STALLIONS Standing in the UK

MUKHADRAM Shamardal - Magic Tree

Standing at Nunnery Stud, UK (www.shadwellstud.co.uk) MUKHADRAM

NAYEF

Gulch - Height Of Fashion Standing at Nunnery Stud, UK (www.shadwellstud.co.uk)

MAWATHEEQ Danzig - Sarayir

Standing at Nunnery Stud, UK (www.shadwellstud.co.uk) NAYEF

MAWATHEEQ

SAKHEE

Bahri - Thawakib Standing at Nunnery Stud, UK (www.shadwellstud.co.uk)

HAAFHD

Alhaarth - Al Bahathri Standing at Beechwood Grange Stud, UK (www.beechwoodgrangestud.com) SAKHEE

HAAFHD

Standing in France

MUHTATHIR Elmaamul - Majmu

Standing at Haras du MĂŠzeray, France (www.mezeray.com)

Standing in Italy

MUJAHID Danzig - Elrafa Ah

MUHTATHIR

MUJAHID

Discover more about the Shadwell Stallions at www.shadwellstud.co.uk Or call Richard Lancaster, Johnny Peter-Hoblyn or Rachael Gowland on

01842 755913

Email us at: nominations@shadwellstud.co.uk

Standing at Allevamento di Besnate, Italy (www.sab.it)

Oct_134_View_From_Ireland_Owner Breeder 24/09/2015 09:16 Page 31

VIEW FROM IRELAND

By JESSICA LAMB

Jezki to stick to his longer guns No Hurricane Fly this season but World Hurdle still most likely Cheltenham target

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ezki will not return to two miles this season, despite the retirement of 22-time Grade 1 winner Hurricane Fly. In the past two seasons he had beaten Jezki, the 2014 Champion Hurdle hero, five times, forcing his connections to consider scrapping his two-mile career for longer distances.

Having won the Hatton’s Grace Hurdle over two and a half miles, it was clear JP McManus’s star could handle a step up in trip and when he was soundly beaten by Hurricane Fly’s stablemate Faugheen in this year’s Champion Hurdle, the switch was made.

He won the Aintree Hurdle by 13 lengths and beat Hurricane Fly on his final run in Ireland over three miles in the Ladbrokes World Series Hurdle at Punchestown, cementing his position as Britain and Ireland’s leading staying hurdler with a rating of 169.

Trainer Jessica Harrington is keen on defending that title with Jezki as he nears a return to action.

She said: “He’s back with me and has been in good form. He is cantering away, although we are not certain what his plans are this year.

“We haven’t had a proper discussion yet but I presume he will be going down the two and a half and three-mile route. That’s where he did best last year and looks the best option.”

His most likely starting point is the Hatton’s Grace Hurdle at Fairyhouse at the end of next month.

Talking about Hurricane Fly, Harrington added: “I suppose the highlight of his career, for me, has to be when he regained his Champion Hurdle crown as that is always the hardest thing to do; to lose and come back and win again. He was a great champion and the main thing that made him that way was that he was so sound.”

Trainer Willie Mullins put this down to jockey Paul Townend taking over the responsibility of riding Hurricane Fly out at home, which kept a lid on his fiery temperament.

Mullins said: “Paul was very good at that, minding him. He was very aggressive in everything he did and indeed in his first two seasons he got niggling problems because of it.

“It was then that we changed things and put

Paul on him. From then on he rode him 99% of the time and kept a lid on him.”

He added: “He’s an absolute legend of a horse to do what he did – I don’t think we’ll ever have the likes of him again.

“He was so brave and able to come back year after year. It was unbelievable to all of us.”

“I presume he will be

going down the two and a half and threemile route. That looks the best option” Mullins will have the reigning Champion Hurdler Faugheen, the third-placed Arctic Fire and last season’s champion staying novice hurdler Nichols Canyon to fill the void left by Hurricane Fly. The Supreme Novices’ Hurdle winner Douvan has not been entirely ruled out of another season of hurdling either, despite his large frame and slick jumping pointing him out as a potential chasing star.

Killultagh Vic was a surprise package when winning a Grade 1 novice hurdle at the Punchestown festival and might be the horse Mullins reserves to tackle the staying division.

He said: “Chasing was the plan, but I think we could set about making him a staying hurdler. The thing is that he is the first Old Vic to win a Grade 1 open hurdle and maybe that is telling us he needs to go chasing. We haven’t made any decisions about Douvan yet.”

CAROLINE NORRIS

Jessica Harrington with Jezki

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VIEW FROM IRELAND

McNamara chasing exciting new dream Andrew McNamara has set up a training yard in Mullingar after retiring from race-riding at the end of August.

McNamara, whose brother Robbie and cousin JT were forced out of the saddle by lifechanging back injuries, gave up being a jockey due to being “plagued” by back and weight problems owing to his 6ft frame.

The 32-year-old, who rode 15 Grade 1 winners during his career, has taken six stables in Irish Grand National-winning trainer Dot Love’s establishment and is expecting to receive his licence next month.

McNamara said: “I have six in, mostly young horses that might take a bit of time, but two that should get to the track in the spring.”

On top of training, Love and her team have a partnership with Gigginstown House Stud, taking in horses that are injured or on a break, as well as breaking in the leading owner’s young stock.

They offer a wealth of experience – and facilities – for McNamara to draw on, and for that he is grateful.

“Overall it’s been a

“Any bit of help you need, they are there.

They have a huge amount of knowledge and experience and I’m learning every day.”

He added: “I like the horses I have and I’m riding them myself, but because they are young horses it’s very different to the type of riding out I have been used to.

“Overall it’s been a bit busier than I thought it would be, but that’s definitely a good thing.”

McNamara rode 431 winners for the likes of Edward O’Grady, Henry de Bromhead, Charles Byrnes and Michael Hourigan, learning all the time. As his career evolves he hopes to take something from modern training styles, incorporating the use of technology.

He said: “I do find the science side of training interesting. It will take a while before I become as knowledgeable, and have as much technology, as people like the Pipes, though.

“I actually study fitness for a sports course online in my spare time and that’s giving me a good insight.

“Looking far ahead, I’d love to say I’ll target

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bit busier than I thought it would be, but that’s definitely a good thing”

McNamara riding Tranquil Sea at Cheltenham – he will hope to go back as a trainer

quality rather than quantity, but quality is very hard to get into!”

Giving him a unique perspective on racing is his other position as a presenter on RTE Racing.

The channel’s sports presenter Robbie Irwin gave him the call one Cheltenham when looking for someone to cover the Festival from Dublin.

McNamara was undaunted by the challenge and has eased into it, looking more professional with every show.

“It’s a very enjoyable job and makes you a lot more interested in the day,” he said. “When you’re riding you’re just concentrating on the races. But when you are doing TV you have to pay attention to everything that might happen.”

McNamara wants to build on his

broadcasting career alongside training, like his RTE colleague Ted Walsh, and intends to take on some formal training.

He said: “So far I have learned everything as I go. Ted and Robert [Hall] give me advice about what interests people, what to talk about, and the television people are very helpful also – they notice things that you’d never consider thinking about.

“There are plenty of people that are more qualified to interview people or present on television than I am, and I probably should get some formal training in time.

“Being someone who is directly involved in the industry and who knows everybody they are speaking to is a big help, though. That’s why I’m still there.”

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CONTINENTAL TALES CE

Smiles for de Giles as move pays off Cheltenham Festival-winning rider enjoying spell across the Channel

Felix de Giles: flair for French racing

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GEORGE SELWYN

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that his way of riding is well suited to the quieter style that predominates in France.

“Jockeys here have an appreciation of how a horse breathes during a race and the

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ollowing in the footsteps of James Reveley, Cheltenham Festival-winning jockey Felix de Giles has been enjoying a pleasant summer sojourn in France, linking up to great effect with leading trainer Emmanuel Clayeux.

The 26-year-old has won almost 250 races in Britain, notably the 2009 Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Hurdle aboard Andytown. After a long spell with Nicky Henderson and a shorter one with Charlie Longsdon, he is currently mainly employed

by Tom Symonds and Robert Walford, but has been based since early May in central France at Clayeux’s yard at Vaumas, near Vichy.

De Giles initially gained an introduction to Clayeux last year through a friend, bloodstock agent Richard Hobson. Seven wins from 53 rides ensued and prompted a second visit a year on, which, until early September, had gleaned a further 11 victories from 56 rides at a strike-rate of almost 20%.

“I would have been stupid not to have tried to branch out to a country which has such an affluent version of jump racing,” de Giles said.

“And I have lost nothing in doing it, as it’s quiet for me in England at this time of year.

“The riding fee is less here but even at the smaller tracks, like Lyon, prize-money is four times what you would find for the same calibre of horse back in England, so if you are riding horses with chances it can be quite lucrative.

“Things are ridiculously competitive in England at the moment. It’s extremely hard and I reckon that there are currently a lot of young riders about who are struggling that would have been able to do very well only ten or so years ago.

“It’s such a hard school to learn at in England, but what is nice is that it’s enabled me to come over here with that experience under my belt and maybe have a slight competitive edge.

“That’s not to say that if you come over here and go to places like Auteuil you can think that you will be able to ride the local lads to sleep. There are some very good jockeys here with good clocks in their heads and it’s easy to be sucked into going for home too soon.”

De Giles is clearly a bright guy, and he feels

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importance of getting them into a good rhythm,” he stressed. “A lot of people don’t see it, it’s just a different style.”

Gaining the patronage of Clayeux has been a real boon as the man best known on this side of the Channel for his handling of the 2013 Cheltenham Mares’ Hurdle runner-up Sirene d’Ainay has built his string up to a current strength of around 120 horses. He has become a regular in the top ten in the French jump trainers’ championship, with more than 50 victories in each of the last four seasons.

De Giles is full of gratitude towards his French boss for having put such trust in him.

“The two of us have really clicked and he has put me on some very nice horses,” de Giles admitted. “Emmanuel is a very switched-on man who is a big breeder as well as trainer – he both sells and races his horses.”

So when does he plan to return to Britain?

“I’ll get to the end of September and see how it goes – the next step is to try to ride a few winners at the Paris tracks, Auteuil and Enghien,” he answers. “I’ve been very happy with the way that things have gone out here and, fingers crossed, I’ll soon be able to pick up some results in the better races.”

De Giles has no plans to relocate to France on a full-time basis in the short term, although he has not ruled out doing so in the future.

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Abdullah buoyed by the long

When it comes to a resultsbased survey deciding which race deserves to carry the title of ‘Europe’s most cosmopolitan Group race,’ there can only be one winner – the Goldene Peitsche at Baden-Baden.

For when Shining Emerald just got the better of the French raider Son Cesio on August 30, it was only the sixth time in the last 35 years that Germany’s most prestigious sprint race – now happily restored to Group 2 status after a single year languishing as a Group 3 – has been won by a home-trained speedster.

The previous seven renewals of the sixfurlong contest had all been won by overseas

raiders, including by horses from the lessvaunted racing communities of Norway, Hungary and Holland. And the much sought after owner’s trophy is still going to be exported this year as Shining Emerald belongs to Jaber Abdullah, who is based in Dubai.

Abdullah now owns both Germany’s best sprinter and its best stayer, Alex My Boy. Curiously, given that prize-money levels in Germany are even lower than in either England or Ireland, both started their careers for Abdullah in those countries before moving to their current handler, Andreas Wohler, at the start of this, their four-yearold seasons.

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Sauer set for ‘amazing adventure’ at Hanover

Barely six months on from starting out as a trainer in Chantilly, Melanie Sauer is to leave France and return to her native Germany having been offered the plum job of replacing Paul Harley as the licence holder at Gregor Baum’s yard at Hanover racecourse.

The charming Sauer, who is well known within the British racing industry having completed the Darley Flying Start training scheme in 2010 prior to a long stint as assistant to top trainer Mikel Delzangles, will be returning to her roots as she was born 33 years ago in Dortmund, a two-hour drive from Hanover.

“My contract starts on November 1 but I hope to be in Hanover by mid-October so that I can ensure there is a smooth transition,” Sauer revealed. “I will start with around 30 horses.

“Chantilly has been my home for the last five years so it won’t be easy to leave friends behind, but I am moving on to an amazing adventure so that makes things easier. Plus I’ll be taking a couple of two-year-olds that I’ve been training here with me, so at least I’ll have someone from Chantilly to go with me!

“I’m a person who loves travelling, so I was never homesick, but I am looking forward to some aspects of returning to Germany, such as being close to my family.”

That family is steeped in racing. Her father, Norbert, trained for almost 50 years prior to

his untimely death in March after an accident at his yard in Dortmund. And her brother, Oliver, like her a champion amateur rider in his youth, is in charge of marketing at the German bookmaker RaceBets.

“I grew up in racing and have always had that dream of training myself one day,” said Sauer. “Doing the Darley Flying Start programme showed me what racing on an international level means – I was exposed to the most talented, influential and impressive people working in the racing and breeding industries around the globe, so I have learned from the best.

“My five years with Mikel Delzangles were unbelievable. I learned how to train Classic horses and was involved in great successes, such as Dunaden winning the Melbourne Cup and Flotilla winning at the Breeders’ Cup.” Although she has known Baum since childhood, the offer to train for the man who owns the leading German stud farm Gestut Brummerhof, where he bred the Arc heroine Danedream, came out of the blue.

“I knew that Paul Harley had decided to change his career path but couldn’t have dreamt that I would be invited to take his place,” she said. “And it was only after I had met Mister Baum at Deauville that I realised the kind of quality of horses that he was offering.

Sauer will be starting with 30 horses

“Mister Baum was interested in finding someone who knows French racing, so I hope that I will have some runners back here.

Hanover has the best training facilities in Germany, including renovated barns, a solarium and an amazing indoor arena, not to mention a variety of different gallops, so I hope to attract plenty of outside owners to the yard.”

and the short of it

GEORGE SELWYN

Shining Emerald, whose ten starts for County Kildare trainer Peter Deegan gleaned nothing bigger than a Listed victory at the Curragh in 2013, may now be supplemented for the Prix de la Foret at Longchamp on October 4.

Alex My Boy, formerly with Mark Johnston and touched off in the Listed March Stakes at Goodwood in August 2014, is a live hope for next year’s Ascot Gold Cup following his recent Group 2 Prix Kergorlay triumph. He will probably also next be seen at Longchamp on Arc day, in the Prix du Cadran.

Alex My Boy, Germany’s best stayer and bound for Arc day at Longchamp

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Oct_134_AroundtheGlobe_Owner Breeder 23/09/2015 14:33 Page 36

AROUND THE GLOBE THE WORLDWIDE RACING SCENE

AUST R A L I A

by Stephen Howell

A legend through deed and designation

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he great Australian and Australia’s greatest racehorse trainer, Bart Cummings, died aged 87 on the eve of spring and when racing had begun preparing for Victoria’s famous spring carnival.

The carnival climax, of course, is the Melbourne Cup, run on the first Tuesday in November and the race that spawned Bart’s nickname ‘The Cups King’ and with which he will be forever linked because of his record 12 wins in Australia’s great staying handicap.

Cummings, a racing legend through deed and through designation, having been given that rare status in 2008 by the Australian Racing Hall of Fame (to which he was an inaugural inductee in 2001), is immortalised in bronze at Flemington, the scene of his Cup wins.

The first, in 1965, was with the great mare Light Fingers, who headed stablemate Ziema on the line; the 12th in 2008 came courtesy of Viewed, defeating Luca Cumani’s brave Bauer.

Light Fingers opened the floodgates, with Cummings again successful in 1966 with Galilee and a year later with Red Handed. The 1970s brought four more in a cluster (Think

Big 1974 and 1975, Gold And Black 1977 and Hyperno 1979) but the 1980s cupboard was bare of Cups and cash, when Cummings lost millions after backers pulled out of a yearling syndication scheme.

With support from Think Big’s owner, Malaysian developer Dato Tan Chin Nam,

“Cummings was coy

about ranking his best horses, but it’s generally considered Galilee got the nod” Cummings paid his debts through a scheme of arrangement and got back on the Melbourne Cup scoreboard with Kingston Town in 1990, and in 1991 the mare Let’s Elope won the spring’s big cups double (Caulfield and

Melbourne). He finished that decade, too, with four wins, the champion Saintly supreme in 1996 and the battler Rogan Josh too strong for Godolphin’s Central Park in 1999.

Cummings was coy about ranking his best horses, but it’s generally considered Galilee got the nod, just, from the Chin Nam-owned Saintly. When Racing Victoria’s chief handicapper Greg Carpenter assembled the 24horse field for The Greatest Cup Never Run, Galilee was weighted as Bart’s best and fifth behind the legend Phar Lap, the 19th century’s greatest Carbine and multiple winners Makybe Diva (3) and Peter Pan (2).

Saintly was number 18, Light Fingers 22 and Think Big 24. (The hypothetical race coincided with the 150th Melbourne Cup.) He played a role in another Cup, strapping the 1950 winner Comic Court for the trainer – his father Jim Cummings.

With the success of So You Think in middledistance races in Europe (five Group 1s for Aidan O’Brien after five for Cummings in Australia, including two Cox Plates), the head of Timeform Australia, Gary Crispe, was moved to re-evaluate Cummings’s best horses.

Galilee held on to top spot, by 1lb (134 to 133) from So You Think, with sprinter Century (129), miler Taj Rossi and stayer Beau Zam (both 128) ahead of Saintly, next on 126.

The respected analyst put Cummings’s top pair 13th and 14th on the all-time Australian list, headed by Phar Lap (141) from Bernborough and Tulloch (both 138).

Tulloch was trained by Tommy Smith (Gai Waterhouse’s father), who won 33 Sydney premierships on end from 1952-53 to 198485. Smith won more Group 1 races than Cummings (279 to 268) and, also a Racing Hall Of Fame legend, is regarded as the only one in the same league as Cummings.

Smith won two Melbourne Cups, Cummings a dozen, with the next best five.

Cummings was no one-trick (staying) pony.

He won premierships in three states: South Australia, where he started, Victoria, where he moved to and then retained a satellite stable on setting up in New South Wales.

For all his fame, Cummings Cummings with the Cox Plate after So You Think’s win in 2010

BRONWEN HEALY

Oct_134_AroundtheGlobe_Owner Breeder 23/09/2015 14:33 Page 37

The Cups King with his 1996 winner Saintly and jockey Darren Beasley – Saintly was Melbourne Cup winner number ten of 12

remained shy and hard to get to know, other than for his racing deeds. Except for saying his patience with and feeding of his horses were key, he kept the reasons for his success to himself.

He had no qualms, however, in saying he did not favour the overseas “invasion” of runners in the Melbourne Cup, and that it could one day be a case of “spot the Aussie” in the race. He had no hesitation in claiming that Aidan O’Brien, who took over So You Think after Chin Nam sold a controlling share to Coolmore (which now stands the champion in Ireland and Australia), had not known how to prepare the horse properly and cost him more Group 1 success.

Cummings travelled only a handful of horses to Japan and Hong Kong, the latter the scene of his one Group 1 success in the northern hemisphere – Catalan Opening in the 1997 Hong Kong Bowl.

But his fame in Australia is secure, and son Anthony (a multiple Group 1 winner in his own right) and grandson James (Anthony’s THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

son) will continue the family training tradition.

Anthony’s other son Edward is foreman to his father.

James has been in the spotlight for the past couple of years, doing the hands-on work when training in partnership with Bart, who,

“Precedence might be allowed to run with ‘trained by Bart and James Cummings’ in the racebook”

with his health fading, spent almost all his time at his property, Princes Farm, near Sydney.

Bart’s 267th and 268th Group 1 winners were shared with James.

A state funeral was held for Cummings in

Sydney on September 7, and the Victoria Racing Club held a memorial service for him at Flemington before its Group 1 Makybe Diva Stakes day on September 12.

On Turnbull Stakes day, October 4, the VRC features The Bart Cummings, a Group 3 staying test over 2,500 metres that gives the winner automatic entry to the Melbourne Cup. James Cummings is attempting to qualify veteran stayer Precedence to run in his fourth Melbourne Cup this year and Racing Victoria’s Chief Steward Terry Bailey has flagged that the gelding might be allowed to run in the great race with ‘trained by Bart and James Cummings’ in the racebook, although all horses in the stable are now in James’s name.

“The Cummings name has been training since 1911 and will be for many years,” James said at a press conference after his grandfather died. He added that on the morning after Bart’s death someone left flowers at the gate of Princes Farm and a note with them, on a betting ticket, which said: “A winning life well lived.”

James described it as a most suitable epitaph.

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Oct_134_AroundtheGlobe_Owner Breeder 23/09/2015 14:33 Page 38

AROUND THE GLOBE

NORT H A M E R I CA

by Steve Andersen

KEENELAND

Keeneland can’t wait for Pharoah

New era: Keeneland will host the Breeders’ Cup for the first time this month, becoming the 11th racecourse to stage the event

The Breeders’ Cup championship races are bound for Keeneland racecourse in Lexington, Kentucky for the first time on October 30-31.

The community at the centre of American thoroughbred breeding is finally hosting an event synonymous with world-class racing in the United States.

A Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland, in the heart of the Bluegrass region, may not be the biggest milestone associated with this year’s event. For the first time since the Breeders’ Cup began in 1984, the top runner is set to be a Triple Crown winner, with three-year-old star American Pharoah on course for the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic.

The Breeders’ Cup did not exist when Affirmed won the Triple Crown in 1978, the last horse to sweep the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes before American Pharoah did so earlier this year.

American Pharoah won the Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park on August 2 but was beaten for the first time this year when second to Keen Ice in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga in upstate New York on August 29.

In the Classic, American Pharoah’s rivals are expected to include Beholder, the two-time champion female who beat males convincingly in the $1m Pacific Classic at Del Mar on August 22; Gleneagles, who has been given the race as a target by trainer Aidan O’Brien; Honor Code,

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the winner of the Whitney Stakes at Saratoga; and Keen Ice. The presence of American Pharoah would give the Breeders’ Cup a much-needed publicity boost at a time of year when American sports fans are focused on gridiron football. In past years, the Breeders’ Cup has had to fight for attention in the sports media. American

“Keeneland is a

smaller venue than recent Breeders’ Cup locations and tickets will be at a premium” Pharoah could reverse that, with Breeders’ Cup President Craig Fravel saying his appearance “would be the icing on the cake.”

American Pharoah is certainly putting numbers on the gates. At Monmouth Park, the Ahmed Zayat-owned colt won the Haskell Invitational before a record crowd of 60,983.

Saratoga had record betting turnover of $49.7m on its Travers card, a figure that includes telephone and internet betting and simulcast

betting from tracks throughout North America.

A Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland will be wellreceived, but very cosy. The track is a smaller venue than recent Breeders’ Cup locations and tickets will be at a premium. The event is expected to sell out. “We probably won’t be able to accommodate all the people that want to go,” Fravel admitted.

That won’t go down well with some racegoers, who are used to attending an event held at spacious Santa Anita or Churchill Downs annually since 2008. Keeneland is the first new venue to host a Breeders’ Cup since Monmouth Park in New Jersey in 2007, and will be the 11th different venue in the 32-year history of the event. Churchill Downs and Santa Anita have hosted the Breeders’ Cup a record eight times each. Santa Anita will host the 2016 Breeders’ Cup. The Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland will come at the end of the track’s month-long autumn meeting. Fravel said in late August that “the community has embraced the event. We’ve sold more than $19 million worth of tickets.”

While Santa Anita is on the outskirts of Los Angeles, Lexington is a much smaller city, which Fravel said will allow greater awareness of the event.

“We don’t have to tell people that we’re coming to town,” he said. “In LA, there are all those things to do.”

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Oct_134_LadyBamford_Owner Breeder 24/09/2015 10:42 Page 40

LADY BAMFORD

Pivotal

MOMENTS From her organic conversion, to selecting the right stallion and culling mares, Lady Bamford understands the importance of doing the right thing – and the results speak for themselves Words Chris McGrath • Photos George Selwyn

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f anything, they look more like unicorns than dinosaurs: ten supple, elegant yearlings, coats gleaming in the sunshine as they are paraded in turn across an immaculate stable yard. Their breeder surveys them with delight. Lady Bamford knows perfectly well that they represent an endangered species – but she also knows, after such a season, that champions raised and raced by British breeders are neither mythical nor extinct.

Above all, of course, there has been Golden Horn; but there has also been new evidence that her boutique operation at Daylesford is becoming a model of its type. Another Classic success, in the Prix de Diane; only the most agonisingly narrow of defeats in the King George, to follow two seconds at Royal Ascot; and Group 1 prizes still beckoning both Eagle Top and Star Of Seville as the leaves begin to turn on the Cotswold estate where they were foaled. An easy place, on such a day, to dispel the wintry contagions of pessimism: the mellow stone aglow, woods and hills basking drowsily beyond.

Lady Bamford gives one of her ready, open smiles.

“There’s always hope with horses,” she says. “As we all know, spending a lot of money doesn’t mean you’re always going to win. There’s no reason why any foal that’s just been born can’t be the Derby winner. So I think that’s the thing: never give up. Of course there are moments. You do win and lose. But not to be defeated, that’s the thing.”

Daylesford is the kind of park stud that stored and recycled the lifeblood of the English thoroughbred for over 200 years.

40

And if the Bamford fortune is itself a modern one, its provenance nonetheless rebukes those defeatists who have surrendered that heritage, once and for all, to international competition. For if Lady Bamford needs inspiration, in flying the Union flag when so many compatriots are running up a white one, she need only look across the breakfast table.

Her husband, Anthony, has likewise persevered triumphantly against perceived odds. Since the 1970s, the

“There’s always hope

with horses. Spending a lot of money doesn’t mean you’re always going to win” British manufacturing sector has shrunk by two-thirds – the de-Industrial Revolution, they call it, and on a scale endured by no other major economy.

During the same period, as chairman of JCB, Lord Bamford has supervised the expansion of the family firm from one British factory to 11, employing 6,500 people. Three-quarters of their output is exported, and JCB is reckoned to be worth £1.4 billion to GDP and £555 million to the exchequer. It is not as though JCB has disregarded global trends – it now has four factories in India – but the yellow

bulldozer has nonetheless become a legitimate symbol of durability for British manufacturing.

Lady B, as she is universally known at Daylesford, is too scrupulously modest about the stud to conflate its quiet consolidation with the landmark industrial achievements of her husband.

But the fact remains that the same manufacturers who see no point taking on cheap imports would absolutely despair of competing with the Maktoums, Coolmore or Juddmonte. So while Bamford attributes her results as much to luck as judgement, she does concede the point: if the British bulldozer is demonstrably no diplodocus, then nor are these yearlings.

One especially resplendent colt, a halfbrother to Eagle Top by Oasis Dream, represents a new storey upon the stud’s foundation stone: his grandam, Maycocks Bay. Bought as a yearling in 1999, for 32,000 guineas, the daughter of Muhtarram had a conservative pedigree and Hugo Lascelles, Bamford’s adviser, recalls her as “a big raw-boned thing”.

The idea of owning a racehorse had simmered quietly with Lady Bamford since her Nottinghamshire childhood, when there had usually been two or three homebred steeplechasers out in the field.

But first there had been an obsession with ponies and then, until a mishap out with the High Peak, hunters. “The horse stopped at a wall and I went over,” she remembers. “George was only about three months old, and I remember the nanny taking me to hospital and saying, ‘My God! I think she’s fractured her skull.’”

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Lady Bamford at home with one of Daylesford Stud’s many success stories, dual Oaks heroine Sariska

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LADY BAMFORD >>

While that diagnosis proved too drastic, Lady Bamford did agree thereafter to channel her love of horses through her children instead. “It was their whole upbringing,” she recalls. “In the end they all rode for England, Alice was in the A Squad for the Olympics.

Anthony would arrive with the newspapers and probably take a photograph of the wrong pony, but it was great for the whole family to

“I’d hate it if you had

a lot of horses, so that you didn’t know who they were: it doesn’t make sense to me” get away for the weekend: the smell of bacon cooking in the fresh air, plaiting up, learning to win and lose, all good character-building stuff.”

Alice, in turn, became too brave a rider for her mother’s nerves but agreed to change tack, from eventing to dressage, until a skiing accident abruptly deprived Lady Bamford of even her surrogate addiction. This, following the move to Daylesford in 1992, was the void to be filled by the Turf. Robert Sangster, whose own career had shifted the sands beneath the traditional owner/breeders, gave her some chastened advice. “Never pay too much,” he said. “You’ll have just as much chance.”

Her first experiment was Sundari, bred from a Sir Ivor mare and third in the Cherry Hinton. Then came Maycocks Bay. For once, she is prepared to take the credit for providing the mare with a smaller mate, In The Wings: Maycocks Bay, though perfectly in proportion,

Star Of Seville: no joy at Epsom, but won the French Oaks just nine days later

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could just do with a little scaling down. The result, only her second foal, was Gull Wing – now the dam of Eagle Top.

Third time very lucky Maycocks Bay’s third foal, by Pivotal, was also a filly. She remembers the birth well, recalling: “She was huge, the biggest I’ve ever seen I think, 132lb or something, a whopper.” But she did not stand out in any other way, either at Daylesford or when sent on to Malcolm Bastard’s nursery. Then one day Michael Bell was on the phone. “My goodness,” he said. “I think I’ve got something here.”

In 2006 Sariska went on to win the Oaks at Epsom and the Curragh. The whole family was now captivated, especially Alice – albeit Lady Bamford’s husband had to be put straight when asking, the following season, which would be the new Sariska. “Don’t you realise?” Lady B laughed. “That was once-ina-lifetime!”

As though to underline the point, Sariska herself promptly and vividly lost interest in racing. But her presence now, among 20 mares grazing the paddocks, attests to the accelerating cycles of quality achieved here by careful pruning and grafting. Sundari has just been retired, a luckless breeding career salvaged this year by Mr Singh (among the favourites for the St Leger until ruled out by a bad scope).

New blood on the stud is being tapped from some of the world’s richest gene pools: a half-sister to Ruler Of The World and Duke Of Marmalade; a young daughter of

Daylesford Stud Manager Charlie Brewer

Goldikova’s half-sister; a daughter of the Aga Khan’s Arc runner-up Behera.

To accommodate such upgrades, Lady Bamford had that same morning grasped the nettle, in a dreaded annual ritual with Lascelles, to identify the mares to make way.

“It’s always the hardest discussion we have, because I get too fond of them,” she admits.

“I love them being at home. They’re nearly all foaled here, so I’ll get a telephone call at 1am and I’m straight down in my nightie. I’d hate it if you had a lot of horses, so that you didn’t know who they were: it doesn’t make any sense to me.

“Walking the dogs every morning, I love to see them grow, develop and change – there might be ones you think are going to be something, and others you think won’t, and six months later everything has changed round.”

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LADY BAMFORD

and Lady Bamford with an Oasis Dream half-brother to Eagle Top, who has proved himself a Group 1 performer this year

This empathy with the unhurried processes of nature is entirely consistent with her place in the vanguard of the organic farming movement, to the delectation of customers at the Daylesford estate shop and café, her gastropub at nearby Kingham and various outlets in London. If the brand is unabashedly luxurious – no less than her clothing label – then its creator believes that the short-term savings of chemical agriculture are made at a terrible price to posterity.

Turning point She traces her conversion to a single moment, pushing Alice’s pram in the 1970s. She noticed that the roses at their Staffordshire home were wilting and asked her husband what sprays were being used on the estate. A week later, at an agricultural show, she heard a voice in the wilderness.

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“There was a little organic stand in a tent,” she recalls. “And this man talked to me for about two hours about pesticides and chemicals and how bad it all was for the land.

I went back to the farm manager and said, ‘Look, we can’t do this any more.’ He looked at me like I was crazy – this was 36 years ago, remember – and he said, ‘Well, we won’t make money.’ But I said we had to change. If we don’t look after the soil, we don’t look after plants, we don’t look after the animals – and we don’t look after ourselves.

“It became a passion with me. It took about seven years, but you could see how the land was gradually cleaning itself, and everyone got on board. In the end, the farm manager became more organic than me: he was even tending the sheep homeopathically.”

The Daylesford thoroughbreds cannot be raised on an exclusively organic regime,

because of clover. But otherwise the stud borrows the same principles of conservation and sustainability that underpin all good husbandry – from the rigorous, old-school supervision of a cherished Stud Manager, Charlie Brewer, to the mining of neglected genetic seams.

“There are parallels, with the horses,” Lady Bamford says. “We’ve tried to do everything the old-fashioned way, rather than cut corners. People are often in such a hurry, but there’s no quick fix. When stallions become fashionable or unfashionable I never take any notice. Again, it’s about the long view.

“You can be sending out a mare to a stallion that’s very in vogue – and then three years later nobody wants to know him any more.

A prime example is Star Of Seville. Nobody wanted Duke Of Marmalades but we kept her and she’s been a star.”

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LADY BAMFORD

Lady Bamford divides the credit for the success of her operation to her team at the stud, pictured here with Sariska

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True, she suspended her habitual disavowal of expertise to insist Star Of Seville run in the Oaks, when her trainer favoured the Prix de Diane. But all was well that ended well: the filly ended up contesting both, eased down when hampered at Epsom and then, in a masterly punt by John Gosden, winning at Chantilly just nine days later. “I thought it was crazy,” Lady Bamford concedes happily.

and should be for everybody. I’ve been going to my hairdresser in London for 30 years, and all we talk about is the racing. He knows more about Eagle Top practically than I do.”

A characteristic remark, from a lady with a wholesome dread of presumption. She instead divides all credit among Lascelles and the team at the stud, headed by Brewer and Martin Grassick. “I’ve had the best advice,” she stresses. “They’re all experts in their field;

Patience rewarded As a rule, it is precisely his patience that she admires in Gosden. Eagle Top himself had still only made six starts before the King George, where he was just run out of it after hitting the front. Lady Bamford thought he had held out, until she turned round and saw the grimace on the face of Lascelles. The rest of the afternoon was a daze, and it was only when she got home and looked at the photo she suffered a real pang of hurt. But the fact was that Eagle Top, though below form next time, had confirmed himself a top-class colt.

He will be kept in training as a five-year-old.

His owner is touchingly aware of the incongruities that qualify her, for all her wealth and privileges, as an underdog against the Turf’s superpowers. But she adores the fact racing transcends all classes.

“JCB take a box at Cheltenham and a lot of the guests have never been racing before,” she says. “And they’re hooked. I just love going through that Guinness tent on the way to the box, seeing everybody having fun. And if the horse from round here wins, he’s brought into the pub the next day. Racing should be fun,

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“We leave ours out in the wind and rain during winter. I think a lot of studs make them too precious”

I’m certainly not. Hugo comes up at least once a month and assesses them all.

“There are so many elements, and I think it’s just a combination: physique, breeding, land. Getting a very good trainer. Getting a very good jockey. And the babies are all very well nurtured from the beginning. Charlie’s very hands-on, and believes in making them hardy. We leave ours out in the wind and rain during the winter. I think a lot of studs today make them too precious. So many little things that fit together, to make the whole thing as

smart as you can, in your way.”

It can hardly be a coincidence that these dividends should be achieved by someone who commits herself so ardently to so many other projects – when others in her shoes, not least as they neared 70, might very well favour a life of indolent indulgence.

Her father-in-law, who founded JCB in a lock-up garage in Uttoxeter, bequeathed not just his initials but also an attitude that caused the French to represent Joseph Cyril as Jamais Content Bamford. This motto has been warmly adopted at Daylesford.

“However well he has done today, he always wants to do better tomorrow,” Lady Bamford remarks of her husband, and plainly takes a similar view herself. Certainly her dynamism is one resource that could be usefully emulated by many who excuse its absence by a want of other means.

As for the next generation, she is comforted by the enthusiasm of Alice. “That’s a real boost to me,” she says. “It’s a very small stud – I didn’t think it would get this big, but it’s still small – and I want to keep it small. But any stud takes a long time to build, and we’re only just at the beginning, really.”

For all the progress made in 14 short years, after all, Lady B knows never to rush time and tides. “Generations of breeders knew what they were doing, and did it for a reason,” she says. “It’s the same as with the soil. Our grandparents didn’t have all these pesticides and chemicals, they did it naturally. We think it’s progress when often it’s not. What we’re trying to do isn’t clever. It’s just necessary.”

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15/09/2015 14:48

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THE BIG INTERVIEW JULIAN RICHMOND-WATSON

Thoroughbred

GUARDIAN Boosting opportunities for fillies, halting the critical decline in the staying ranks and increasing foal production to target an extra 1,000 horses in training; Julian Richmond-Watson is set for a busy time as Chairman of the Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association

By Edward Rosenthal • Photos George Selwyn

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Julian Richmond-Watson at Lawn Stud in Potterspury, Northamptonshire

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J U L I A N R I C H M O N D - WA T S O N

Y

ou have taken over as TBA Chairman at a time when the industry, and the breeding community in particular, is faced with many challenges, including a shortfall in the number of horses being bred and raced. What is your number one priority?

Firstly, to keep on raising the profile of the TBA and to engage much more with the race programme and incentives to encourage breeders to breed. If we want to produce an extra 1,000 horses in training as the BHA desires, then we must have incentives to encourage breeders. It would be lovely to say it’s just down to boosting prize-money but we have to be realistic – it isn’t there. So we have to use the money we have, whether that is EBF or TBA or another source, in a cleverer way to encourage more horses to be bred and therefore owned and brought through the system.

One thousand extra horses in training sounds a big number. Is that achievable?

It’s a five-year plan. Starting from now, thinking about mating plans, it takes five years to get that horse as a two-year-old on to the racecourse. We have to start planning ahead now to have more mares. The self-help schemes are a good start.

BOBIS moved into Plus 10, which is a step forward. The one problem with Plus 10 is that it doesn’t encompass the three-year-olds and stayers – the slower maturing horses – that we need, it is focussed on two-year-olds, but we don’t have the money to do everything we want to do. Plus 10 brings breeders and owners

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together but we need to come up with some more innovative ways to persuade people to breed and keep more mares.

When you talk of incentives, do you mean some type of subsidy?

No. I’m not a great fan of subsidies.

Opportunities for fillies need to be increased.

Perhaps we need to be radical – why shouldn’t fillies’ maiden races be worth more than colts’ maiden races? In the end we need those fillies to be racing so they become broodmares. We need to encourage breeders, under both codes. We have to start at the front end and that is getting more females on the track and back at stud. I would also like to see more breeders keeping fillies to race.

“Why shouldn’t fillies’ maiden races be worth more than colts’ maiden races? We need to be radical”

Would we have to accept, in the shortterm, these new fillies’ races will be somewhat weak as we try to build up numbers?

Yes. Inevitably, if you are trying to bring 1,000 horses through, you need a programme for

Right: Richmond-Watson with his favourite mare Look Here, who gave her owner/breeder his best moment when winning the Oaks in 2008.

Below: mares and foals enjoying the tranquil environment at Lawn Stud

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J U L I A N R I C H M O N D - WA T S O N

them to fill. You have to have a bit of faith and take this five-year view.

The TBA’s Economic Impact Study found that of the 3,124 breeders in Britain, a significant number have only one or two mares but are responsible for 34% of the foal crop, which has decreased by 24% in the last five years. How can the TBA encourage breeders to increase supply?

If you can give all these people more hope that they have a chance of winning races then I think you could change their attitude. I think if these breeders simply broke even they would be happy. The TBA is working to produce a study on fillies’ and mares’ opportunities on the Flat.

Hopefully MOPS (Mares Owners Incentive Scheme) will start to encourage breeders and owners of mares over jumps. If a breeder is there with one or two mares it is because they want to be there. We want to tell them that British racing appreciates they are there – let’s give them some more opportunities to make it work for them.

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We have seen a decline in the number of runners and owners over the past few seasons, yet fixtures have been increasing. Would you cut fixtures?

Actually, I would expand the fixture list. Then you would create real competition. Of course there should be a centralised programme for the major side of racing but beyond that I would allow racecourses to run more race meetings; then they would have to compete for the horses.

At the moment the racecourses don’t really have to compete with each other. There are lots of small-field races at the moment – and that is because the racecourses can just about live within this artificial umbrella so they let it happen, putting on 0-65 handicaps and less and less conditions races and less novice hurdles etc.

As an owner and breeder, do I mind if there are only three or four runners in a race? No. However the betting industry would and the racecourses would – then it becomes their problem to solve instead of us trying to control them.

But isn’t everyone trying to work

together in this brave new world?

Well, is that true? Most racecourses would want to run more race meetings. If there is a limited pool of horses, how can they do that? In the proper commercial world they would have to work out the best way to do it. That is by framing better races and putting on more prize-money.

The BHA has launched a consultation regarding a holistic approach to race planning, recognising a need for the race programme to suit the current horse population. Does this mean framing more races for lower grade horses? If so, how does this fit into the overarching aim to reward the better horses?

It depends how you use the money from the Levy Board. It has always been spread very thinly across the sport. Nearly every race is subsidised. Now with picture money, do we need to do that? I would use the central pot from the Levy Board to support the programme that British racing decided it wanted, the higher

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middle end – but I would not be subsidising further down the scale. I’m convinced that a holistic race programme is essential for the future prosperity of British racing. We haven’t moved race programming forward for a very long time and it needs a complete review.

If Newcastle wants to double the number of fixtures and they want to put up the prizemoney, aided by bookmakers, so be it. I would subscribe to the three-tier system advocated by John Gosden. I don’t see why we try to keep racing in a straightjacket. You must have a centre with control but after that I would take a relaxed view. If you get race planning right it actually benefits everybody – the racecourses can see it helps them, as it gets the right races in the right places with the right fields.

The TBA is concerned about a lack of staying horses, saying we are heading towards a crisis in its 2015 Stayers Report. Why is this such an important issue and what are you doing about it?

Firstly, we are the custodians of the thoroughbred, across the gene pool. It is our heritage. From a racecourse point of view, we need to keep that variety. When you look at the big staying races, they create an enormous amount of interest. One of the reasons is the longevity of the horses – stayers are around for a lot longer. It is our responsibility to point out the issue, hence our Stayers Report, but we cannot solve it alone, we need to persuade others. The BHA has introduced ten two-yearold maidens over 7f, 1m and 9f restricted to horses by stallions that won over ten furlongs

Classic glory and future hopes Julian Richmond-Watson achieved every owner/breeder’s dream when tasting Classic glory courtesy of homebred Look Here in the 2008 Oaks at Epsom.

The daughter of Hernando ex Last Look, now ten, is one of six broodmares based at his Lawn Stud in Potterspury, Northamptonshire.

Richmond-Watson says: “Look Here’s first runner, a Sea The Stars colt, wasn’t much good but her two-year-old filly by Dubawi, named Hereawi and trained by Ralph Beckett, ran a promising second on her debut at Newmarket in September.

She’s the dream now! Look Here also has a yearling colt by Dansili.

“We were all surprised when Look Here won the Oaks at 33-1 – we were beaten in our Classic trial but Ralph persuaded me to go to Epsom. Of course it was enormously exciting.

Seb Sanders enjoys Look Here’s Oaks win

“The Derby is the race I have always wanted to win but with a filly the Oaks is obviously the major race.”

As if to illustrate the problem over the lack of opportunities some horses face in Britain, Richmond-Watson highlights the experience of Regardez, a daughter of Champs Elysees and winner of the Listed Hoppings Stakes at Newcastle last year after running unplaced behind Taghrooda in the Oaks.

“Regardez is now in America [trained by Chad Brown], which is a sad thing,” he says. “She is a four-year-old filly, a Listed winner and Group 3 standard over ten furlongs, but there are very few opportunities for her in this country.

“The races simply are not there for fillies like Regardez, which is why we need to take a fresh view of the race programme.

She will come back here to breed.”

or further. You also need more three-year-old only handicaps because they don’t get into the handicaps with older horses – two such races have been created.

Is the foreign interest, especially from Australia, in European staying horses a good or bad thing?

The good side is that staying horses have a value and that should encourage people to breed and own them. The risk is that if they become very good, they will be removed from our breeding pool. Anything that stimulates and creates a market is a good thing. In Australia and America they have almost lost that gene pool completely.

They are trying to import a bit of it but with our Sadler’s Wells line we have a lot of those genes.

I think we are in good shape. The fact that we have a stayers’ championship on Champions Day should also encourage breeders to produce this type of horse, although I accept that if you get a big offer from abroad, our race programme is unlikely to sway your decision.

What is your hope for the future of the TBA? I see the TBA as being more outward looking.

Like with the Stayers Report, we need to highlight issues that the industry must address.

Every year we should pick up on at least one important issue that needs addressing and then work with others to make it better. It’s also very

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J U L I A N R I C H M O N D - WA T S O N causing real frustration, certainly from the Horsemen’s Group perspective and also for a lot of tracks. We need a way of making decisions at the top of racing whereby the interested parties all sit down together and come to an agreement. We won’t all like the decisions but if we want to take the sport forward, then we need this new structure.

There is no guarantee that the RCA will sign up but plenty of racecourses – perhaps even most – would. Will they choose to break away from the RCA? I don’t know the answer and I hope it doesn’t happen – racing would look very silly if it did, especially with government over the racing right. Hopefully, with a new Chief Executive at ARC [Martin Cruddace], there will be some pragmatism and they’ll come to the table.

Richmond-Watson with TBA Chief Executive Louise Kemble (centre) and wife Sarah

important to bring in people who are interested in breeding, especially young people, which is why we are about to launch the Thoroughbred Club to replace the Next Generation Club.

them very successful, with all profits re-invested.

The Jockey Club is a success story and I’m proud of where it is; not much would happen in the sport without its support.

The BHA’s anti-doping rules place extra responsibilities on breeders, including breeders’ premises being made available for testing. Is the TBA happy with this?

We totally support the zero tolerance approach to anabolic steroids and drug use. But we still need further discussions regarding the rules and how they will affect TBA members. In terms of the BHA visiting people unannounced to carry out tests – if you haven’t got anything to hide you shouldn’t be worried.

During your time as a Steward, what were the most important changes that came in? And how do you feel about the riding rules following the recent high-profile demotion of Simple Verse (later reinstated) in the St Leger?

The quality of picture coverage; I started racing before there were multiple cameras on course.

We only had black and white film that took 20 minutes to develop. Now you can see every race from three or four angles. It completely changes the way you look at racing; you can see almost too much. The balance of the rules will always slightly shift to and fro, as we have seen with the Voltigeur and Leger. It’s a split decision – if you ask ten people in racing you will have five going one way and five the other. You can never have anything that is definitive and I wouldn’t change the rules.

You were Senior Steward of the Jockey Club, while your father was Deputy Senior Steward. Do you have any regrets that it has lost its regulatory responsibilities and is now essentially a racecourse management company?

No. I was part of the move to hand on regulation. It is much better that regulation is seen to be independent and not run by what many saw as a private members’ club. We’ve transformed the Jockey Club into the most important commercial part of British racing – by focussing on the racecourses we have made THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

The implementation of the Members’ Agreement – a new tripartite structure at the top of British racing – is being delayed by the Racecourse Association’s refusal to sign up. What is your view on this?

It is absolutely the way forward and it’s

As Chairman of Newmarket, which has in the past been accused of failing to attract enough racegoers, have you been trying to engage more with the local community?

Certainly. If you look at the demographics of your crowd, a large number come from within 25 miles of the course. Engaging with the local community and building that pride in their racecourse is incredibly important. We do a lot of work with schools and reach out to local communities and pubs etc. We’ve pushed this a lot more in the past two or three years.

The music nights are substantial earners for us and we’ll have a record year in 2015. If we bring in 20,000 people to a music night, they’ll all go racing beforehand – hopefully you can capture some of these people, if they enjoy their day, then many will return. We had an interesting offer on last year’s July Meeting Ladies’ Day. We came up with the idea of offering anyone with a ticket free entry to Future Champions Day. And we had an amazing takeup for the Friday in October. The free entry clearly helped – but the fact is many people took a day off and returned for a pure racing day.

Are you happy with the make-up of Future Champions Weekend and also the position of the July Cup? With Future Champions Weekend we are where we want to be. The races are in the right slots. We’re running a Friday and Saturday – Sheikh Mohammed has been very generous in providing extra sponsorship. The Fillies’ Mile is now worth £500,000. We thought about holding the weekend on Saturday and Sunday – but it’s difficult. The 1,000 Guineas has taken a long time to establish. We run the best quality Sunday fixture and it’s been very hard work.

However we will drive it forward; we want the Guineas days to be sell-outs and we’re heading in the right direction. With regard to moving the July Cup to a midweek slot, it depends on media coverage. If Channel 4 will televise it then we could move it in 2017.

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HIGHCLERE STUD

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On a

HIGH Lady Carolyn Warren’s Highclere Stud has dominated the list of leading consignors at Book 1 of Tattersalls’ October Sale over the last decade – this year’s “beautiful draft” of yearlings looks set to extend that record Words Julian Muscat • Photos George Selwyn

I

t would be fascinating to learn what the 5th Earl of Carnarvon made of Highclere Stud today. The man who unearthed Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 was so besotted with the stud he established 20 years earlier that he resolved to oversee it in perpetuity.

In accordance with the earl’s will, and in harmony with the Egyptian pharaoh, his body was mummified before it was buried upright on Beacon Hill. From this elevated setting does he preside over Highclere’s 300 acres, where his great grand-daughter, Carolyn Warren, now

manages the most successful sales preparation outfit in Europe.

The earl would surely approve. It is ten years since the stud started preparing sales yearlings on behalf of clients. Since 2007, when it topped the charts at Tattersalls’ Book 1 Sale for the first time, it has led all consignors in every year but one.

It is something of which to be proud, although Warren’s life is so hectic she barely has time to absorb the fact. Her wheels do not so much turn as spin furiously for traction. The 24 hours in each day make a woefully inadequate timespan

in which to get things done.

Yet this is a prerequisite for success. The art of selling yearlings comes down to the finer details, the little acts of finesse that set a draft apart. “The whole process is predicated around the fact it can take as little as 30 seconds to sell a yearling,” Warren says. “Everything has to be spoton for every potential buyer at all times.”

That missive was reflected in last year’s Book 1 sales, which saw six individual yearlings from Highclere realise 500,000 guineas or more. And with 34 yearlings catalogued for this year’s Book 1 sale, the

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HIGHCLERE STUD

The big Highclere infrastructure is considered to be a key reason behind their huge success as consignors

>> draft will attract a constant stream of aspiring

owners with agents in tow.

The saying holds that actors should never work with children or animals; Warren works with animals that are children. “From the moment our clients’ yearlings come here in midJuly, we start assessing them as individuals,” she says. “They can change so much in a few days that you have to keep standing back to look at them. In this line of work, time is your enemy.

We have to keep remembering they are babies.”

Very few yearlings are given an identical preparation, since each has different requirements. Nevertheless, some general principles apply. “I love the yearlings to be out and about on the farm,” she says. “As they walk they need to see the sights, with pigeons and pheasants flying around them.

“I also like them to exercise up and down hills. They learn to use themselves going downhill. They have to race downhill at speed on our racecourses so you can’t be too precious about it.”

Warren came to the sales preparation business relatively late in life, although as with all equine disciplines, a thorough grounding with horses provided the ideal platform. She certainly had that: her father, the 7th earl, was the Queen’s racing manager who conjured serious success from his small broodmare band at Highclere Stud.

Among the horses he bred were Brigadier Gerard’s sire Queen’s Hussar, Ascot Gold Cup winner Little Wolf and the Group 1-winning fillies Niche, Lemon Souffle and Roseate Tern. He also took the odd homebred up to the yearling sales at Tattersalls.

54

“I used to help him with that but he hated it,” Warren reflects, “By the time he got to the sales grounds he never wanted to sell anything.”

But that was just one aspect of her equine upbringing. “I grew up on a stud farm; I was here all the time,” she says. “I have also shown horses all my life, and I think that helped me when I started. You see things slightly differently to the more traditional approach, which was no bad thing.”

Another influential strand within her approach

“As they walk the

yearlings need to see the sights, with pigeons and pheasants flying around them” to selling yearlings saw her experience the process from the other side of the fence. Soon after she married she moved to Newmarket, where her husband John, now a prominent bloodstock agent as well as his father-in-law’s successor as the Queen’s bloodstock and racing advisor, managed Side Hill Stud for Lord Hartington.

“At that time John was doing some consigning himself,” his wife recalls, “but the buying side of his business was taking off. I went around the sales a lot with him, which made me appreciate

what irritated or pleased buyers. That was important. So often it is the little things that make the difference.”

With John increasingly preoccupied on the buying side, Carolyn gravitated towards yearling preparation 15 years ago. That is how it remains, although their relative roles can give rise to some difficult questions. Since Warren buys at the top end, the Highclere Stud consignment is inevitably on his radar come sales time.

Carolyn raises the subject herself. “Our professional relationship is an open book,” she says. “John is too busy to get involved with consigning. He looks at the Highclere yearlings for the first time just before he goes to Goffs (in late September).

“He doesn’t want to see them until then because he doesn’t find a work in progress particularly interesting. What matters to him is how a horse looks at sales time. He and [their son] Jake judge our draft like any other.”

The couple moved in different directions when they relocated to Highclere Stud from Newmarket in 2001 on the death of Carolyn’s father. They were obliged to run the place as a business and set about redeveloping the property to a standard commensurate with the sales operation Carolyn runs today – and where John and Jake are integrally involved in the day-to-day running of a stud that stands the stallion Paco Boy. Carolyn originally took the stud’s homebreds to the sales but the impact they made prompted others to entrust the Highclere team with their produce. In that respect, the business has grown organically.

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

>>

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HISTORY

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YEARS CLEAN

THE THE

RED ARMY AT AT HQ HQ

CHEVELEY PARK STUD YEARLINGS SELLING AT

TATTERSALLS OCTOBER SALES BOOK 1 29

B.c. INVINCIBLE SPIRIT ex Zykina (Pivotal) Half brother to Spangled (2 races at 2, 2015) out of a full sister to the winning & Stakes placed Safina (dam of multiple Group placed Marenko in 2015).

2nd dam Champion Russian Rhythm.

104 Ch.c. DUTCH ART ex Cantal (Pivotal) Dam winning half sister to Group sire Evasive. 2nd dam Stakes placed half sister to 3 other Stakes horses including Gr.3 winner Moon Driver.

Family of East Of The Moon & Miesque.

127 Ch./Gr.c. EXCEED AND EXCEL ex Clinical (Motivator) First foal of a triple Group/Stakes winner, who is half sister to 4 other Group/Stakes winners. Grandam half sister to 7 winners, including Gr.2 winner On Call.

180 Ch.c. DUTCH ART ex Elysian (Galileo) First foal. Dam winning half sister to Champion Integral. 2nd dam Champion Echelon is out of multiple Gr.1 winner Exclusive, also dam of dual Gr.2 winner Chic.

230 B.c. FRANKEL ex Heaven Sent (Pivotal) Dam a dual Gr.3 winner and Group placed 7 times, including 3 x Gr.1s. Full sister to Megahertz, winner of 2 x Gr.1s and 7 x Gr.2s.

239 B.c. MAYSON ex Hypnotise (Machiavellian) Three-parts brother to Hooray (Champion 2yo Filly, including Gr.1 Cheveley Park Stakes).

Dam Stakes winning half sister to Gr.2 winner Dazzle, and to the dam of Champion Danehurst.

454 B.c. DUTCH ART ex Soar (Danzero) Half brother to 4 winners.

Dam Joint Champion 2yo Filly in England, including Gr.2 Lowther Stakes.

Half sister to 7 winners, including the dam of Champion Entangle.

469 B.c. EXCEED AND EXCEL ex Starbound (Captain Rio) Dam winning half sister to 4 winners, including Gr.1 winner Alfred Nobel and Stellar Glow (in 2015).

From the direct family of New Approach.

495 Ch.c. DUTCH ART ex Thrill (Pivotal) Half brother to 2yo winner Effusive.

Dam full sister to Gr.3 winner Infallible (also Gr.1 placed twice) and to the dam of Gr.1 winner and sire Garswood.

Cheveley Park Stud breeders of 71 individual winners (12 2yos) to date in 2015 (to 21st Sept.)

2yo winners include MARENKO (also 2nd Gr.2 May Hill Stakes and Gr.3 Prix du Calvados) and ORNATE (2nd Gr.2 Flying Childers Stakes) and the impressive winners ZONDERLAND, EAST INDIES, QUEEN’S TRUST. Older horses include the unbeaten 3yo DON’T TOUCH (5 races, £171,179, including Ayr Gold Cup).

Cheveley Park Stud Cheveley-Owner-October-2015_v3.indd 1

23/09/2015 10:33

Oct_134_Highclere_Owner Breeder 24/09/2015 09:19 Page 57

HIGHCLERE STUD

Carolyn Warren says yearlings can change so much in just a few days that you have to keep standing back to look at them

>>

It could not have done so without two fundamentals: the implicit trust of her clients, and a committed staff. Of the former, she says: “We are very lucky to have been entrusted with a beautiful draft of yearlings to consign this year. Highclere is effectively polishing the diamonds breeders have produced and reared so well. These breeders are the source of Classic and Group 1 winners, and this year I truly believe there should be something for everybody.”

A look through the draft emphasises the point. There are no fewer than six yearlings

by Dubawi, who of course, has been represented this season by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes winner Postponed – himself sold by Highclere Stud as a yearling for 360,000 guineas.

Other eye-catching lots include yearlings

by Frankel, Galileo, Invincible Spirit, Oasis Dream and first-season sires Nathaniel and Sepoy, together with the only yearling filly by Dansili in the catalogue.

As for Warren’s staff, they are her eyes and ears. In addition to yard workers, ten others are employed full-time on the horses, and while all play their part, two in particular have become synonymous with Highclere yearlings over the last ten years.

“Diego Romeo is outstanding,” Warren says. “He is now the farm manager; he trained for a while in Italy and has really got to know what is required. He has a fantastic eye for detail, as does Shammi Zia, who came to us from Pakistan at about the same time Diego started.”

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

Warren believes unity of purpose among the staff is paramount on the sales grounds.

“You need a top-class team to show yearlings because buyers are in a hurry,” she says. “If you miss that one good show, it can cost you.

That’s why it is so important everyone knows their individual roles. It must run smoothly and efficiently; you cannot afford to leave buyers waiting around.”

On the face of it, this driven approach might seem a touch melodramatic in the

“You get to know

what individual buyers want, and what they like to see in a horse” quest to sell a yearling, the premise being that nobody would part with a six-figure sum unless they truly loved the yearling in question. But that is to misunderstand the dynamic at play when it comes to the very rich.

In the end, the decision to buy one yearling over another can be down to hunch alone. It can be made in the blink of an eye, with the buyer sometimes unable to enunciate the reason for his choice. And when so much hinges on so very little, those

who provide the most comfortable environment for those decisions to be made will more often than not end up on the right side of them.

This aligning of all the variables is perhaps the most compelling reason for breeders to dispatch their sales yearlings to Highclere. It is evident in Warren’s response to a question about the merits of being in a large consignment on the sales grounds.

“There is no doubt numerous people can prepare yearlings to a very high standard,” she says. “But sometimes, the advantage of being in a draft like ours is the fact you have a big infrastructure behind you.

“We have got to know the people who look at horses,” she continues. “If you as a consignor know each horse, the information you can give your clients is such that a yearling shouldn’t go into the auction ring and cause a major surprise. The only surprise should be a nice surprise: when two or three people you thought were interested all turn up and bid for the horse.”

Like so much about consigning yearlings, the process of sifting those who are genuinely interested in buying has become particularly refined. “It would be unprofessional to have a buyer who we hadn’t managed to clock through the looking process showing interest in one of your yearlings when it is in the auction ring,” she maintains.

“You get to know what individual buyers want, and what they like to see in a horse. So when they show you their list to view, you can ask to show them a horse which is not

57

>>

Oct_134_Highclere_Owner Breeder 24/09/2015 09:19 Page 58

HIGHCLERE STUD >> on the list but which you believe they might

like. And of course, being in a consignment like ours takes some of the hassle out of it for the owner. It really can be high-pressure.”

The pressure is such that even Warren is sometimes affected. She frets on a daily basis about the fragility of her cargo and is prone to angst as the sales approach. “It’s the geese and swan scenario,” she says.

“You can get worried they are not quite as you want them, then you get to the sales and find yourself thinking they actually look pretty good. But the day you stop worrying is the day you should give up.”

There is no sign of that at Highclere as the clock counts down to this year’s Book 1 sale.

Pre-sale interest in the draft is reaching fever pitch. “The phone seems to be hot with prospective buyers making plans to visit the stud and view the yearlings,” Warren says.

“Fingers crossed Diego and the team can keep them in one piece. Yearlings tend to have a death wish during September. The nearer the sales get, the harder they try to do something to avoid their date with the auctioneer.”

HIGHCLERE STUD by the numbers Tattersalls Book 1 sales averages, 2010-2014 Year

Lots sold

Average Sales average (gns) (gns)

2014

27

297,593

235,935

2013

27

249,519

207,510

2012

34

176,235

162,925

2011

25

165,040

141,852

2010

26

142,808

107,445

Clients with yearlings selling at Tattersalls Book 1 sale: Highclere Stud, Saeed Manana, Rabbah Bloodstock, Fittocks Stud, Stetchworth Park Stud, Stuart Stuckey, Gary and Lesley Middlebrook, Floors Stud, Yvonne Jacques, Chris Kilroy, Sarah Jane Leigh, Grangecon Stud (Ire), Three Chimneys Stud (USA), Mount Brilliant Stud (USA), Leonidas Marinopoulos (Fr)

Jake Warren helps father John assess the Highclere crop on merit come sales time

The sales preparation business has come a long way since specialist consignors first surfaced in Britain 30 years ago. So, too, has the level of veterinary influence, with scoping and X-rays now routine. This initially caused some problems; there is no such thing as the perfect model, after all. However, Warren feels the stringency originally applied by vets is giving way to a more practical interpretation of the evidence.

Mind you, there can still be unwelcome repercussions. “Five years ago we sold [2,000 Guineas and Derby winner] Camelot and [Irish 2,000 Guineas winner] Power at the same sale,” she recalls. “Camelot made 525,000 guineas but Power slipped through the net; he only made 50,000 guineas. To me, it proved that those involved in the

veterinary process are not always right.”

And while Warren recognises the buyers’ right to assimilate as much information as possible, too much of it can be counterproductive. In her early years she learnt a valuable lesson when trying to be too helpful to a buyer.

“I made a terrible mistake,” she recalls. “I put someone off a yearling by telling them too much, and the horse went on to win a Group race. It’s like putting someone off backing a horse and watching with them as it wins. It was a hard lesson – and one well learned, I hope.”

Yearlings consigned by Highclere Stud have made a habit of winning Group races of late.

From Warren’s perspective, it is always better when the horses speak for themselves.

Derby winner Camelot – who so nearly won the Triple Crown – was sold by Highclere for 525,000 guineas

Classic winners sold: Camelot, Power Recent Stakes winners: Aktabantay, Bonfire, Lady Of Dubai, Joviality, Magic Artist, Observational, Vow, Pinzola, Postponed, Regal Parade

58

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

Lanwades_A4_Roster_Owner_Oct15_Lanwades EBN 23/09/2015 10:44 Page 1

ARCHIPENKO World-class pedigree – Group 1 winner – won 6 races at 2 to 5 and over £1.2m Son of Champion racehorse and sire KINGMAMBO – family of SADLER’S WELLS, NUREYEV, BLAME Now a proven Group 1 sire of MADAME CHIANG Sire of 30 lifetime 2yo winners (7 to date in 2015) – First crop now 4yo’s of 2015

A LEADING EUROPEAN SIRE: 62% LIFETIME WINNERS TO RUNNERS

AUSSIE RULES Classic winning Miler – Group 1 winner in France and the USA Son of DANEHILL (sire of sires) and dam is a dual Group 2 winner from ALRUCCABA family Sire of 97 individual 2yo winners including Listed winner LA VACANZA in 2015, Group 1 winner FIESOLANA, and progeny earnings to date of over £7.5 million

A PROVEN SIRE OF GREAT VALUE

LEROIDESANIMAUX Specialist Turf Miler - Ideal Outcross Winner of 9 races and over $1.6m including 3 Group 1’s over a mile on turf Sire of 2 Group 1 winners including World Champion ANIMAL KINGDOM (Kentucky Derby, Dubai World Cup) Sire of 3 Stakes winning 2yos to date in 2015

OUTSTANDING FIRST EUROPEAN CROP FOALS OF 2015

SEA THE MOON Sensational Derby Winner - Champion and Horse of the Year First son of SEA THE STARS at stud – strong German damline Winner of 4 races (including Group 1, Group 2, Group 3) over 8f – 12f and once 2nd (Group 1) from 5 starts Covered a quality full book of International mares in 2015 – excellent fertility

FIRST FOALS IN 2016

SIR PERCY Unbeaten Champion 2yo - Derby winner; won 5 races and over £1.1m From the MILL REEF sire line, his first 3 dams were all Stakes winners rated 110+ His winners include Group 2 winners LADY TIANA and SIR ANDREW, Group 3 winners WAKE FOREST x2, ALLA SPERANZA and LADY PIMPERNEL and 50 lifetime 2yo winners (12 to date in 2015)

A CONSISTENT AND PROVEN SIRE, STANDING AT A GREAT VALUE FEE

LANWADES

The independent option ™

info@lanwades.com • www.lanwades.com • Tel: +44 (0)1638 750222 • Fax: +44 (0)1638 751186

Oct_134_TalkingTo_Owner Breeder 24/09/2015 09:26 Page 61

TALKING TO...

WILLIAM HAGGAS

William the

CONQUEROR William Haggas has come a long way since improving 50-rated handicappers was his main concern, but the Classic-winning trainer, who recently enjoyed a memorable York Ebor meeting, remains ambitious to have better quality horses for better quality races

By Tim Richards

RACINGFOTOS.COM

W

hen you won the 1996 Derby with Shaamit you were training 40 horses.

Now your stable is approaching 200.

How do you cope with such a huge string?

We have 150 stables, three different yards, three assistant trainers, a head lad and two assistant head lads covering the three yards.

Our main assistant is Archie Watson, plus two pupil assistants, who report to Archie. It is a system that has taken a long time to develop and is still developing. Senior staff work one weekend in three, which we consider to be a big advance. It is very different to what it was in 1996.

With your wife Maureen as assistant, it says a great deal for your relationship working so closely under all the pressures that go with training a big string and managing so many owners…

We still get on, anyway! It is not a job for us: it’s a way of life. We have an extremely busy day on Sundays, working and planning for the week ahead. It just goes on and on. Occasionally we like to go away for a couple of days to Portugal, where we have a family house. We give it 110% the whole time so occasionally you need to step away and give yourself time to think. Personally, one of my problems is that we are so busy with the horses that I don’t get enough time to think

>>

William Haggas greets his Lowther Stakes winner Besharah at an Ebor meeting where he had five winners

THOR-

51

Oct_134_TalkingTo_Owner Breeder 24/09/2015 09:26 Page 62

GEORGE SELWYN

WILLIAM HAGGAS

William and wife Maureen, a vital cog in the racing operation, with Johnny Murtagh and their 2011 Oaks heroine Dancing Rain

>> about whether the business is working and how we can make the business more cost-efficient.

Maureen’s knowledge and experience must be of enormous benefit to you and the yard. Does Maureen, Lester Piggott’s daughter, ride out and how do you split your duties?

Maureen rides out three lots most days and coordinates the running of the yards. All the information from the head lads and vets come through Archie and Maureen. Archie is an integral part of that side of the operation and, of course, I am with Maureen all the time. If a horse coughs five times, Maureen or Archie will organise for it to be scoped and pass the result to me. I do more of the work lists and running plans. On a Sunday morning Maureen and I do a rough work list for every horse for the week.

It is important from her point of view she knows the plans and the horse can be worked accordingly. It is important we’re both in the loop and she knows what I’m thinking. Our children live abroad. Our daughter Mary Anne is 25, lives in Dubai and works for a marketing company. Our son, Sam, is 23, lives in Dublin and works for Paddy Power.

Five winners and three places from 15 runners at York’s Ebor meeting takes some doing. Your enthusiastic, racegoing father Brian was there and must have been very proud. Can you describe what that meant to you?

As a Yorkshireman, winning at York for me is

62

like winning at Ascot for most other people.

Things just happened to fall our way; we were lucky to have the right horses for the right races and a few nice two-year-olds, which was fantastic. Everyone in the yard knows I love to win at York. We always fire a few bullets there and we all got very excited when it came off.

Our first four runners all won; it’s never happened before for me and I’m sure it won’t happen again. My father has been immense to

“I very much hope to have Recorder back next year for the 2,000 Guineas and the Derby”

all his children, and very much to Maureen and I. He’s had a great passion for racing over the last 50 years. One of the most satisfying things about our success is the amount of joy it brings to my father and Maureen’s parents, Lester and Susan. We didn’t celebrate much – straight off to Doncaster sales the next day, and so it goes on.

One of your York winners was Recorder, a well-bred son of Galileo owned by The Queen. Will he make up

into a top three-year-old – his dam Memory did not train on – and could he be a Classic contender?

I didn’t train the dam but I have no doubt that Recorder will train on. Though he had a setback after York and is off games with an injury for the rest of the season. However, I hope very much to have him back next year for the 2,000 Guineas and hopefully the Derby as well.

You earned a reputation as an excellent placer of horses, adept at running up a sequence with a progressive handicapper. Is it fair to say that you are training a different type of horse these days?

Without wanting to sound arrogant, I have moved away from getting one rated 50 and trying to win five races before it is raised to 75.

We are trying to upgrade and train better quality horses. But I still enjoy preparing one for a particular race and like to have one for races like the Lincoln or the Hunt Cup. Has the purchase of Flint Cottage stables from Mark Tompkins two years ago changed the Haggas training scenario?

It has made life much better for us because Flint Cottage is now our two-year-old yard. Also, any horse that comes in after the start of the season goes in there and undergoes tests, so hopefully we can keep the main yard at Somerville Lodge free from virus and disease. We had a very bad spell of ringworm in the yard in the spring and

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

Oct_134_TalkingTo_Owner Breeder 24/09/2015 09:37 Page 63

WILLIAM HAGGAS very nearly there. I’m not sure if the ARC-owned courses are the key ones they are waiting for, but I believe they are getting closer to an agreement.

I did 25 years on the Council of the National Trainers Federation, with two stints as President.

I still support them financially and help in whatever way I can, but they’ve been listening to me for long enough. Younger trainers have got involved and the NTF is going well.

it slowed us right down. Maureen is tireless in trying to prevent disease.

How difficult is it to find staff in Newmarket, particularly for a stable with so many horses?

It is very hard to find good staff, and also good foreign staff since the government tightened up on immigration. One of the problems regarding staff in Newmarket is Godolphin and Darley have expanded even more. Saeed bin Suroor and Charlie Appleby have many more horses and require more staff, and those jobs are lucrative. It is difficult for us all to compete with that. We find in general that people come to us for a week and they either like the job or they don’t. We are not very keen on taking short cuts and some people don’t like that, whereas others like to get stuck in and are very dedicated. And we do have a very dedicated staff.

You once organised a boycott of Yarmouth over inadequate prizemoney levels. Would you do it again?

Yes, I would. At that time the deal with Yarmouth was a fixed level of prize-money, which the course had agreed it would not go below. But they allowed their prize-money to dip below the required figure and that’s why we called a boycott asking everyone not to run, and nearly everyone complied. I have to say, what is happening at another ARC-owned course, Newcastle, is a disgrace and should never have been allowed to happen. To tear up a fantastic turf course is sacrilegious, just to replace it with

From a trainer’s point of view, what’s the secret of making racing more enjoyable for owners?

Winners! There’s nothing like winning. I’m pretty certain most owners would prefer to win a maiden at Thirsk than finish third or fourth in a maiden at Ascot. Owners go to all sorts of different trainers for various reasons – some very social, others not so social, but very professional.

The owner-trainer relationship is a very personal thing, not far removed from a marriage; the key is trust. If the trust wavers, as in a marriage, it’s never quite the same. There is more movement of horses these days but I don’t think that’s the big deal it used to be. I’ll advise owners to send their horses somewhere else if I think the move would benefit them. Rex Imperator is a case in point; after winning the Stewards’ Cup he was going nowhere with us and I recommended the owners sent him to another trainer, and he went to David O’Meara.

Is it possible to say in which departments racing is improving and competing successfully with the other big sports? And where does racing need to step up its game?

We are certainly getting the crowds, and the racecourses have really got their act together, encouraging and promoting the sport. Racing is the second best attended support after football.

But we lag behind in the national press. For example, there are times when the Daily Mail has 12 pages on football and only half a page on racing, which is so disappointing. One of my major bugbears is the fact that we have two dedicated racing channels when there should be only one. If you go into a betting shop you can find yourself watching racing from South Africa as well as virtual racing because they are trying to fill air time, but if we had one dedicated channel surely punters would be better catered for, being able to watch all the English racing at staggered times. The whole industry would benefit from more revenue from betting. So why can’t we tune into one Sky channel that covers all our racing?

GEORGE SELWYN

Does it fall to you to maintain staff morale with in-house competitions or teams for cricket, football or darts?

What sport do you play these days?

We won the inaugural running of the Newmarket stable staff sports day. Our team had great fun and I was very proud of them. I am sure the sports day will develop. I gave up cricket three years ago because of a bicep injury.

These days I play an occasional nine holes of golf at our local club, Royal Worlington on Sunday evenings with Michael Bell and Ed Dunlop, a fun three-ball.

more all-weather. ARC’s commitment to racing is pathetic and you have only to look at Newcastle’s final turf meeting to see where they are going – eight races and a total prize-money fund of £33,000. Having had plenty of winners there over the years, I have no plans or desire to go there ever again. More cheap racing for them, and for us; we should be ashamed of ourselves.

Ajaya ran out a good winner of the Gimcrack Stakes

The racecourses are dragging their heels over signing up to the Members’ Agreement, a new tripartite structure for British racing. How would you get them to jump on board?

To be honest, I don’t know. But I understand the Horsemen’s Group are right on the case and are THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

63

>>

Oct_134_TalkingTo_Owner Breeder 24/09/2015 09:26 Page 64

WILLIAM HAGGAS

CLOSE UP AND...

PERSONAL

CLOSE UP AND...

PROFESSIONAL

I love visiting… Portugal

I handle defeat by… drinking a bottle of wine!

I like to cook… when Maureen doesn’t Favourite actress… Julia Roberts Four dinner party guests…

Roger Federer, Ryan Moore, AP McCoy and Brendon McCullum, all so humble

>> If there was any chance of you speaking at the Gimcrack dinner at your beloved York, what would you like to say?

I have spoken at the Gimcrack dinner twice before. Last year I was honoured to make the keynote speech and I have talked about the benefits of having one dedicated racing channel.

Saleh Al Homaizi and Imad Al Sagar, the owners of our Gimcrack winner Ajaya, are relatively unknown to the racing world. They are two very smart, clever Kuwaiti businessmen and have a deep love and passion for racing, especially in England. And it would be fantastic if one of them could speak this year. They have

64

Best day of my racing life…

Shaamit winning the Derby This sport has taught me… that humility is a virtue My racing hero is… (Sir?) Jack Berry

GEORGE SELWYN

My weakness is… sweets, particularly wine gums

Race I would most like to win… all the Classics

a burgeoning operation, which is starting to breed. The fact that Ajaya is a first foal from a young mare is really exciting for them. They are both very well spoken and very well read and so I hope one of them might agree to speak.

Do you ever have any desire to train a jumper or two?

I’ve had a jumps winner, Fen Terrier at Fakenham. My first winner on the Flat was owned and bred by Willie Jenks and it gave me great satisfaction that Fen Terrier was ridden by Willie’s son, Tom. I have no desire to train over jumps, but I enjoy going to Cheltenham when I can. I think it’s a wonderful meeting and they

have got it absolutely right. My mother had some wonderful jumpers, including the 1982 Gold Cup winner, Silver Buck, who gave us all so much pleasure.

In 2010 you told this magazine that “you cannot sit still in this business”.

So where would you like to be in another five years’ time?

We want to keep doing a good job and where it takes us will be where it takes us. We are lucky to have a very strong team of people working for us and supporting us. Quite simply, we want to be training better quality horses in better quality races.

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

Keeneland_OwnerBreeder_Oct15.indd 1

23/09/2015 10:39

From catalogue to front page

Our goal, your success.

Below headline makers; AUSTRALIA, THE FUGUE, POSTPONED & GOLDEN HORN

Sunday, June 7, 2015 Issue No. 9,810

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We hope that 2015 will be equally rewarding for the consignors that we work with.

Call a member of our dedicated specialist Thoroughbred team.

POLLY BONNOR Tel: +44 7973 802 210, CLARE ROBERTS Tel: +44 7714 768 250 or contact the Thoroughbred Office Tel: +44 (0) 1488 73 456 or visit www.saracenhorsefeeds.com/thoroughbred working with

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Oct_134_Bloodstock_Intro_Owner 24/09/2015 09:09 Page 67

BREEDERS’ DIGEST

By EMMA BERRY, Bloodstock Editor

Our extended bloodstock coverage this month includes:

• Sales Circuit: Yearling sale round-ups from DBS, BBAG, Osarus & Keeneland – pages 68-73 • On The Sales Beat: French-based Englishman Richard Venn takes to the chair – page 74 • My Bloodstock Life: Kirsten Rausing, the hands-on owner of Lanwades Stud – page 76 • Caulfield Files: Doubling up on a major star in Arabian Queen’s pedigree – page 78-79 • Dr Statz: Assessing the relative sire perfomances of Galileo and Dubawi – page 105

Dubawi a worthy keeper of the flame T

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

maiden. A little over a month later, he was Dubai Millennium’s first black-type winner in the Superlative Stakes at Newmarket’s July meeting, before rounding off his unbeaten juvenile campaign in the Group 1 National Stakes at the Curragh. That course was also the scene of his Irish 2,000 Guineas success, becoming his sire’s sole Classic winner.

Echo Of Light, Belenus, Quickfire, Antique and Oude all earned black type for Dubai Millennium but Dubawi was far and away the shining star of that one small crop. His exploits on the racecourse, however, are already being outshone by his extraordinary achievements at stud.

The Cumani connection If not for Dubai Millennium’s untimely death, Dubawi, like all of his siblings, including the black-type trio of Emirates Queen, Princess Nada and Dubai Queen, would most likely have raced in Sheikh Mohammed Obaid’s yellow and black-spotted silks and been trained by Luca Cumani, just like the sheikh’s homebred mare Zomaradah. As it was, Dubawi sported the same royal blue as his father and proceeded to bring the glory to the

EMMA BERRY

his month will be fascinating, not least for the superb racing on offer, but also to see if Dubawi is able to regain his recently surrendered lead in the European sires’ table and topple Galileo from the position the reigning champion has held for the last five years.

Group 1 victories this season from New Bay, Erupt, Arabian Queen, Postponed, Night Of Thunder and Al Kazeem had boosted Dubawi to the top of the board but, if Galileo had been having a relatively quiet season by his own lofty standards, he snatched back the advantage with a brace of St Leger victories and a 1-2-3 in the Moyglare Stud Stakes on the same weekend in mid-September. (Bondi Beach lost his St Leger win after an appeal.)

With his connections and race record, Dubawi could never really have been considered an underdog – even though he stood for just £15,000 in 2009, his fourth year at stud – but set against the allconquering Sadler’s Wells/Galileo sireline, a championship for the stocky little bay would certainly be one to cherish.

In 2002, the year after Dubawi’s sire Dubai Millennium succumbed to grass sickness, Darley published a commemorative tribute to the horse Sheikh Mohammed described as “the best I have ever owned, the best I have ever seen”, cataloguing each of his 56 foals resulting from the 65 mares he covered before his death. Being the first offspring of Sheikh Mohammed Obaid’s Oaks d’Italia winner Zomaradah, the then-unnamed Dubawi was alphabetically the final foal to appear in the book. In hindsight, it was very much a case of saving the best until last – and it was the only time Dubawi would be last.

He became his sire’s first winner on June 4, 2004, when landing a six-furlong Goodwood

Zomaradah’s final foal, a Frankel colt, pictured last October at Dalham Hall

Dalham Hall Stud stallion ranks that Dubai Millennium was prevented from delivering.

Of Dubawi’s British Group 1 winners, only Al Kazeem has earned more prize-money than Postponed, who consolidated his King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes win with victory in the Prix Foy, making the announcement a few days later that he would be among 35 Sheikh Mohammed Obaidowned horses to be transferred from Luca Cumani to Roger Varian even more puzzling.

As Cumani was swift to point out, it is an owner’s prerogative to have his horses trained wherever he wishes, but to wave goodbye to a long-term client on the back of a successful season, and one for whom he trained a homebred Derby winner 17 years ago, must be a bitter pill to swallow.

At the time of writing, it had just been confirmed that Postponed will not run in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe for Varian. Another Cumani exile, the Oaks-placed Lady Of Dubai, a Fittocks Stud-bred daughter of Dubawi bought by Sheikh Mohammed Obaid for 450,000gns at Tattersalls, holds an entry in the QIPCO Fillies & Mares Stakes on British Champions Day. High-profile runners at this time of year are crucial to Dubawi’s challenge for championship honours, which would become a giant step closer should secondfavourite New Bay – like Postponed, the winner of a major Longchamp Arc trial – be able to topple Treve on the first Sunday of this month. However this season ends, it’s guaranteed that among the enormous interest which will surround Frankel’s first runners next year, few will be greater scrutinised than Dubawi’s half-brother, the final foal of the now-retired Zomaradah.

As Lydia Hislop concluded in her tribute to Dubai Millennium for the Darley book, “So often the briefest flame burns brightest”. In Dubawi, at least, he left one son who can carry the torch to the highest level.

67

Oct_134_Sales_Circuit_Sales 24/09/2015 11:21 Page 68

SALES CIRCUIT

By CARL EVANS and EMMA BERRY

Updates galore help Paco Boy filly top the DBS Premier Sale

SARAH FARNSWORTH/DBS

Figures on the rise again at the increasingly well supported August fixture

Galileo Gold’s full-sister in the ring at DBS, where she topped the sale at £280,000 and was knocked down to Tony Nerses

DBS Premier Yearling Sale

T

he ‘right people’ were present in numbers at Britain’s first yearling sale of the season, and so were the right horses.

It is a combination for which Doncaster Bloodstock Sales has been striving, and which has given this two-day auction a solid sheen of prestige. People still talk about ‘the Donny horse’, but it now refers to likely Coventry or Middle Park Stakes winners, not just a sharp, two-year-old who can run five times before the end of May and keep the pub syndicate happy.

That type of horse is on offer, and numbers of trainers and owners retrace their steps to Doncaster in August each year to buy it, but the super-smart yearling with size, scope, pedigree, a six-figure valuation and offered by highlyprofessional consignors, is now readily available too.

Several factors confirm the comment that quality is now a prevalent element, including a glance at the list of buyers on the top-ten table – it is likely the same names will be prominent at Books 1 and 2 of Tattersalls’ October Sale.

68

DBS Premier Yearling Sale Top lots Sex/Breeding

Vendor

F Paco Boy – Galicuix (Galileo)

Pantile Stud/Houghton B/s

Price (£) 280,000

Buyer Tony Nerses

C Dark Angel – Layla Jamil (Exceed And Excel)

Grangemore Stud

270,000

John Ferguson B/s

C Pivotal – Loreto (Holy Roman Emperor)

Croom House Stud

250,000

David Redvers

C Dark Angel – Golden Rosie (Exceed And Excel)

Yeomanstown Stud

240,000

John Ferguson B/s

C Born To Sea – Frances Stuart (King’s Best)

Rathbarry Stud

230,000

Shadwell Estates

C Kodiac – Hannah Greeley (Mr Greeley)

Tally-Ho Stud

220,000

John Ferguson B/s

C Dutch Art – Mamma Morton (Elnadim)

Grove Stud

205,000

Shadwell Estates

C Casamento – Three Times (Bahamian Bounty)

Yeomanstown Stud

200,000

HKJC

C Nathaniel – Tesary (Danehill)

Hillwood Stud

190,000

Shadwell Estates

C Dutch Art – Age Of Chivalry (Invincible Spirit)

Highclere Stud

190,000

Shadwell Estates

Five-year tale Year

Sold

Agg (£)

Avg (£)

Mdn (£)

2015

410

17,644,000

43,034

30,500

Top Price (£) 280,000

2014

418

15,512,500

37,111

27,000

230,000

2013

410

13,300,700

32,441

25,000

215,000

2012

396

10,641,500

26,872

20,000

185,000

2011

377

10,634,000

28,206

21,000

280,000

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

Oct_134_Sales_Circuit_Sales 24/09/2015 11:21 Page 69

DBS Silver Yearling Sale

Guy O’Callaghan’s Grangemore Stud enjoyed a successful debut at DBS

Then there were the six-figure lots, which have risen steadily in the past three years, from 16 in 2013, to 21 the following year, and to 31 in total at the 2015 rendition. And, while the following stat might prove a blip, the number of £200,000-plus horses shot up from one in 2014 to eight this time.

That helped turnover rise by 14%, while increases in the average and median marks of 15% and 11%, and a clearance rate of 86%, were happy figures for most breeders and pinhookers.

Angus Gold of Shadwell Estates was the leading buyer, gaining 20 yearlings for £2,204,000, while Peter and Ross Doyle – for whom this two-day sale has been such a fertile source of material – were the most prolific. Their 31 purchases added £2,127,000 to takings.

Dark Angel was but one sire whose progeny were warmly received by buyers, and two of his offspring made the top four, including one who lured Sheikh Mohammed’s emissary, John Ferguson, back to Doncaster after a year’s break.

Yet it was a daughter of Paco Boy who topped the bill. She came to the ring with more updates than a newspaper, for her full-brother, Galileo Gold, had landed Goodwood’s Group 2 Vintage Stakes four weeks earlier, while June’s Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes winner Goldream featured as a half-brother to the yearling’s dam, Galicuix.

She was offered by breeder Colin Murfitt of Pantile Stud, via the consigning service offered

by Robin Sharp’s Houghton Bloodstock, and was knocked down to Blue Diamond Stud’s owners, Saleh Al Homaizi and Imad Al Sagar.

They were hunting for high-quality breeding prospects through their representative Tony Nerses.

DBS Silver Yearling Sale After the euphoria and vibrant atmosphere of a heady Premier Sale, this lower-tier, singlesession yearling auction held the following day THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

Vendor

C Zoffany – Playful Promises (Elnadim)

Cooneen Stud

Price (£) Buyer

C Yorgunnabelucky – Reset City (Reset)

Throckmorton Court Stud

40,000 Mark Johnston

F Showcasing – Grandmas Dream (Kyllachy)

Trickledown Stud

38,000 Willie Browne

C Zebedee – Gone Sailing (Mizzen Mast)

Wells Stud

37,000 Hillen & Ryan

C Power – Jacaranda Ridge (Indian Ridge)

Oak Hill Stud/Acorn Stud

36,000 Alex Elliott

F Harbour Watch – Dee Dee Girl (Primo Dominie)

Fifehead Farms/Trickledown Stud 34,000 David Redvers

40,000 Harrowgate Bloodstock

C Equiano – George’s Gift (Haafhd)

Redgate Bloodstock

C Tagula – Gimli´s Treasure (King´s Best)

Pat Martin/Ballynaslaney Stud 32,000 Hillen & Ryan

C Royal Applause – Giusina Mia (Diesis)

Houghton Bloodstock

C Major Cadeaux – Mancunian Way (Green Desert) Bearstone Stud

33,000 Hillen & Ryan 30,000 Hillen & Ryan 30,000 Bobby O’Ryan/Brian Ellison

Five-year tale Year

Sold

Agg (£)

Avg (£)

Mdn (£)

2015

99

1,350,500

13,641

10,000

Top Price (£) 40,000

2014

105

1,252,500

12,160

10,000,

55,000

2013

56

499,800

8,925

8,000

38,000

2012

91

832,200

9,046

7,000

34,000

2011

76

757,400

9,965

8,000

35,000

SARAH FARNSWORTH/DBS

SARAH FARNSWORTH/DBS

Top lots Sex/Breeding

Breeder Colin Murfitt of Pantile Stud thanks Tony Nerses after his filly topped DBS

was subdued, but not submerged.

In fact there was a spirited sense of the opportunities it offered to trade on a yearling (83% found new homes), and, in some cases, turn a profit. A top price of £40,000 conveys the drop in standard from Premier to Silver, but in terms of maintaining its place in its second year, this sale fulfilled its remit.

It had previously been called the St Leger Festival Sale and had taken place during Doncaster’s St Leger race meeting, but a steady decline had led, in 2014, to a new name and a new date. Twelve months later, an 8% increase in turnover and 12% rise in average were further signs that the sales company had made the right call.

Zoffany, who is blazing a trail in the GB and Ireland first-crop sires’ list, was responsible for one half of the top-lot double act, a colt

consigned by Gerry and Maura O’Sullevan’s Cooneen Stud and who will race for a client of trainer David Barron.

The other top lot was sired by Yorgunnabelucky, a name many will have forgotten unless they pay close attention to Mark Johnston’s handicappers or Alan King’s jumpers – he ran three times over hurdles without winning, but subsequently won a Newmarket handicap for King.

However, being a full-brother to no less a stallion than Shamardal – and having an enthusiastic owner in Roger Brookhouse – Yorgunnabelucky was lucky enough to gain a place at stud, and it was a member of his first crop who added another £40,000 sale to turnover. The buyer, a man who trained both the sire and his illustrious full-brother – and the yearling’s dam for good measure – was

69

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Oct_134_Sales_Circuit_Sales 24/09/2015 11:35 Page 70

SALES CIRCUIT Mark Johnston.

Acting as consignor was Peter Balding’s Throckmorton Court Stud, which was Yorgunnabelucky’s home for two seasons before he transferred to Richard Kent’s Mickley Stud.

BBAG Yearling Sale Top lots Sex/Breeding

Vendor

C New Approach – Waldtraut

Gestut Brummerhof

Price (€) 400,000

Buyer

BBAG Yearling Sale

C Redoute’s Choice – La Salina

Gestut Fahrhof

210,000

Andreas Wohler

C Soldier Hollow – Narooma

Gestut Park Wiedingen

200,000

Horst Putwill

There were several lofty vendor buy-backs at this year’s BBAG Yearling Sale at Iffezheim, with the priciest, a son of New Approach named Woodkid and offered by Gestut Brummerhof, eventually topping the sale when sold outside the ring for €400,000 to agent Bertrand Le Metayer.

With owner/breeders in Germany often happy to retain their stock to race if the price raised in the ring is not deemed to be high enough, the clearance rate at this sale is often lower than elsewhere, and this year it fell slightly to 70% for 156 of the 220 horses to go under the hammer actually being sold. A median of €30,000 was maintained but the average of €41,238 was down by 10.5%, with several commentators offering the fact that this was the first sale in Germany for many years to contain no yearlings by the late Monsun, whose final crop are now two-year-olds.

Enhancing his claims to be Monsun’s heir in the German stallion ranks is Soldier Hollow, the British-bred son of In The Wings who has Group 1 winners Pastorius and Ivanhowe to his name. Fifteen yearlings by the Gestut Auenquelle resident to change hands at BBAG did so for the highly respectable average price of €81,300, and his name is on the acceptable sires’ list for the Hong Kong Jockey Club, which went to €180,000 to secure his son named Cloud Atlas.

The international buyers in action in BadenBaden also included Fred and Freddy Seitz of Brookdale Farm in Kentucky, who bought a Shamardal colt to race in America for €140,000, while the Middleham Park team, through Peter Doyle, bought a colt from the

C Soldier Hollow – C’est l’Amour

Gestut Auenquelle

180,000

Hong Kong Jockey Club

F Soldier Hollow – Chantra

Gestut Haus Itlingen

160,000

John McCormack Bloodstock

C Sir Percy – Wurfkette

Ronald Rauscher

150,000

Stall Mandarin

C Nathaniel – Kastila

Gestut Rottgen

140,000

Newsells Park Stud

C Shamardal – Tenderly

Gestut Fahrhof

140,000

Brookdale Farm

C High Chaparral – Paulaya

Gestut Fahrhof

130,000

Peter & Ross Doyle

F Soldier Hollow - Divya

Gestut Park Wiedingen

120,000

IVA-Alles

C Excelebration – Fulminate

Gestut Etzean

120,000

Gestut Winterhauch

F Soldier Hollow – Daytona

Gestut Haus Itlingen

120,000

John McCormack Bloodstock

BLM Bloodstock

Five-year tale Year

Sold

Agg (€)

Avg (€)

Mdn (€)

2015

156

6,433,250

41,238

30,000

Top Price (€) 400,000

2014

166

8,171,500

49,226

30,000

450,000

2013

137

6,849,000

49,993

28,000

390,000

2012

153

5,478,500

35,807

20,000

320,000

2011

156

5,185,000

33,237

20,000

220,000

penultimate crop of High Chaparral for €130,000, to be trained by Richard Hannon.

Osarus September Yearling Sale The eighth edition of the September Yearling Sale in La Teste de Buch could not match the first sixfigure lot sold there in 2014, but it did, once again, post increases in every sector.

The hallmark of the sale is the fact that every lot is eligible for French premiums and a good base of domestic trainers, coupled with an increasing presence from among the English and Irish ranks, ensured good solid trade at its level,

which is underlined by not too much disparity between the average price of €21,050 and median of €18,000.

Jean-Claude Rouget and Stephane Wattel will train the sale’s joint top lots – fillies by Sageburg and Siyuoni and both hailing from the Jedburgh Stud & Haras d’Ellon draft at €68,000 apiece.

Marc-Antione Berghgracht struck for the most expensive colt of the sale, a €65,000 son of Mastercraftsman offered by the auction’s leading vendor La Motteraye Consignment and bred in Brittany by the Jeffroy family’s SCEA des Prairies.

British agents Alastair Donald, Matt Coleman, Liam Norris and William Huntingdon were acting for a range of UK-based trainers, including

EMMA BERRY

>>

The BBAG sales ring at Iffezheim, where figures dropped from the 2014 auction, which featured the final yearlings by Monsun

70

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

Oct_134_Sales_Circuit_Sales 24/09/2015 11:22 Page 71

SALES CIRCUIT

DBS September Sale

Osarus September Yearling Sale Top lots Sex/Breeding

Vendor

F Sageburg – Louve Rouge

Jedburgh Stud & Haras d’Ellon

Price (€) Buyer 68,000 Jean-Claude Rouget

F Siyouni – Shinabaa

Jedburgh Stud & Haras d’Ellon

68,000 Stephane Wattel

C Mastercraftsman – Abandagold La Motteraye Consignment

65,000 MAB Agency

F Sepoy – Ainia

Haras des Loges

63,000 SackvilleDonald

C Harbour Watch – Make Up

Haras du Buff

62,000 Stroud Coleman Bloodstock

C Mastercraftsman – Karmina Burana Haras des Loges

58,000 Damien de Watrigant

F Kendargent – Etrangere

Haras de la Reboursiere

54,000 MAB Agency

F Hurricane Cat – L’Ete

Haras de la Haie Neuve

50,000 Tina Rau Bloodstock

C Sunday Break – Green Shadow

La Motteraye Consignment

48,000 Karl Burke

C Miesque’s Son – Lisselan Firefly La Motteraye Consignment

46,000 Stroud Coleman Bloodstock

Five-year tale Year

Sold

Agg (€)

Avg (€)

Mdn (€)

2015

195

3,953,500

21,050

18,000

Top Price (€) 68,000

2014

196

3,673,000

17,663

14,000

130,000

2013

158

2,925,000

18,396

15,000

85,000

2012

136

1,616,000

12,176

10,000

46,000

2011

100

1,034,500

10,879

8,500

46,000

>>

EMMA BERRY

Charles Hills, Harry Dunlop, George Baker, Eve Johnson Houghton and John Berry, and they combined to buy a total of 13 yearlings, while breeze-up pinhooker Con Marnane, a regular at the sale since it began in 2008, took home nine.

Karl Burke found his Listed Empress Stakes winner Katie’s Diamond at Osarus last year for €18,000 and he returned to buy three, including a Sunday Break colt at €48,000 for John Hughes of the Owners For Owners syndicate.

The sale also enjoyed its first Royal Ascot juvenile winner this year thanks to Suits You, who put the regally-bred Ballydoyle in her place in the Chesham Stakes. His trainer Eoghan O’Neill, who bought the son of Youmzain for just €12,000, was busy restocking at La Teste after selling his stable star on to race in Hong Kong.

Proceedings started with a minute’s silence for Osarus co-founder Nadja Govaert, 43, who succumbed to cancer last month.

With buyers of Flat horses in mind, DBS switched this two-day sale around, offering Flat horses on day one to give clients added time to reach Baden-Baden’s yearling auction.

Jumping horses and stores were moved to day two, but the change appeared to do the sale no harm as the figures came out more or less on a par with last year. Turnover rose 4%, the median held static and the average dipped 7%.

Disappointingly for DBS, some of the first session’s higher-profile horses came to the ring with reserves that were not met, including several with a six-figure valuation. This resulted in the top price coming in some way below the previous year’s best – officially £185,000 for juvenile Izzthatright, but unofficially Kool Kompany, who made in the region of £700,000 to a private buyer – although £78,000 for Ashridge Lad was fair business for owner Emma Capon. Her three-year-old had covered his training fees in two seasons with Brian Meehan, during which he won twice at Newmarket, while at this sale he returned a profit on his 45,000gns yearling purchase price. Matt

The Osarus team pays tribute to co-founder Nadja Govaert, who died in September

Tattersalls October Yearling Sales Westerlands Stud is delighted to be consigning through Castlebridge Consignment including: Dark Angel - Framed Excelebration – Isabella Glyn Mastercraftsman - Kekova ‘Discover the best kept secret in West Sussex for boarding, foaling, sales preparation and recuperation’

Westerlands Stud THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

Westerlands Stud Graffham, West Sussex, GU28 0QJ + 44 (0) 1798 867 644 www.westerlands.com For more information please contact: sarah@westerlands.com

71

Oct_134_Sales_Circuit_Sales 24/09/2015 11:22 Page 72

SALES CIRCUIT Coleman of Stroud Coleman Bloodstock was the buyer.

Qatar-based racehorse trainer Jassim Al Ghazali has become a frequent visitor to British sales, and was in situ once again, although his spend was some way down on the £411,000 he parted with at this sale last year. Twelve months later he was more circumspect, but bought four horses for £148,000.

Trumping him in terms of numbers bought was trainer Paolo Favero, an exponent of jump racing in Italy who returned home with no fewer than 11 lots.

His countryman Alessandro Marconi trains in Dubai, but he too got onto the buyers’ list with two purchases, a happy result for Great British Racing International (GBRI), which had invited him and other overseas members of the industry to visit Doncaster.

SARAH FARNSWORTH/DBS

>>

Goffs Champions Sale Ireland’s Champions Weekend can include this brief auction as part of the focus for two top days of racing, but in terms of business it u-turned on the inaugural event held 12 months earlier.

On the first occasion, a catalogue of 11 horses was compiled, they all showed up and nine sold, generating turnover of more than €2m. Yet the “solid foundation” referred to by Goffs’ Chief Executive Henry Beeby at that time did not convert to building blocks, leaving the boss to reflect this time upon: “The vagaries of horsesin-training sales . . .”

Turnover dropped below €1m, a fall of 55%, while the average and turnover marks were down 23% and 19% respectively, and one horse, top lot Edelpour, contributed almost half the sale’s aggregate when making €450,000. A two-time winner, he was offered by the Aga Khan having recently finished runner-up in the Group 3 Ballyroan Stakes.

Armed with a stout pedigree and a large dash of class, Edelpour was the perfect fit for a wealthy jumps owner, and it is for Barry Connell that he will continue racing after being bought by agent Gerry Hogan. Alan Fleming will handle the training side.

Hubie de Burgh was underbidder, but he gained next-best Plot Twist who heads to Australia having been bought for a client of agent James Harron. A price of €200,000 was a lovely profit for owner/trainer Andy Oliver, who bought the gelding for just €11,000 as a yearling, and ran him once, three weeks earlier, when he won a Curragh maiden by a short head.

Buyers also had the chance to gain Steip Amach, a contender for the same day’s Group 1 Coolmore Matron Stakes, but she was bought in at €300,000. That would have appeared a bad miss had she won, but Legatissimo and others proved too strong and she finished sixth of nine.

72

Three-year-old Ashridge Lad was the top pick at DBS’s rejigged September Sale

DBS September Sale Top lots Name/Breeding

Vendor

Ashridge Lad (Invincible Spirit – Leavingonajetplane)

Manton House

Price (£) Buyer

Spongy (Zoffany – Eminence Gift)

Middleham Park

75,000 Jassim Ghazali

Duke Street (Duke Of Marmalade – Act Of The Pace)

Kingsley House

46,000 Richard Newland

Savello (Anshan – Fontaine Frances)

Gigginstown House

46,000 Daniel Skelton

Astley Hall (Dutch Art – Haigh Hall)

Musley Bank

45,000 Jassim Ghazali

Crosspark (Midnight Legend – Blue Shannon)

Tim Dennis

44,000 Bill Booth

Westren Warrior (Westerner – Charming Leader)

Glendaars Farm

42,000 Richard Newland

Donny Rover (Excellent Art – My Lass)

Houghton B/s

40,000 Oliver St Lawrence

What A Lark (Kalanisi – Grangeclare Lark)

C Buckingham/Zebriva Stables 40,000 Frank O’Meara

Hisaabaat (Dubawi – Phariseek)

Rosewell House Stables

78,000 Stroud Coleman B/s

38,000 George Mahoney

Five-year tale Year

Sold

Agg (£)

Avg (£)

Mdn (£)

2015

283

2,771,900

9,795

6,000

Top Price (£) 78,000

2014

250

2,658,050

10,632

6,000

185,000

2013

266

2,685,875

10,097

5,750

175,000

2012

219

1,804,700

8,240,

4,500

140,000

2011

243

1,649,100

6,786,

4,000

90,000

Goffs Champions Sale Those who sold Name/Breeding

Vendor

Edelpour (Mastercraftsman – Ebadiyla)

Aga Khan Studs

Price (€)

Buyer

450,000 Gerry Hogan B/s

Plot Twist (Champs Elysees – Bryanstown Girl)

Stragrane House

200,000 De Burgh/Harron

Moral High Ground (Elnadim – Da’s Wish)

M O’Callaghan Racing

150,000 BBA Ireland

Time To Inspire (Galileo – Utterly Heaven)

Rosewell House Stables

100,000 Crispin de Moubray

Rich Jade (Henrythenavigator – Endless Expanse)

Rosewell House Stables

25,000 Tinnakill Bloodstock

Comparative figures Year

Sold

Agg (€)

Avg (€)

Mdn (€)

2015

5

925,000

185,000

150,000

Top Price (€) 450,000

2014

9

2,043,000

227,000

185,000

470,000

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

Oct_134_Sales_Circuit_Sales 24/09/2015 11:22 Page 73

SALES CIRCUIT

Pope makes name as both buyer and seller at solid Book 1 renewal Demand for the progeny of Tapit and War Front aligned with healthy domestic and increased international participation from buyers helped Book 1 of the Keeneland September Sale sustain a similar level of trade from 2014.

Condensed this year to three days from four, it was a solid if not spectacular renewal of Book 1, with 443 yearlings from 641 offered – ten fewer than last year – changing hands for $134,361,000. As the buyback rate crept up from last year’s figure of 27.3% to 30.9%, gross sales dropped by 5.4%. The average rose minimally by 0.9% to $303,298 while the median increased 4.2% to $250,000. The number of million-dollar yearlings dropped from 13 to 11 but the number to realise $500,000 or more fell from 2014 by only one to 62. Encouragingly, all bar one of the 11 million-dollar club were bought by ten different entities.

“Regards the aggregate, the sale was consistent with last year, which was a great year from prior, so the market is steady,” said Price Bell of Mill Ridge Farm, which sold a Medaglia d’Oro colt for $800,000. “This year’s catalogue was interesting, in that there were many colts with exciting pedigrees, but fewer among the fillies compared to years past.

“Without the coveted filly families being on offer, the sale lacked some diversity of buyers, but that is mother nature’s way.”

Few buyers have invested more in recent years than Mandy Pope of Whisper Hill Farm, whose purchases of mares such as American Horse of the Year Havre de Grace, who cost $10 million in 2012, has helped her assemble a formidable broodmare band. Pope also paid $5.2m for the Group 3-placed Betterbetterbetter, a three-parts sister to Yesterday and Quarter Moon, while the mare was in foal to War Front at Fasig-Tipton in November 2013 and her decision to part with the resulting foal reaped a memorable result when Shadwell Estates paid a session-topping $1.45m for the filly on day one.

She was the headline act of War Front’s powerful draft, which included 12 yearlings that sold for $500,000 or more, three of whom were snapped up by MV Magnier. As a result, the Claiborne stallion recorded an average of $636,842.

Despite Pope’s new-found success as a seller through consignor Timber Town, she

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

KEENELAND

Keeneland September Yearling Sale Book 1 overview, by Nancy Sexton

Mandy Pope bought the $2.1m sale-topping Tapit colt and sold a filly for $1.45m

remained an active buyer, outbidding Bob Baffert at $2.1m to secure the sale-topping son of Tapit. Bred and sold by Gainesway Farm, he is out of the Mr Greeley mare Silver Colors, the final foal out of Kentucky Derby heroine Winning Colors.

The colt capped an outstanding sale for Gainesway Farm, which sold three of the top four yearlings overall. They included the second most expensive colt, another son of Tapit, bred by Three Chimneys Farm out of Grade 1 winner Pure Clan, who realised $1.65m to Lael Stable. While other established American-based interests such as Ahmed and Justin Zayat, who partnered with Coolmore on a $1.5m Bernardini sister to Grade 1 winner To Honor And Serve, and Three Chimneys Farm were active within the higher echelons of the market, it was refreshing to see several relatively new faces make their presence felt.

The China Horse Club, which made its first buying visit to Keeneland last November, paid $1.595m for six lots and partnered with Maverick Racing on another three worth $1.15m.

Keeneland also welcomed the return of the Yoshida family’s Shadai Farm following a lengthy September absence. They returned with four lots worth $2.05m including a $535,000 Lemon Drop Kid half-brother to Air Force Blue. Their spending headed competitive participation from Japanese buyers, a group which also included Hideyuki

Mori, who secured a $900,000 son of War Front, and Teruo Ono, who paid $800,000 for the most expensive Frankel on offer, a halfbrother to Grade 1 winner Laragh.

There was also once again a healthy European representation, including Hugo Merry, Grove Stud and Mick Flanagan.

The War Front – Betterbetterbetter filly was one of a number of yearlings catalogued whose pedigree boasted a distinct European flavour. In that respect, much of the pre-sale chat focused on a quartet of first-crop yearlings by Frankel. The sales of colts for $800,000 and $500,000 helped sustain his lustre but the remaining two were unsold.

Overall, the market for yearlings with international pedigrees was spotty; of the 32 yearlings offered whose sires were based in Europe in 2013, 18 changed hands. Fastnet Rock was well received in 2014 and was again this time around, with a $1m half-sister to Group 1 winners Peeping Fawn and Thewayyouare leading the way when sold to Spendthrift Farm. The Coolmore shuttler recorded an average of $358,000 for five sold.

Only one of Galileo’s quartet through the ring found a new home – a filly who sold for $320,000 to Niall Brennan on behalf of Marc Keller – but Invincible Spirit was represented by colts that sold for $325,000 and $160,000 to Shadwell Estates and John Ferguson.

Ferguson ended the three days as the dominant leading buyer with 22 yearlings bought for a total of $7,965,000.

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Oct_134_OnTheSalesBeat_Sales 24/09/2015 10:45 Page 74

ON THE SALES BEAT

Q&A

Richard Venn From Sheikh Mohammed’s bookkeeper to dual-purpose French-based bloodstock agent year. He was second on his recent debut and Andrew says that he is a nice horse with a future.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into racing and bloodstock…

I became obsessed when Red Rum beat Crisp in the epic National of 1973. My first job was as Sheikh Mohamed’s bookkeeper at Aston Upthorpe Stud in Oxfordshire, I was then relocated to Dalham Hall Stud and then left to help Anthony Stroud set-up his agency. I set out on my own in August 2007 and moved to France in July 2014.

Most under-rated stallion?

Silver Frost. He had a slow start, but is now getting plenty of winners and has an excellent strike rate.

And a young stallion to watch?

It can be very special if you are given a specific order to fill and the plan reaches fruition. I was asked to find a horse for the Dubai World Cup and negotiated the deal to purchase Planteur, who ran a blinder to finish third. Over jumps El Dancer was purchased with a view to win at one of the top jumps festivals and rewarded our faith by winning a Grade 2 novice hurdle at Aintree.

TATTERSALLS

Your best buy?

Francophile Richard Venn moved from Newmarket to Normandy last year

I have seen a lot of George Vancouver foals in France and haven’t seen a bad one. I think that the breeders must have seen something too as, unusually, he got more mares in his second season than his first. I am also looking forward to seeing Sommerabend’s first foals next year. He is a good-looking son of Shamardal from a strong German family and was tough and consistent on the track.

Your racing/bloodstock hero?

Red Rum and Bill Wightman

One that got away?

I try to look forward rather than backwards.

You could tie yourself in knots if you worried too much about what you might have missed.

Name a recent purchase you’re most looking forward to seeing at the races…

Ormito, who was purchased with Andrew Balding at the BBAG Sale in Germany last

Best auctioneer?

I think that the multilingual John O’Kelly brings a certain amount of theatre into the auction ring and Todd Watt is always entertaining with his off-the-cuff humour.

Who is the biggest diplomat in the bloodstock world?

I couldn’t really pinpoint any specific individual.

Best sales food?

I think that some of the sales companies should take a look at what is actually being offered and the cost that is being charged. I used to be a finely tuned athlete but look at me now!

How do you like to unwind after a long hard day pounding the sales grounds?

Poule d’Essai des Poulains winner Silver Frost, the sire of Prix Niel runner-up Silverware

74

It’s great to go out for a few drinks and have a relaxing meal with friends. Depending on who you are out with, sometimes this can totally backfire and the night ends up going a little longer than expected.

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Oct_134_K_Rausing_LifeBloodstock_Sales 24/09/2015 09:27 Page 76

SALES CIRCUIT

My bloodstock life

with

KIRSTEN RAUSING

I

must be Ryanair’s most frequent flyer as I visit Staffordstown Stud in Ireland on a regular basis. I go for the day and leave home at Lanwades Stud in Newmarket at 5.45am. I drive myself to Stansted, jet over, inspect 50 yearlings and then do the journey in reverse. I’m back by quarter to ten at night and by then you know you have done a day’s work.

All my life I have been reasonably hands-on.

Before buying Lanwades, I’d had a good grounding in the bloodstock industry, working five years in Ireland, and in France and Scandinavia before that.

I have foaled many hundreds of mares in my time. While enjoyable, the more you know about it the more you realise how much can go wrong – you become increasingly nervous with each foaling. Nowadays I don’t do the foaling, although I’m called out if there is a problem.

At least once a week I make a point to see every animal stood and walked, particularly the foals and yearlings. I also see them on a daily basis in the paddocks, mainly in the evenings.

I came to Lanwades in 1980, then established St Simon Stud next door, and later Staffordstown in Ireland. I started from very, very small beginnings with two mares and a quarter-share in Niniski, who eventually paid not only for Lanwades but later also the foundation of St Simon Stud. However I had been well in hock for a good few years.

Then we were on an uphill trend in the industry and for me in Newmarket with Niniski, Nishapour and then Selkirk. I started with 150 rundown acres and now we are nearly hitting 1,000 acres. Profits from bloodstock have been ploughed back into land.

I oversee the running of all three studs.

Lanwades is the public stud where we keep the five stallions, Archipenko, Sea The Moon, Aussie Rules, Leroidesanimaux and Sir Percy. St Simon is a closed herd farm, just for pregnant mares and mares with foals. Staffordstown is where we have the weaned foals and yearlings. I am very fortunate to have great people working for me – many have been with me for 20 years or more, in particular my Stud Managers, Alastair Watson at Lanwades and Julian Lloyd at Staffordstown.

We have 65 pregnant mares and about 15 maiden mares. With five stallions, we have many hundreds of mares through the system during the season. We do not board short-term mares, they just come in for the covering. This makes for an immense amount of administration and takes a lot of organising. But we have been working at it a long time and I think we are pretty professional at what we do.

Archipenko is a Group 1-producing sire in his first year with Madame Chiang and is the leading sire, winners to runners in Europe, recording a

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Kirsten Rausing with Lanwades stallion Leroidesanimaux, sire of Animal Kingdom

“The top layer of

quality has been taken out of the sales supply by a couple of very major players” 60% strike-rate with his two-year-old runners.

Leroidesanimaux arrived in October 2013 from a successful time at stud in America. His first Lanwades-conceived foals were born this year. The German Derby winner, Sea The Moon, has stood his first season at stud this year. He is very fertile and we look forward to his first foals in 2016.

It is very nice to walk round the stud of an evening, looking at mares and foals. The real enjoyment comes from a sense of achievement when, very occasionally, matters go according to plan; a stallion becomes successful or a yearling you’ve sold proves to be very good.

I go to almost all of the sales in Europe. The supply in terms of quality at the world’s sales has decreased, for the simple reason we have very few owner/breeders left who, in the old days, would have culled and sold fillies. Nowadays almost everybody is producing for the sales ring, and not necessarily for racing. Also, the very top layer of quality, the crème de la crème, has been taken out of the sales supply by a couple of very

major players. That’s a worldwide phenomenon.

It can be disappointing for people trying to get established in the industry.

I admire those who have specialised in sales consigning, and there are some fantastically good consignors, not only in Europe but elsewhere.

You often read interviews of such people selling so many yearlings, making ‘X’ amount, but no mention whatsoever of any racing success, which is notable, I think.

Outside of Lanwades, I have held various positions in the industry, including a five-year term as Chairman of the Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association (TBA). Currently I chair the TBA’s Veterinary Committee and I am a Director of the British Bloodstock Agency. In addition, I am one of three trustees of the Racing Foundation and a trustee of the Alborada Trust, which is active in equine and human matters.

Although I am part of a global industry and often travel overseas, Newmarket is home and I love being at home because I am away so much.

People may be surprised to hear that the outstanding day’s racing for me was not Alborada’s two Champion Stakes victories or Madame Chiang’s Fillies & Mares triumph. It was the 1984 Dewhurst Stakes, won by the Lanwades-bred Kala Dancer, trained by Ben Hanbury and ridden by Geoff Baxter.

Kala Dancer was unbeaten at two, clinched the European two-year-old championship and helped put the name of his sire, Niniski, in lights.

Niniski became champion first-season sire and his nomination fee shot up many fold. With that, Lanwades was put on the map as well.

Interview by Tim Richards THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

Oct_134_Caulfield_Owner Breeder 23/09/2015 18:03 Page 78

CAULFIELD FILES ANDREW CAULFIELD REPORTS ON THE BLOODSTOCK WORLD

Smith’s star filly features inbreeding to a star mare

GEORGE SELWYN

Etoile de France appears on both sides of Arabian Queen’s pedigree

The determined Arabian Queen, right, would not be denied in her tussle with Golden Horn for Juddmonte International glory

W

hat image does the mention of Miss France conjure up? For modern racegoers it would probably bring to mind the Dansili filly of that name, who held off Lightning Thunder to take the 2014 1,000 Guineas. For the more elderly, it might also revive memories of Bardot-esque young ladies in swimsuits at the Miss World contest, divulging in a beguiling accent their intention to work with children and their hopes for world peace.

The elderly might also remember another equine Miss France, this one a French-bred daughter of Jock II born in 1946. Unfortunately this article comes a couple of years too late for that renowned owner and breeder Gerry Oldham, who died at the age of 87 in 2013.

Oldham must have had very fond memories of this particular Miss France. He was still in his twenties when he paid 1,350gns for Miss France’s Krakatoa colt, which he named Talgo.

Talgo ended 1956 as the top weight on the Free

78

Handicap for three-year-olds, this honour reflecting his six-length victory in the Irish Derby and his second to the brilliant Ribot in the Arc. Oldham clearly believed that lightning could strike twice in the same place because he also acquired Miss France’s 1956 colt by Arctic Star.

As Arctic Star shared the same sire, Nearco, as Krakatao, Fidalgo and Talgo were three-partsbrothers. Remarkably Fidalgo also ran out an easy winner of the Irish Derby, with his win sandwiched between seconds in the Derby and St Leger. Consequently Miss France earned comparisons with Pretty Polly’s daughter Molly Desmond, another who had produced two winners of the Irish Derby. But whereas Molly Desmond had emulated Pretty Polly’s victory in the Cheveley Park Stakes, Miss France had finished unplaced in each of her four starts as a juvenile.

On the plus side, she had a fascinating pedigree, the like of which is rarely seem

nowadays. She was inbred 2 x 3 to Asterus, winner of the French 2,000 Guineas, Royal Hunt Cup and Champion Stakes for Marcel Boussac. Although Asterus became champion sire in France, he did even better as a sire of broodmares, so Miss France’s close inbreeding to him helps explain why she excelled in that role. Her dam, the unraced Nafah, was also inbred 2 x 3, this time to the famous broodmare Zariba, and Miss France’s second dam, the unraced Flower, was inbred 3 x 3 to the multiple champion sire Polymelus.

The inbreeding to Zariba probably stood Miss France in good stead. Zariba had been a formidable racemare for Marcel Boussac, with the Prix Morny and Prix de la Foret among her many victories, and she was also a great success as a broodmare. Zariba’s best effort was to produce the Arc winner Corrida, who in turn became the dam of the Prix du Jockey-Club winner Coaraze.

Miss France produced only three daughters THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

Oct_134_Caulfield_Owner Breeder 23/09/2015 18:03 Page 79

but one of them, Fidalgo’s winning sister Etoile de France, has ensured that her name lives on.

Etoile de France justified her name, proving a bit of a star as a broodmare, and we were given a thorough reminder of her merits when Arabian Queen dealt Golden Horn his first defeat in the Juddmonte International.

Each of Arabian Queen’s parents has a female line which traces to Etoile de France (and then Miss France). Admittedly there are quite a lot of intervening generations separating Dubawi and Barshiba, but it may have given Jeff Smith and his team some of the inspiration behind the mating of these two Group winners (the main motivation was surely the promising results being achieved by Dubawi with mares by Barshiba’s sire Barathea, as detailed in the notes on Arabian Queen in Data Book).

For the record, Etoile de France is the sixth dam of Dubawi, via Zomaradah, Jahaher, High Tern, Sunbittern and Pantoufle, and she is the fifth dam of Barshiba, via Dashiba, Alsiba, Etoile Grise and Place d’Etoile.

The Pantoufle branch has been especially productive, with nearly 30 Group winners descending from this middle-distance winner

by Panaslipper. To be more precise, each and every one of these Group winners descends from Pantoufle’s daughter Sunbittern. In addition to Dubawi’s Oaks d’Italia-winning dam Zomaradah, they include the Group 1 winners High-Rise (Derby), Virginia Water (1,000 Guineas), In The Wings (Breeders’ Cup Turf, etc), High Hawk, Infamy and Chachamaidee.

Arabian Queen and her dam Barshiba are by no means the first good fillies produced by the Place d’Etoile branch of the family. Place d’Etoile was also the second dam of Caerleon’s fine daughter Only Royale, winner of the Yorkshire Oaks and Jockey Club Stakes and a close second in the Coronation Cup. Caerleon was a son of Nijinsky and so was Royal Academy, who sired the dual Irish St Leger winner Oscar Schindler from Place d’Etoile’s grand-daughter Saraday.

Before leaving the topic of the phenomenally influential Sunbittern, who could have

predicted such a future for this daughter of Sea Hawk II at the end of her three-year-old career?

On her second start of the year she dug in her toes and unseated her rider soon after the start.

Then, on her final appearance, she simply refused to race. She earned a Timeform squiggle for her troubles. Fortunately, she had been much more co-operative as a juvenile, when she won her first three starts before finishing fourth in the Cheveley Park.

It is worth pointing out that Sunbittern was

by Sea Hawk out of a daughter of Etoile de France, and so was Arabian Queen’s fourth dam Etoile Grise, so both halves of the International winner’s pedigree contains one of these close relatives. Etoile de France also visited Sea Hawk II (a powerful influence for stamina) to produce Irvine, a smart and versatile performer whose stamina earned him victory in the Jockey Club Cup, plus places in the Chester Cup and Gold Cup. No wonder Arabian Queen’s trainer David Elsworth tried her over a mile and a half in the Vermeille.

Hitting the Heights as a broodmare sire On a visit to the Royal Studs some years ago, Shirley Heights was brought out for my inspection and the son of Mill Reef immediately reared up on his hind-legs. This was something of a party piece for the 1978 Derby and Irish Derby winner, but on this occasion the stallion was a little too enthusiastic and toppled over backwards. The headline ‘Sporting Life reporter causes death of Queen’s stallion’ flashed before my eyes, but all was well. Shirley Heights was a tough old boy, as he was to demonstrate as a 21year-old, when his recovery from two serious abdominal operations was so good that he proceeded to get 20 of his 24 mares in foal.

I mention this simply because this party piece was a reflection of his quirky nature. His daughters had a reputation for being rather highly strung and quite a few of them (along with other descendants of Mill Reef) tended to swish their tails under pressure, a good example being Infamy, the Rothmans International winner. Mill Reef’s daughters probably had an even greater reputation for having dubious temperaments, to the extent that Ian Balding – Mill Reef’s trainer and greatest fan – once questioned whether Mill Reef would ever be regarded as a good broodmare sire.

These doubts proved to be ill-founded, with Mill Reef and Shirley Heights both excelling in the role of broodmare sire (as did Shirley Heights’ son Darshaan). Even so, I

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

wondered how eager breeders would be to inbreed to Shirley Heights, especially as his name is generally associated with stamina – his progeny had the very high average winning distance of 12 furlongs, compared to Mill Reef’s figure of 11 furlongs, which is still higher than most.

Shirley Heights was born 40 years ago, so he is now sufficiently far back in pedigrees for us to start seeing him cropping up twice.

“Shirley Heights was

born 40 years ago so is now sufficiently far back in pedigrees to crop up twice” Stallions such as In The Wings, Singspiel, Dalakhani, Mark Of Esteem, Lawman and High Chaparral all have Group winners inbred to Shirley Heights within four generations, but the stallion with the best results is undoubtedly Dubawi, whose Classic-winning dam Zomaradah is a granddaughter of Shirley Heights.

Arabian Queen became Dubawi’s latest Group 1 winner with two lines of Shirley

Heights when she defeated Golden Horn at York. Her second line, though, is quite remote, creating 4 x 5 to Shirley Heights, which is the same as in the pedigrees of Kapitale and Majestic Dubawi. Dubawi has quite a few other Group winners where the inbreeding is closer, including Al Kazeem, Hunter’s Light, Astrophysical Jet and Wannabe Yours (all 4 x 3), plus Dubawi Gold, the Australian filly Intimate Moment and Tanaza (all 4 x 4).

Dubawi also has quite a few good winners which have a second line of Mill Reef, but not through Shirley Heights, such as New Bay, the 2015 Prix du Jockey-Club winner.

New Bay acts as a reminder, though, that doubling up on Shirley Heights or Mill Reef is by no means the only duplication appearing in plenty of Dubawi’s good winners. The Juddmonte colt is also inbred 4 x 4 to Mr Prospector. Others with two lines to this outstanding American stallion include Shamal Wind (4 x 3), Postponed, Prince Bishop, Arabian Gold, Almanaar, Split Trois and Muraaqaba (all 4 x 4). For good measure, Akeed Mofeed, Night Of Thunder and Dubday are among the good Dubawis with 4 x 5 to Mr Prospector.

It almost goes without saying that the ubiquitous Northern Dancer is ever present, and he appears three times in the first five generations of this year’s three-year-old Group 1 winners Arabian Queen, New Bay and Erupt.

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Oct_134_ROA_Forum_Owner 24/09/2015 10:50 Page 80

ROA FORUM The special section for ROA members

Ownership growth crucial for sport Richard Wayman reports on early plans within the Industry Strategy to attract more owners It is nearly six months since the British Horseracing Authority and Great British Racing staged a nationwide programme of Industry Updates, including news of the ‘Strategy for Growth’. This had been launched as a result of many of the sport’s stakeholders coming together to develop a self-help plan to support the future of the industry, and its aims included the growth of racehorse ownership, racecourse attendances and betting on racing.

There were six specific workstreams including one group that focused on ‘horse population, ownership and breeding’, which developed wide-ranging recommendations to encourage the recruitment of new owners and also improve the retention of existing owners.

Working with colleagues from the ROA, BHA and GBR, I am now part of the team that is seeking to implement some of the ideas and this is an opportune moment to report on our initial steps.

Before doing so, however, it is worth stressing that many of the Industry Strategy ideas require significant funding. Work continues on

accessing such support and, in the meantime, we are focusing attention on those areas that could be progressed from within existing budgets.

We also cannot ignore the fact that growing ownership requires significantly improving the economics of owning a racehorse. With the annual cost being above £20,000 and the average recovery rate standing at just £26 of every £100 spent, nobody could overstate the importance of establishing a Horserace Betting Right so that, wherever they are located, all bookmakers would be required to make a fair and reasonable return to racing.

Not forgetting these considerations, our work is focussing on three main areas. Firstly, racing will seek to tackle the dreaded bureaucracy associated with being an owner. A complete redesign of the ownership systems so that administration becomes as simple as internet banking is long overdue, as is a review of all the fees charged to owners and the variety of different ownership structures.

A second aim is to significantly extend the industry’s engagement with owners. Although owners are the single largest financial contributors, an absence of regular contact results in over-reliance on anecdotal feedback.

The way the sport communicates with owners

requires an overhaul but, in the short term, the largest survey of racehorse owners, including those in syndicates, will take place so that decisions about how to improve the ownership journey can be rooted in facts.

Thirdly, the first taste of ownership for many is via syndicates and, just as GBR has supported racecourses in attracting new racegoers, the sport’s central marketing arm is planning a big drive to promote syndicate ownership in 2016.

This will be designed to complement rather than duplicate activities already undertaken by those running syndicates, whose feedback will be crucial in developing an effective campaign.

Other activities are ongoing, including work on improving the ownership experience – more on that next month, when the ROA will announce the six large and six smaller tracks to be awarded the ROA Gold Standard for providing owners with the best raceday experience this year.

British racing can only thrive by encouraging more people to become racehorse owners and, once involved, providing them with an experience that encourages them to remain so.

The challenge should not be underestimated but the industry is beginning to wake up to the importance of owners. The work can now begin.

Happy Birthday to us! ROA celebrates 70 years The Racehorse Owners Association celebrated its 70th birthday last month.

On September 15, 1945 – two weeks after Japan officially surrendered at the end of the Second World War – the ROA was established by a group of seven prominent racehorse owners.

Sir Malcolm McAlpine, belonging to the famous engineering and construction family, was the association’s first President, serving until 1960 when the role passed to his son, Sir Robin McAlpine.

Joining him in the new trade body was five-times champion Flat trainer Cecil Boyd-Rochfort, who was married to Henry Cecil’s mother, Rohays. He trained the winner of every British Classic at least once, including the Derby in 1959 with Parthia, and captured the St Leger on no less than six occasions.

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Atty Persse, trainer of The Tetrarch, was a founder member of the ROA

The other founder members were Sir Harold Werneher, a prominent MajorGeneral during World War II who played

an important role in the Normandy landings, Henry ‘Atty’ Persse, trainer of two-year-old wonder The Tetrarch, James Rank, son of the founder of the Rank-Hovis brand, Jack Olding, who was the sole London dealer for Aston Martin in the 1930s, and John Hetherton. His son, Noel, owned the 1969 Queen’s Vase victor Tantivy and is one of the ROA’s longestserving members at the age of 93.

Though racing has changed immeasurably since the ROA’s inception, its raison d’etre has remained steadfast – to promote the interests of racehorse owners in Britain.

“It is a marvelous milestone to reach,” said David Bowen, the ROA’s Head of Membership. “We are very grateful to our past and current members for their muchvalued support.”

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Oct_134_ROA_Forum_Owner 24/09/2015 10:50 Page 81

www.racehorseowners.net

Buy your ROA Awards tickets The ROA Horseracing Awards, sponsored by Weatherbys Bank, is the ROA’s flagship event and will be held on Thursday, December 3 at the InterContinental, Park Lane, London.

The Awards evening is a celebration of the year’s outstanding performances, both Flat and jumps. Members vote for their selection in each of 14 categories and the winner of each horse and owner category is chosen by members, so every vote counts.

The evening will also see the presentation of the Racecourse of the Year awards to the large and small racecourse considered to provide owners with the best raceday experiences.

This category will be decided by the ROA Raceday Committee and responses from members who have had runners via the online feedback form at roa.co.uk will be taken into account in this process.

As one of the highlights in racing’s social

The owners of Taquin Du Seuil celebrate at the 2014 ROA Awards

calendar, the black-tie evening is sure to be another sell-out. Tickets are priced at £179 per person, which includes a champagne reception with three-course dinner and half a bottle of wine. Tables of ten are available at the discounted rate of £1,550. Tickets for the evening can be booked online at

roa.co.uk or by calling 020 7152 0200.

The ROA’s charity partner, Racing Welfare, will benefit from fundraising on the evening through a silent auction and by owners including their racing colours in the event brochure. This can be arranged for £100 per set.

Members earn over £200,000 thanks to Owners jackpot The ROA Owners Jackpot surpassed the £200,000 milestone at Thirsk on August 28, when seven members claimed £1,500 on top of their win prize-money. The scheme, which has been running for almost two years, has in that time benefited more than 110 ROA members.

The next ROA Owners Jackpot fixture will be hosted by Stratford on Thursday, October 29. Details of upcoming races can be found at roa.co.uk

Jessica Bethell: much missed

Charitable foundation launch raises £90,000 Brian Valentine One More Go

Crone Stud Farms Cape Love

FPR Yorkshire Syndicate Framley Garth

Middleham Park Rcg V Canford Kilbey

Ms Y Lowe Coiste Bodhar

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

David Armstrong Eccleston

Ziad A Galadari Dagher

The Jessica Bethell Charitable Foundation, launched at York racecourse in May, has so far raised over £90,000, helping fund donations to Jack Berry House and Meningitis Research Foundation.

The foundation was set up in memory of Jessica Bethell, who died in 2012. It is run by her parents, racehorse trainer James Bethell and his wife Sally, an ROA Council member.

Sally Bethell said: “The foundation will aim to raise funds for a long-term project to support the racing community of Middleham. With this in mind, we are considering holding a similar event at York on Tuesday, May 10, the evening before the 2016 Dante festival.” For more details visit jessicabethellfoundation.co.uk

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TRACK TALK

The latest news from the UK’s racecourses

Fakenham facilities ready for lift off

Also...

Fakenham’s season will kick-off on Friday, October 16 and not a week earlier as listed in the original fixture list.

The day will mark the partial opening of the track’s £370,000 upgrading project to create a new weighing room, jockeys’ medical room, physio room and Owners & Trainers’ bar. It is anticipated the facility for owners will be fully functional and operational for the course’s second fixture on October 28.

The new O&T facility will be named the Cool Roxy Bar, in tribute to a horse synonymous with Fakenham, having noted 11 wins at the Norfolk course from a career of 77 starts under rules.

The Alan Blackmore-owned and trained gelding, now aged 18, is expected to be present for the official opening of the new bar facility named after him on October 28. The Cool Roxy Bar offers a facility three times the size of the previous one, and the space will include a cosy wood-burning stove.

David Hunter, Fakenham’s Chief Executive and Clerk of the Course, said: “We look forward to welcoming everyone. We have teamed up with the award-winning Crown Inn at East Rudham as the new catering partners to provide

Lingfield Park

Cool Roxy: Fakenham legend who now has a bar named after him

a better service all round for owners, trainers and jockeys, and I hope owners and trainers will enter their horses and support the improvements. The Cool Roxy Bar will be quirky, as Fakenham is!”

Details of the food and beverage offering in the new facility for owners with a runner are to be confirmed and will be available via the Owners Guide to Racehorses at roa.co.uk

Owners with runners at Lingfield Park through the winter are reminded of the offer available in the Trackside Restaurant with its panoramic views of the racetrack.

The racecourse’s Owners & Trainers’ ‘Winter Warmer’ allows up to six guests per runner to enjoy a three-course meal in the restaurant for £20 per person. This offer applies from October 2015 to March 4, 2016 (excluding December 12 and 20 and Winter Derby Day 2016, all other dates are subject to availability).

Larger parties, from eight to 30 guests, receive discounted hospitality rates if booking a private suite. This package includes a choice of an informal buffet or a formal three-course menu with service and a private bar.

These offers must be pre-booked and pre-paid by 4pm on the last working day prior to the fixture. To make a reservation please call 01342 834800, option 1.

Inside Track on the Owners Guide to Racecourses

Bath redevelopment plans submitted

The online ROA/RCA Owners’ Guide to Racecourses, which is freely accessible on the ROA website at roa.co.uk, has proved a valuable tool to many owners already this season – and it has just got even better! There is now a direct link on each course to their local five-day weather forecast and a new section called ‘Inside Track’. This is where racing professionals and owners can share their insider tips to make the raceday an even better experience. For example, did you know that at York it takes only 20 minutes to walk to the station by going across the cricket pitch? Please let us know your hints and tips by emailing sholton@roa.co.uk

How Bath will look with a new grandstand and £4.5 million spent on improvements

Feedback winner

Early September bought the welcome news that Bath racecourse is to upgrade its facilities, with owner ARC planning a £4.5 million investment in the track. Under proposals submitted to Bath & North East Somerset Council, the track will look to boast a new grandstand with viewing steps, a 200-seater restaurant and a covered rooftop terrace.

Other improvements include the hospitality stand currently situated opposite the finishing line being rebuilt to include new décor, balconies, catering facilities and a ground floor

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public bar. The current grandstand will be refurbished with two new catering facilities also being introduced, and the parade ring and winners’ enclosure will be repositioned to allow more racegoers to view the action.

The aim is for the majority of the work to be completed before the 2016 season starts, with the new grandstand finished in the autumn.

Consultations will also take place regarding the possibility of installing a watering system, as a source of water has been located beneath the course.

It is nearly decision time for the 2015 Gold Standard Awards, so please keep your racecourse feedback coming via the ROA website – every completed questionnaire from an owner who has had a runner is of real help to us. There is also the added incentive of being entered into a monthly £50 prize draw.

This month’s winner is Graham Leyfield, who gave feedback following his recent visit to Doncaster.

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

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ROA OFFICIAL CHARITY PA R T N E R

Lifetime awards for Leaman and Lingwood Since 2002, Racing Welfare has given Lifetime in Racing awards to members of the racing workforce who have dedicated their working lives to the industry. This summer awards were given to two very deserving recipients: Michael Leaman and Richard Lingwood.

Mick Leaman, who was presented with his award at Newmarket racecourse in August, started working in racing in 1948 and has worked for Clive Brittain for 46 years.

Weighing just 4st 7lb, Mick started his career in racing as an apprentice to Sir Noel Murless in Beckhampton and it was here that he met life-long friend and long-time employer Clive Brittain.

When Murless moved to Warren Place, Newmarket in 1951, Mick followed, but National Service beckoned and he was posted to Germany a few years later. Upon leaving the army, Mick met his future wife, Gill, and subsequently spent 16 years working in Clarks’ shoe factory.

The call of racing proved too strong, however, and when Brittain took his trainer’s licence out in 1972, the Leamans moved to Newmarket and the team

Mick Leaman, who is still going strong aged 81, and his son Steve

from Murless’s were reunited.

Mick has worked for Brittain ever since and has been an integral part of the careers of many top racehorses, including St Leger winner Julio Mariner and User Friendly.

Mick retired from riding out only at 72 and he is still on the yard working as feedman every day at the age of 81.

Brittain describes Mick as “the most reliable man I have ever known” and said that “nobody could look after a horse better than Mick does”.

Mick has not been the only individual recognised for their contribution to racing in 2015, and earlier in the year Richard Lingwood was presented with the award at Pontefract racecourse.

Born in Norfolk, it was at the age of nine that Richard was first dragged down to his local riding school by his cousin Tina. He was quick to learn though and rapidly progressed to his first job working for an international showjumper at Rutland.

In 1961 Richard started work with Major James Hudson and travelled around the

northern showjumping circuit. In the early 1970s Major Hudson bought a stallion called Count Albany and Norton Grove Stud was born. Richard, his wife Maggie and family have operated the stud since 1995, when they inherited the Major’s share after his sudden death.

Over the last 20 years the business has continued to grow, and has been lucky enough to stand stallions including Derby winner Morston, St Leger winner Bollin Eric, Winter Derby winner Gentleman’s Deal, Presidium and Timeless Times.

The stud has had a good share of their own broodmares, the most memorable being Aurigny. On average Richard foals over 60 mares a season with the help of his wife, daughters Tina, Jessica, Laura and son-in-law Tim. Their record for most foals in a season is an impressive 89.

Racehorse owners are only too aware of the huge importance of the industry’s workforce and if you would like to nominate someone for a Lifetime in Racing Award, please email communications@racingwelfare.co.uk.

Diary dates and reminders OCTOBER 17

NOVEMBER 10

ROA facility at Ascot for QIPCO British Champions Day

Regional meeting and Owners Jackpot at Huntingdon

Members who have booked places will enjoy an exclusive facility with a specially tailored dining package for this magnificent day’s racing on the finale of the Flat season. Please note this facility has now sold out.

An opportunity for members in Cambridgeshire to meet the ROA team.

ROA-owned winners on the day have the chance to scoop a £10,000 Owners Jackpot.

DECEMBER 3 OCTOBER 29

ROA Horseracing Awards

Owners Jackpot at Stratford

The Awards evening, sponsored by Weatherbys Bank, celebrates the season’s top performers and their connections. The venue is the InterContinental Hotel, Park Lane, London. See page 81 for more details.

£10,000 will be shared among ROA-owned winners at the track’s final fixture of the year.

Details of events are listed online at roa.co.uk in the Events section. Bookings can be made online or by calling the ROA on 020 7152 0200

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

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MAGICAL MOMENTS with ROA member Mark Goodall

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partnership called ‘Caveat Emptor’ is certainly apt for horseracing circles, but there has been no need for any of its members to have been wary of getting involved.

On what was a fairly busy Saturday – Sprint Cup day – the latest example of that came at Ascot, when recent purchase Majestic Moon landed a hugely competitive £80,000 handicap, the biggest win of Oxon trainer John Gallagher’s career and a magical moment too for ROA member Mark Goodall and his partners.

Goodall has been a shipbroker for 36 years and heads the dry cargo section of the world’s largest shipbroking company, Clarksons Platou, in London.

“This was after spending two to three years at the ‘university of life’ – Ladbrokes’ credit department head office in Harrow, in the days of Ron Pollard, Derrick Smith, Mike Dillon, Malcolm Palmer etc,” says Goodall.

Explaining his route into ownership, he says: “I started with Peter Harris as part of his syndicates with two to three shares in different horses, and with a few wins.

“While at his stables I met Anthony Stroud and under his guidance started to buy some horses from breeze-up sales under the Caveat Emptor partnership, which is made up of business and long-term friends.

“These were trained by Walter Swinburn. I really enjoyed being part of his set-up. I just hope his golf has improved!

“Anyway, we had some very nice success with our second horse, Addictive Dream, with wins and a close third in the Portland. We sold him as a four-year-old. When Walter retired, we moved a horse to Clive Cox and bought another breeze-up horse, though unfortunately he was disappointing.”

Goodall continues: “We decided to move on from breeze-up types to horses in training and put horses with a smaller yard – John Gallagher, who I thought had real potential based on his record, and who was close to our home.

“We’ve been with John and Rebecca for just over two years. It’s always been their honesty I’ve liked, not ignoring their attention to detail and time they give a horse and their owners.

“Our second horse with them, who we bought in the September 2014 Horses In Training sales, Lungarno Palace, was placed on all three starts at three after we bought him, and we decided some time ago to aim him at the Great Metropolitan Handicap at Epsom

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Mark Goodall (third right) and wife Betina with fellow connections in the Ascot winner’s enclosure after Majestic Moon’s recent victory under Michael Murphy

this year. He duly gave us a great day by winning one of the oldest handicaps in the calendar.”

And now that spring success has been more than matched in the autumn, thanks to Majestic Moon.

“In January, again under the same structure, we bought him – he’s ex-Richard Fahey – and he’s given us two wins this year including that great day at Ascot,” says Goodall. “I think winning any race is fantastic, but to win big races on a Saturday is a particular joy.”

Goodall and his partners are looking forward to seeing what Majestic Moon and Lungarno Palace can do for the remainder of

the year, and at the time of writing the aim for Majestic Moon was the Ayr Gold Cup, while Lungarno Palace was being readied for the Cesarewitch Trial at Newmarket. The same partnership has also recently bought a third horse, Bahamian Sunrise.

Goodall adds: “We also started in the breeding world by leasing a mare, Pusey Street Lady, from Jim and Brenda Long, who are established owners at the Gallagher yard. We had her covered by Mount Nelson and our foal is now five months old. I’d like to add that for a small buyer like us, the support we’ve received from the Stroud/Coleman team is fabulous, and has always been hugely appreciated.”

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

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w w w. r a c e h o r s e o w n e r s . n e t The Flat is not the only string to Goodall’s bow, as he is also involved as an owner at the yard of Charlie Longsdon, “who is also local to us, and it’s again a friendly fun yard to be part of”.

Goodall continues: “The best part of racehorse ownership is the building of friendships with trainers, owners and the staff, plus watching the progress and development of a horse. Also great is just the love of racing, and working with the formbook to find a winner or two.

“One of the worst parts that can be improved is the paperwork – surely it’s time the BHA and racecourses communicated by email. A business life can be busy, with travel or meetings, and I’m not always at home to open a letter from a racecourse. Today you can print a boarding pass for your flight – let’s start printing our own car park/entry passes.

“The best part of

ownership is the building of friendships with trainers, owners and the staff” “Also, there’s too much all-weather racing.

If bookmakers want all these races they should fund them and leave the levy to support some all-weather racing when it’s actually needed, as it was originally intended, and create better prize-money for the grass Flat racing season, outside Group level.

“And although I’m a big fan and supporter of winter jump racing, there is also too much summer jumping racing – surely this levy expense should be saved for the October-April jumps season.”

Goodall also aired a bugbear that would undoubtedly be echoed by other horsemen, saying: “I do feel the coverage by the media of the smaller players in the racing world is weak, and their side and achievements are not delivered to the general public as often as they should be.

“We all know the great achievements of Stoute, O’Brien, Godolphin etc, and though I’m a great supporter of watching Channel 4, an example of this was the coverage of Majestic Moon’s race: it was more about how Mr Win didn’t get a good run – which I don’t agree with – and there was no mention of a great ride from the front by Michael Murphy, and the trainer’s skill to win such a race from a small yard.

“Let’s not forget, this industry will be finished without the many owners supporting trainers with ten to 40 horses.”

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

News in Brief...

Tattersalls bonus potential Owners who buy a yearling at Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale (October 68) can make a one-off payment of £1,000 to Tattersalls to be eligible to win a £25,000 bonus if the horse wins a Class 2, 3 or 4 twoyear-old maiden in Britain or an open two year old maiden in Ireland.

It is estimated there will be more than 300 eligible races in 2016. If a purchase is Plus 10-qualified as well, then connections could be picking up at least £35,000, or more depending on the value of the maiden.

Further details about the £25,000 Tattersalls October Book 1 Bonus can be found at tattersalls.com or by contacting Tattersalls on 01638 665931.

Hiscox expertise is yours ROA members who place their household insurance with Hiscox through Weatherbys Hamilton could have their next annual ROA membership fee reimbursed through the ROA/Weatherbys Hamilton Household Insurance Scheme.

Hiscox, the renowned private client insurer, has a long history and expertise in providing specialist insurance cover for houses and their contents, valuables and collections. Hiscox provide a high quality policy and receive exceptional satisfaction ratings.

Weatherbys Hamilton is a broker with

expertise steeped in bloodstock and the private client sector. Full details of the scheme can be found in the ‘Benefits’ section at roa.co.uk or by calling the ROA on 020 7152 0200. To obtain a quote, please call Weatherbys Hamilton on 01638 563444.

Reserves deadline extension The cut-off time for reserves moves from 9am to 1pm on the day before the race, effective from October 5. Declarations of riders for any reserves that obtain a run will be required by 1.30pm (previously 11am) on the day before the race.

A first reserve will replace a non-runner.

If there are further non-runners, the remaining reserves will replace those horses in the same way. Races eligible for reserves are Group 1 Flat races, heritage handicaps and Grade 3 jump handicaps with 48-hour declarations.

In order for reserves to be included, racecourses must apply to the BHA’s racing department. Racecourses can also discuss the possibility of adding reserves to races of other classifications with the BHA’s racing department.

ROA website We’ve made it even easier to find the ROA and its online resources. The ROA homepage can now be found at roa.co.uk

Golden Horn and Frankie Dettori capture the Irish Champion Stakes

ROA member Martin Gibbs enjoyed a very memorable visit to Longines Irish Champions Weekend on September 1213 after being drawn as the lucky winner

of a VIP trip for two. The prize package included a two-night stay at the stylish Beacon Hotel, with flights, car hire and two very special days racing at Leopardstown and the Curragh.

He reported: “The racing was first class and I thoroughly enjoyed the warm and friendly atmosphere at two of Ireland’s best courses.

“The Irish Champion Stakes was such a dramatic race – it was great to see Derby winner Golden Horn land the spoils.”

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Flat Racecourse League Table Ptn Racecourse

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

Ascot York Goodwood Epsom Downs Newmarket Chester Newbury Doncaster Sandown Park Haydock Park Musselburgh Chelmsford City Ayr Ripon Pontefract Wetherby Salisbury Lingfield Park Thirsk Hamilton Park Carlisle Beverley Newcastle Leicester Yarmouth Nottingham Kempton Park Ffos Las Windsor Bath Catterick Bridge Redcar Chepstow Wolverhampton Brighton Southwell Total

Figures for period September 1, 2014 to August 31, 2015

Ownership

Avg racecourse spend per fixture (£)

Avg HBLB spend per fixture (£)

Avg owner spend per fixture (£)

Avg prizemoney per fixture (£)

Total no. of fixtures

Total prize-money (£)

Avg racecourse spend per fixture 2013-14 (£)

I I I JCR JCR I I ARC JCR JCR I I I I I I I ARC I I JCR I ARC I ARC JCR JCR I ARC ARC I I ARC ARC ARC ARC

400,392 183,726 168,192 148,795 92,944 86,167 67,612 64,662 57,272 49,479 40,387 38,563 38,070 33,971 32,507 32,205 31,173 30,788 27,081 26,747 25,180 24,629 24,076 23,907 23,612 22,665 22,378 21,230 21,181 20,944 18,888 18,589 16,709 15,716 14,426 10,079 46,139

147,024 101,688 94,357 86,208 83,985 44,356 65,936 57,375 52,404 46,326 24,279 14,571 28,513 26,014 32,590 9,725 29,574 26,311 19,393 18,177 16,508 22,492 21,466 21,364 38,080 20,181 19,963 13,952 20,564 15,001 18,669 19,997 14,580 20,023 15,886 22,494 33,799

244,869 109,422 60,047 101,453 93,501 10,059 33,055 43,031 22,969 17,993 5,842 3,795 10,339 4,703 3,632 4,508 5,186 4,307 5,495 3,729 4,235 3,007 6,462 4,564 7,033 5,598 4,030 3,366 4,772 2,987 2,676 14,564 3,078 2,987 2,468 2,108 19,695

792,285 394,953 322,596 336,455 270,481 140,915 167,283 165,328 133,021 114,332 70,508 57,006 77,217 64,688 68,729 47,250 66,600 61,406 51,969 48,653 45,923 50,391 52,597 50,346 68,725 48,673 46,498 38,549 46,805 39,123 40,812 53,150 34,955 38,778 32,780 34,681 99,798

17 17 19 10 39 15 18 24 16 23 17 33 17 16 16 4 15 84 17 18 13 19 19 22 4 24 73 7 27 21 16 18 17 106 22 38 881

13,468,841 6,714,200 6,129,315 3,364,551 10,548,777 2,113,731 3,011,097 3,967,882 2,128,332 2,678,629 1,198,643 1,881,184 1,312,683 1,035,000 1,099,668 189,000 998,995 5,158,077 883,468 875,759 597,000 957,430 999,334 1,107,615 274,900 1,168,160 3,394,373 269,840 1,263,724 821,583 652,988 956,700 594,232 4,110,432 721,152 1,317,860 87,965,154

345,916 158,371 82,261 105,868 95,784 83,187 54,423 72,947 50,558 46,697 34,331 0 34,703 32,264 29,278 0 28,389 27,728 27,097 20,520 20,752 20,699 19,199 18,723 15,713 17,292 20,583 23,970 18,278 15,480 17,661 15,586 11,123 15,616 11,003 11,078 39,445

Up/ down

▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▼ ▲ ▲ ▼ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▼ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▼ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▼ ▲

Jumps Racecourse League Table Ptn Racecourse

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

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Aintree Cheltenham Ascot Haydock Park Sandown Park Kempton Park Newbury Ayr Kelso Doncaster Wincanton Musselburgh Ludlow Cartmel Chepstow Fakenham Perth Wetherby Stratford-on-Avon Market Rasen Newton Abbot Warwick Newcastle Carlisle Exeter Huntingdon Uttoxeter Ffos Las Bangor-on-Dee Hexham Fontwell Park Taunton Catterick Bridge Worcester Sedgefield Plumpton Lingfield Park Leicester Southwell Towcester Total

Ownership

Avg racecourse spend per fixture (£)

Avg HBLB spend per fixture (£)

Avg owner spend per fixture (£)

Avg prizemoney per fixture (£)

Total no. of fixtures

Total prize-money (£)

Avg racecourse spend per fixture 2013-14 (£)

JCR JCR I JCR JCR JCR I I I ARC JCR I I I ARC I I I I JCR I JCR ARC JCR JCR JCR ARC I I I ARC I I ARC ARC I ARC I ARC I

244,870 223,142 135,525 98,706 96,862 50,823 45,631 31,902 29,390 27,022 26,585 26,507 26,487 25,256 25,177 25,040 24,648 24,479 23,559 22,953 22,830 21,988 21,606 20,352 20,007 19,747 18,082 17,781 17,716 17,684 15,832 15,750 15,602 15,470 14,061 14,044 13,076 12,844 12,323 11,532 34,496

126,549 112,871 82,339 82,115 79,094 57,732 66,742 39,424 32,772 40,868 32,015 30,256 30,828 21,388 29,209 18,208 26,549 27,301 17,783 25,560 27,376 31,976 31,801 26,347 28,796 20,863 21,792 20,901 22,565 17,658 21,988 21,963 26,527 19,591 19,089 25,556 25,769 25,923 19,601 16,775 33,100

67,182 55,943 16,197 16,202 18,287 10,010 16,400 10,235 3,048 6,317 4,960 4,450 4,618 4,528 6,414 0 2,428 4,752 3,772 4,538 0 5,106 5,124 4,375 4,769 3,781 4,909 3,526 4,339 2,845 3,175 3,704 2,758 3,540 2,797 3,347 3,077 3,486 3,062 2,873 7,290

439,476 391,956 237,812 198,344 197,576 118,703 130,439 82,712 65,793 75,407 63,579 61,213 61,933 51,171 60,801 43,247 53,625 56,707 45,114 53,672 50,206 60,498 58,531 51,657 54,048 44,390 44,900 42,208 44,621 38,687 40,996 41,417 45,087 38,716 36,297 42,946 41,922 42,253 35,254 31,334 75,261

8 16 8 8 9 13 12 12 12 10 16 10 15 8 16 13 14 16 18 19 18 14 11 12 17 17 24 15 14 14 21 17 9 20 20 16 6 9 19 13 559

3,515,810 6,271,291 1,902,495 1,501,747 1,778,186 1,543,139 1,565,268 992,540 789,515 754,066 1,017,258 612,129 929,000 409,368 972,815 562,214 750,744 907,308 812,046 1,019,771 903,709 846,977 643,836 619,882 918,824 754,637 1,077,608 633,123 624,695 541,619 860,909 704,093 405,779 774,314 725,935 687,140 251,532 380,276 669,832 407,337 42,038,763

211,204 201,036 101,655 88,098 103,163 53,982 47,222 34,902 22,789 23,093 27,188 21,859 23,509 24,425 28,958 16,868 24,953 24,528 23,074 22,651 19,607 17,959 25,605 15,304 20,104 21,844 13,952 16,076 14,316 13,651 15,062 11,317 15,554 11,742 9,991 15,041 13,805 11,747 12,392 9,990 31,661

Up/ down

▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▲ ▲ ▼ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▼ ▲ ▼ ▼ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▼ ▲ ▼ ▼ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▲ ▼ ▼ ▲ ▼ ▲ ▲

EXPLANATION The tables set out the average prize-money at each fixture staged by a racecourse over the last 12 months. They show how this is made up of the three sources of prizemoney: 1. Racecourses’ contribution 2. Levy Board (HBLB) 3. Owners The tables also confirm the number of fixtures staged and the total amount of prize-money paid out by each racecourse throughout this period.

The racecourses are ordered by the average amount of their own contribution to prizemoney at each fixture. This contribution originates from various sources including media rights, admission revenues and racecourse sponsors.

If a racecourse has increased its average contribution at each fixture compared with the previous 12 months, it receives a green ‘up’ arrow. If its average contribution has fallen, however, it receives a red ‘down’ arrow.

As these tables are based on the prize-money paid out by each racecourse, the abandonment of a major fixture could distort a racecourse’s performance.

OWNERSHIP KEY JCR Jockey Club Racecourses

ARC Arena Racing Company

I Independently owned racecourse

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

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TBA FORUM The special section for TBA members

National Hunt Stallion Parade looming The annual NH Stallion parade will be held on Cheltenham Countryside Day at Cheltenham Racecourse on Friday, November 13. A selection of top British EBF-qualified stallions will be on parade in the Paddock. The full list of stallions will be published in due course – please keep an eye on our website and Twitter feed.

TBA members can gain free entry to Cheltenham on the day by producing their TBA membership card at the Owners & Trainers desk. Discount badges for guests can be purchased at the special advance purchase rate of £25 per person by contacting Cheltenham racecourse direct on 0844 5793003 up until Thursday, November 5.

TBA members and guests are invited to enjoy exclusive use of the TBA Stallion Parade Marquee, where facilities include a cash bar and light refreshments. To gain access to the marquee members must show their TBA membership card. Stallion connections will be on hand in the marquee after the parade to answer any questions, and a silent auction of stallion nominations will be held in support of TBA NH initiatives.

Silent auction In order to help support the TBA’s fundraising efforts for National Hunt breeding, a nomination to each stallion on parade has been very generously donated by the respective stallion owners.

If you are unable to attend the parade, but wish to support the TBA by placing a bid (including telephone bids on the day) to purchase a nomination, please contact Pauline Stoddart at Stanstead House for further information.

The stallion parade will again draw TBA members to Cheltenham next month

Nash an especially deserving winner Olly Nash, Stud Manager at Larksborough Farm, Hampshire, is the winner of our September Stud Staff Award.

Nominated by owner Dr Bridget Drew, Olly is described as a dedicated, skilful and reliable member of the team, who leads by example and is respected by all. He has the ability to enthuse others and maintain a good team spirit, as well as providing expert guidance and training to younger staff, who follow his example of reliability and dependability. Last year saw the stud’s first venture into sales prep and, again, Olly’s skill and attention to detail helped to achieve a high price of 700,000 guineas for the first yearling prepared at Larksborough Farm.

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Olly has also attracted praise from clients of Larksborough, and Alan Wood of the Sasheen Partnership took the time to record his gratitude to Olly for his skill and attention in caring for a sick foal belonging to the partnership. The foal is now thriving as a result.

Wood has also found Olly particularly welcoming to him as a newcomer to breeding and has absolute confidence in his ability to do the best for the farm’s clients.

Drew also cites Olly’s diligence and skill in foaling mares and caring for newborn foals, as well as praising his loyalty and kindness as qualities that greatly impress her, all of which make this award richly deserved.

Olly Nash with Perfect Haven (Singspiel ex Night Haven), who is in foal to Sepoy and is owned by Mildmay Bloodstock ltd

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

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www.thetba.co.uk

TBA diary dates WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21 TBA EBF Fillies’ Handicap Stakes At Newmarket.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22 The TBA Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle Race At Ludlow.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13 The annual NH Stallion Parade

Charlotte Lovatt

Tallulah Lewis

TBA family augmented by a couple of welcome additions Charlotte Lovatt Charlotte joins the team as the Marketing and Communications Manager covering for Lucinda Miller, who is now on maternity leave. Charlotte brings a wealth of experience after being part of Darley’s European marketing team for five years and working for Godolphin in both the UK and Dubai.

Charlotte has her own ex-racehorse and has a natural interest in thoroughbred bloodstock through her family’s ownership of a horse in training “I am really looking forward to working with the team at Stanstead House on a number of projects to promote the interests of British breeders,” she said. “My first few weeks at the TBA will coincide with the start of the busy UK sales season and I very much look forward to meeting members during this time.”

Tallulah Lewis You may have heard about the TBA’s new young members club that is due to be

launched and unveiled at the end of year.

Tallulah Lewis has joined the TBA to manage that club, with the assistance of the committee. After being a loyal member of the NGC Committee, Tallulah is well-appointed to run this exciting new project.

Tallulah has a 1st class degree in Equine Breeding and Stud Management, and after working in the Racing Division at Weatherbys, went on the renowned BHA Graduate Development Scheme where her placement was at Bloodstock Media/Australia and New Zealand Bloodstock News, which led to a full-time role.

‘I have been involved with the NGC since my time at university, where I was an avid participant in all events,” she said. “The club completely opened the racing and breeding industry up for me, and I want to make sure others get the same benefits.

“I am really looking forward to developing the concept of the new club into a unique fun community that simultaneously provides access, information and advice for members.”

Will be held on Cheltenham Countryside Day at Cheltenham racecourse on Friday, November 13. TBA members can gain free entry to Cheltenham on the day by producing their TBA membership card at the Owners & Trainers desk.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8 – THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10 Annual TBA Stud Farming Course, Newmarket The course is aimed at those with some experience of breeding or working on stud farms and provides an intensive three days of presentations, covering conception to care of the yearling, delivered by leading veterinary and industry experts.

NEW MEMBERS: Mr Charlie Budgett, Oxfordshire Mrs Belinda Clarke, Shropshire Mrs LN Fielding-Johnson, Somerset Mr David Young, Bedfordshire

Listen and learn at annual TBA Stud Farming Course Bookings are now being taken for the TBA’s Annual Stud Farming Course, which runs from December 8-10 at the British Racing School. Three days of lectures on topics ranging from conception of the foal to foaling and care of the newborn and older foal will be delivered by industry experts in an informal

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

setting, allowing for plenty of opportunity to ask questions and learn from speakers and other delegates.

The course fee for 2015 is £395 for TBA members (discounts are available for studs sending four or more delegates) and £495 for non-members (fee includes dinner on the first

night, lunches and refreshments, but not accommodation or other meals). TBA members will receive an application form in their October mailing. Places are limited.

For further information contact Christine Standley at the TBA on 01638 661321, or email Christine.standley@thetba.co.uk

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TBA FORUM

Nakuti clinches Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association Atalanta Stakes title Nelius Hayes’s tenacious filly Nakuti produced a career-best to claim the TBA Atalanta Stakes, a mile Group 3 contest at Sandown on August 22. The impressive four-year-old pulled out all the stops on the climb up to the line to win by a neck from Blond Me. Commenting on the win, trainer Sylvester Kirk said: “She has improved and got bigger and stronger as she has got older. I am thankful the owner kept her in training as they were going to send her off to stud at the end of her threeyear-old career.”

As a key race in the TBA’s sponsorship portfolio, and clearly a significant stepping stone for fillies, the TBA will follow Nakuti with interest along with the other notable fillies in the field.

David Bowe of Littleton Stud and a TBA Regional Representative, presents winning jockey Ben Curtis with his award, alongside winning trainer Sylvester Kirk

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Loyal TBA members Jane and Fred May present the best turned out award to Abdul Raheem, who looked after the winning filly, Norman Court Stud’s Nancy From Nairobi, who took the Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association EBF Stallions Fillies’ Handicap at Newmarket on August 7

A vital benefit not to forget Insurance is often on our to-do lists this time of year so we thought it best to remind you about the unique insurance benefit available to all TBA members.

During the past couple of years Amlin Plus has provided bloodstock insurance to TBA members and now they also provide the TBA Third Party Liability Insurance Policy, which is included within the price of the TBA membership.

If you have a renewal due in the next couple of months, or are considering insuring your bloodstock, please do take advantage of this unique benefit and contact John Needham, Amlin Plus’s appointed representative and TBA Regional Chairman, or the Insurance Team on 01892 890482 to obtain a quotation or for any valuable insurance advice. Amlin plus can provide a bloodstock insurance policy for all your needs:

Have peace of mind with your horse

• Colic/life saving cover for up to £5,000 veterinary fees

• All types of cover are available for your mares, foals, yearlings, racehorses and stallions

• Foal insurance from 24 hours, 30 or 90 days old

• Stallion infertility • Competitive exclusive rates for members

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

Oct_134_BreederOfTheMonth_Owner 23/09/2015 14:30 Page 92

BREEDER OF THE MONTH

www.thetba.co.uk

Words Alan Yuill Walker Sponsored by

Manufacturers of

BREEDER OF THE MONTH – August 2015

at that year’s December Sales from Plantation, she was still owned by the stud when winning as a three-year-old at Sligo in August 2008. The following year her brother Fame And Glory won the Irish Derby and John Warren paid 460,000gns to secure her for Newsells Park from Plantation, carrying to Dalakhani.

The inevitable mating between Slip Anchor and Grimpola resulted in Gonfalcon, grandam of Farhh and Racing History, a homebred Group 3 winner for Godolphin during August. Meanwhile, Yummy Mummy has a Redoute’s Choice filly (lot 24) in Book 1 of Tattersalls’ October Yearling Sale.

Newsells Park Stud Newsells Park Stud certainly experienced mixed fortunes in August. On the first day of the month, 1,000 Guineas heroine Legatissimo won the Nassau Stakes to confirm her reputation as one of the top fillies of her generation – subsequently her Sea The Stars half-brother Royal Battalion was successful over hurdles at Fontwell Park! They cost 350,000gns and 575,000gns respectively as yearlings.

Then 2013 Oaks runner-up Secret Gesture, whom Newsells Park own in partnership with Qatar Racing, finished first in the Grade 1 Beverly D Stakes at Arlington Park, only to suffer a controversial disqualification.

And resident stallion Equiano was responsible for Waipu Cove, a Listed juvenile winner in Ireland.

The stud, at Royston in Hertfordshire, is managed by Julian Dollar for Renata Jacobs, widow of Klaus Jacobs, whose family are synonymous with the celebrated Gestut Fahrhof in Germany. Legatissimo represents an Anglo-German phenomenon instigated by Lord Howard de Walden of Plantation Stud and his manager Leslie Harrison.

Having purchased Sayonara, dam of their 1985 Derby hero Slip Anchor, they then imported Grimpola (German 1,000 Guineas), the third dam of Legatissimo. Her dam Yummy Mummy was foaled in March 2005 and that July, Plantation Stud was sold to Irish property developer Dermot O’Rourke – it is now owned by Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary of Gigginstown House Stud.

Although Yummy Mummy, a daughter of Montjeu, realised 46,000gns

SPECIAL MERIT – August 2015

Littleton Stud

GEORGE SELWYN

British owner/breeders who maintain a stud of pre-war proportions are almost an extinct breed.

A rare survivor is Jeff Smith of Littleton Stud, Hampshire, whose filly Arabian Queen overturned Golden Horn to win the International Stakes at York – a Group 1 event in which his Norse Dancer finished runner-up in 2004.

Smith achieved a sensational double at the Ebor meeting during the 1990s, winning the Nunthorpe Stakes with the half-sisters Lochsong and Lochangel. The former was a daughter of Song, who was still standing at Littleton when Smith acquired the property from Bruce Deane of Tattersalls in 1984.

Lochsong and Lochangel were trained by Ian Balding, whereas Arabian Queen is with David Elsworth. He also handled that fine stayer Persian Punch in the same ownership albeit, like Chief Singer, Smith’s first notable flag-bearer, and Norse Dancer, he was not homebred.

Arabian Queen is the first foal of the one-eyed Barshiba, twice winner of the Lancashire Oaks, and Smith bred her dam Dashiba to a mating between homebred Dashing Blade and Alsiba. The latter, a close relative to Northern Treasure (Irish 2,000 Guineas), was purchased through John Warren for 58,000gns as a four-year-old in training at the 1986 Newmarket December Sales.

Barshiba’s next offspring is a two-year-old Australian Queen (by Fastnet Rock), also in training with Elsworth, and she produced a filly foal by Dubawi (a sister to Arabian Queen) before visiting New Approach.

For a number of years Littleton Stud has been managed by Irishman David Bowe. With a public footpath running through the middle of this Hampshire stud, he also has a few untoward responsibilities on his shoulders!

Legatissimo, a dual Group 1 winner and Oaks runner-up

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Oct_134_NGC_Owner 24/09/2015 10:40 Page 93

N E X T G E N E R AT I O N C L U B

www.nextgenerationclub.com

By Lydia Symonds

Meet the new committee members As the NGC prepares to undergo some big changes, five fresh faces join the team

T

he new committee for the NGC, which will by Christmas have a completely new look including a new name, seems to have all areas covered.

Readers of this page will have met the new Chairman Harry Williams and he will be joined on the committee for this TBA initiative by five other bright young stars from the world of bloodstock, all with varied backgrounds and different areas of expertise that will ensure this new club will be a help to any young person hoping to get into any area of the sport.

Here, the five new members set out their ideas for the way forward for the NGC.

Matt Prior Age: 29 Occupation: Bloodstock executive for Tattersalls “I think what needs to be improved is how we engage with our target audience and ensure that we provide a great service and it achieves its goal of trying to encourage the thoroughbred enthusiasm. I was very fortunate to get into bloodstock (through the Darley Flying Start) from a background that wasn’t in the industry so I feel I can identify with those that are coming from that angle. While I can’t claim to have all the answers I might be able to share some of my own experiences with anyone thinking of pursuing a job within the sport.”

Zoe Vicarage Age: 21 Occupation: Bloodstock journalist for the Racing Post “I would like to break the perception that it’s a sport for the older generation THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

“I would like to think that this club can act as the guidance people need to get into the sport” and hopefully the new club can showcase that there are a lot of younger people involved and interested in it. I’m very young and having just come out of university I have a lot of fresh ideas that could only help the club grow. I think student racedays and clubs are a great way to get younger people going racing and into the sport and a good way forward, and if we could work with them it would be a good way to get the name out there."

Simon Mitchell Age: 36 Occupation: Managing director of Incentive Media publishing “Having worked within the industry for ten years I have a good understanding of it and hopefully I will be able to bring some new initiatives and use the club as a way to engage and excite some people into it. I think the affiliation with the TBA will give us extra impetus and gravitas to be able to do that – having their support and just having like-minded individuals all hoping to make some changes.

Awareness of the club is the key thing that needs to be addressed and communication with our demographic; it’s about getting the name out there and getting people to join.

The new committee is diverse enough that we have every area covered and hopefully we can grow the club and help get people involved in whatever area of the industry they desire.”

Tom Blain Age: 28 Occupation: Stud Manager at Barton Stud “It needs to reach more people and whoever signs up needs to be committed to it and to racing. It needs to offer something substantial and interesting, to be more streamlined and work alongside the TBA. We need to give people the incentive to join but also a reason for them to stay on with the club. People need to feel like they will benefit from being a part of this club. As I am one of the youngest stud managers around, I can bring the experience of how you get into it. When you look at the committee, we all got into the sport in different ways and we should aim to become mentors to the young people trying to make it in bloodstock or indeed racing in general. I hope I can do that.”

James O’Donnell Age: 37 Occupation: Nominations executive for Juddmonte “I have worked in all areas of bloodstock at home and abroad so I can bring a lot experience to the committee having worked in the industry for a long time. The aim needs to be making people aware of all the different parts of the industry, while also making them understand it. This initiative needs to work with people within the bloodstock world to let people know the options and guide them to make the right decisions. I got into the industry through limited contacts working my way up. I would like to think this club can act as the guidance people need to get into the sport and not be daunted by the many areas of this industry. Given the right direction, we can help them pursue a career within it.”

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VET FORUM: THE EXPERT VIEW

By ROB PILSWORTH MRCVS

Bone bruises: what’s going on?

Subchondral bone pain can be an occupational hazard for horses in training

T

he news that California Chrome will miss the rest of the season with a ‘bone bruise’ to his distal cannon bone, following his non-appearance at Royal Ascot because of lameness, has left this Horse of the Year’s stunning career with something of a question mark hanging over it. Though California Chrome is hopefully set to race on in 2016, previous Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Smarty Jones, multiple Group 1 winner Winter Memories and Belmont Stakes winner Palace Malice all retired at the height of their careers with the diagnosis of ‘bone bruising’. Though seemingly the ‘fashionable’ career-ending disease for the racehorse in North America, it is nothing new. But what does it entail, and are we are seeing it in British racing?

Unfortunately, the term has stuck and now tends to be used for any horse showing lameness in the distal cannon bone which is linked to damage of the region of bone immediately below the articular cartilage, known as subchondral bone.

Is it a new disease?

Fig 1 The typical appearance of a subchondral bone injury at postmortem exam in a horse which died for unrelated reasons. The blue discolouration often seen has given rise to the term ‘bone bruise’, but this may not be strictly appropriate

The disease The very word ‘bone bruise’ is something of an oxymoron. Bone pathologists despair at the fact that this wording has been adopted to describe a pathological condition in bone which is very far from the usual definition of bruise. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a bruise as ‘an area of discoloured skin on the body, caused by a blow’ or ‘a damaged area on a fruit or vegetable’. In man and animals, a bruise is produced because of rupture of blood vessels as a result of a traumatic impact. The blood leaks from the damaged vessels and forms the bruise, initially a dark red/purple colour as the blood becomes deoxygenated and goes from its normal red appearance to the deoxygenated form of haemoglobin, which is purple.

With time, the bruise gradually dissipates, becoming yellow, as the haemoglobin breaks down into its sub unit parts, which are cleared gradually by the lymph vessels.

In the very dense bone we find supporting horses’ joints, this sequence of events cannot really take place. Almost certainly, the condition we are talking about became known as a ‘bone bruise’ because of the superficial appearance of the lesion in the bone (see Fig 1). The blue discolouration in these areas of bone is not the result of a single impact trauma causing leakage of blood from damaged vessels, but rather the end of a long process of degeneration, which allows areas of bone to die.

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Part of the body’s response to this is to invade the area of damaged bone with new blood vessels, trying to clear away the debris and allow the repair of the injured area.

Almost certainly, no. Trainers for centuries have described a condition in horses following a run on inappropriately fast ground, where the horses are described as being ‘jarred up’. This description, which all trainers and racehorse vets would recognise, consists of a horse which is not overtly lame, but which moves with a short shuffling action in front and a mincing, ‘shuffly’ action behind, usually indicative of a degree of pain being present in all four fetlock joints.

Sometimes, with the use of local anaesthetic solution, it is possible to abolish the lameness in one fetlock joint at a time going around in a ‘clockface’ and by doing so the true nature and degree of the lameness is

Fig 2 The long bones of the skeleton adapt remarkably quickly during the training of the racehorse, adding new bone where needed to increase strength.

This process is illustrated here in comparing the thickness of the shin of a twoyear-old and a late three-year-old. Unfortunately, near to the joint surfaces adding extra bone mass is not an option because the intricate shape of the joint surfaces has to be maintained, and this can lead to problems

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revealed. Often, once the pain from one leg is blocked out, the horse will show an overt moderate to marked lameness in the other forelimb. When the pain from that leg is also removed the horse trots very freely in front but still shuffles behind, and similarly the pain can be removed from each hind fetlock joint in turn, rendering what was a ‘jarred up’ horse to move in a totally different way.

These horses are usually suffering from pain originating from subchondral bone, and what has changed over the years is our ability to diagnose the condition, and to understand something of its causation. In essence, we fall back on the term ‘bone bruising’ to explain a lameness which originates from the fetlock joint, is not associated with a marked amount of heat or swelling of the joint, often has no abnormality visible on radiography, and yet for which the lameness can be abolished by injection of local anaesthetic into that joint.

Why does it happen?

Racehorses have an enormous workload placed upon their skeletons and they adapt to this well. The long bones are in a constant state of flux, changing in their shape and size depending upon the workloads placed upon them.

A classic example of this is the dorsal cortex of the third metacarpal bone, commonly known as the ‘shin’. Figs 2a and b show the shin of a relatively untrained two-year-old compared to that of an older racehorse that has gone through a full training programme. The thickness of the bone in the shin has increased enormously in order to cope with the increased loads placed upon it by a combination of speed and load.

Fig 4 The area of bone arrowed takes most of the load during full weight-bearing, when the sesamoid bone (double arrows) swivels around the corner in full weight-bearing

In the joints, the skeleton is not able to undergo the same process because the architecture of the joint has to be preserved.

In certain areas, such as the back of the fetlock joint, enormous loads are generated when the horse is in full galloping exercise as all of its weight is taken up by the ‘elastic band’ of the suspensory apparatus and tendons, often concentrated in only one weight-bearing leg (Fig 3). These forces are transmitted to the back of the cannon bone through the natural pulley-wheel, the sesamoid bone (See Fig 4). Because the bone in the end of the cannon bone cannot change size and shape to adapt to this load, what it

does is to increase its mineral density.

Bone is normally composed of crystals of brittle material called hydroxyapatite bound together in a matrix of dense connective tissues called collagen. Areas of bone under repetitive intense loading, such as takes place at the back of the fetlock joint, become increasingly composed of dense, hard stonelike bone and lose their ability to act as shock absorbers, which normal subchondral bone will do. This seems to compromise the bone’s ability to withstand recurrent loading and eventually the bone begins to crack.

If cyclic repetitive loading continues whilst the body is trying to repair these cracks, then a downhill vicious spiral takes place, resulting eventually in the death of areas of damaged bone and its collapse. This is the end stage of subchondral bone injury and has a very poor prognosis for full restoration

Fig 6a The typical appearance of a bone scan of a subchondral bone injury. In this view it is difficult to tell whether the ‘hot spot’ is in the cannon bone or the sesamoid

of function (Fig 5). We therefore have to find ways of diagnosing the condition and intervening long before this end stage occurs.

MANDY DAVIS

How do we diagnose it?

Fig 3 A horse at full stretch often has all of its 4-500kg bodyweight concentrated on one leg. The fetlock joint undergoes enormous loading in this stance, as can be seen by the degree of ‘sinking’ in this horse’s joint. Grass staining on the back of the joint is a regular feature post-gallop for this reason

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

Fig 5 The end stage of subchondral bone injury in the plantar surface of the fetlock joint. The lesion arrowed shows that the cartilage layer of the joint is intact but that the bone supporting it underneath has died and collapsed inwards. This often produces profound lameness

The reason that subchondral bone injury has become an increasingly recognised condition really depends on two novel imaging modalities which entered thoroughbred equine practice. The first of these is scintigraphy.

Here, a radioactive chemical is injected into the horse and circulates in the bloodstream. Prior to injection it has been attached to a specialised molecule, methylene diphosphonate, which is actively taken up by all bone as it mimics phosphorous, one of the natural ingredients of bone. The entire skeleton will take up the radio labelled methylene diphosphonate and it will do so in a direct relationship to its metabolic activity and its blood supply.

Areas of bone which are highly active, or undergoing damage and repair, will ‘light up’

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>>

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VET FORUM

Fig 6b By flexing the joint and repeating the scan, it is now obvious that the ‘hot spot’ is in the cannon bone (grey arrow) and not in the sesamoid (black arrow)

>> in contrast to the rest of the skeleton, which

will show a normal background level of uptake. Focal areas of bone damage in the distal cannon bones so often implicated in ‘bone bruising’ are particularly easy to see as ‘hot spots’ (see Figs 6a and b), and it was scintigraphy which alerted clinicians to the extremely common nature of this condition in the racing thoroughbred.

However, scintigraphy just tells us that something is going on in that site and doesn’t tell us what. X-ray examination of these ‘hot spots’ has often proved unrewarding, but the introduction of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), particularly that which can be carried out in the standing horse, for the first time allowed us to look in detail inside the cannon bone and to see what was going on. Horses affected by pain linked to the distal cannon bone often showed several features on MRI which were consistent from case to case.

These included marked hypermineralisation, which is seen in one type of MRI scan as a change in colour of the bone from grey to dense black (see Fig 7).

In addition to this, on another sequence of MRI scans, horses affected with severe lameness often showed a white signal in some areas, typical of that produced by fluid.

This has been termed bone oedema-like signal, but even here we are not certain that the signal genuinely represents oedema.

Oedema, by definition, is an accumulation of fluid within the body tissues and we’re not certain that this is actually happening in these dense areas of bone. Others have termed this finding ‘inflammatory signal’, but even in this case we’re not sure that inflammation is genuinely involved.

Defining our terms Earlier this year a Havermeyer Symposium on subchondral bone injuries took place in Newmarket and one of the prime goals of this meeting was for clinicians, pathologists and radiologists to agree on what these appearances actually represent within the bone, and to adopt a set of nomenclature

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which would be universally understood and be directly related to the pathological conditions occurring within the bone.

Scientists, clinicians and research workers from around the world gathered at the meeting to exchange the most recent information on this frustrating condition and it is hoped in due course that a published summary of the meeting’s findings will be made available to all, and will increase our understanding of the disease.

What do we do about it?

Treatment of this condition is still controversial. Most clinicians would agree that, following early diagnosis in the young horse, a period of reduced exercise is essential to allow the bone to recover. But what form of exercise this should be has not yet been established. Larry Bramlage, a wellrespected partner of the Rood and Riddle practice in Kentucky, has for many years expounded the virtues of free paddock exercise in the resolution of this condition.

In relation to California Chrome’s injury, he commented: “California Chrome’s X-rays showed all of his joints to be remarkably clean. He has the early signs of bruising to the bottom of the cannon bones. Horses training at high levels for long periods of time, like California Chrome has, gradually get behind in the bone’s response to the stress because we train them and then ask them to stand in the stall for most of the day.

“Horses evolved as grazing animals and that is how their bone’s blood supply works best. So the treatment is to get them back to their natural state, let them be a horse in the paddock until the bone returns to normal.

The return rate for horses with this problem

Fig 7 An MRI scan of the distal cannon bone. MRI scans show the internal structure of the bone in a way not possible with radiography. Here an area of damaged cannon bone in the typical site of ‘bone bruising’ shows as increased signal (black), indicative of increased mineralisation.

is very high. When we researched prognosis for distal cannon bone bruising, we found that recovery rate was 95% after giving time in the paddock to heal.”

Free pasture turn-out may not be an option in some UK training environments, particularly for colts, and this had led others to experiment with changing the exercise regime of the horse whilst maintaining it in training. Lungeing without tack and rider, swimming, walking and jogging have been used with some success to allow these injuries to heal whilst the horse stays on the move. The one thing which most clinicians seem to agree on is that long periods of immobility and stable rest is not the most useful course of action.

The reason that high-profile horses are retired in the face of this disease is often not so much that they are incurable, but that they have reached a high level of value for breeding which has to be weighed against cost of their long-term removal from training and the chance that their return to competitive activity will be unsuccessful.

They are ‘news’ at the time of the injury, and if they are laid off for long periods and then return with a sub-optimal performance, their value is diminished.

Most horses even with advanced stages of this disease would rapidly become pasturesound following a period of rest, and it is these economic factors that often dictate retirement, rather than the true severity of the disease. We have to also guard against the possibility that we shove many different disease states into this convenient ‘bucket group’.

Again, to quote Dr Bramlage: “Like all diagnoses and all treatments in veterinary medicine, there’s a cycle. We learn that something works, we use it (the diagnosis) on everything. That’s the diagnosis of bone bruising. We learned that it was there, so now we call everything bone bruising.”

Subchondral bone injury is an occupational hazard of the racehorse and will remain a frequent diagnosis implicated in poor performance or lameness. Future research might be extremely beneficial as in comparison of ‘horse to horse’ and ‘trainer to trainer’. Vets dealing with many different trainers will undoubtedly have trainers who seem to get an enormous number of cases of this disease, and others who get very few.

Similarly, within a training yard of 100 horses, the fact is that the majority of horses will not suffer from obvious subchondral bone pain, and yet some others do, very early in their careers. We need to identify the factors that predispose the individual horse to this condition and the training factors that predispose whole populations of horses to the problem. Only then can we take steps to give firm advice over its avoidance.

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

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‘Spring Cleaning’ shouldn’t just be the preserve of the early year and, as we approach winter, it’s a good time to tidy up and carry out repairs and maintenance before the days shorten and the weather turns against us. Autumn is the ideal time to inspect, repair and replace fencing, test soil, treat the pasture where necessary and deal with roundworms during the relevant part of their lifecycle, writes Lissa Oliver

FENCING General maintenance will include repair and replacement of any damaged fencing, to ensure the safety of horses returning to those paddocks. Wooden posts and rails will require creosote or water-based wood preservatives every four to five years, so it’s sensible to spread this task out evenly over a five-year period and treat individual paddocks annually. A maintenance book with details of repairs carried out and dates is a useful aid in this respect and can be referred to over the years.

Horserail “Primarily people are taking animals off their land at this time of year, so it makes perfect sense to carry out paddock maintenance now,” says Ruth Todd, Sales Manager of Horserail.

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warranty. The average price of Horserail is just £2.70 per metre per rail and this includes the rail and the fittings.

With safety so important, it’s reassuring to read that Horserail is the preferred choice of both owners and breeders. “We have been manufacturing Horserail for over 20 years and have never had a single injury. We have a lot of calls asking if it’s safe for foals or stallions,” Ruth reveals, “which of course it is. Recently a lady thanked us for saving her yearling. He had been let into a paddock after some box rest and bolted straight into the far rail. He simply bounced off it, uninjured. It’s possible had he run into a traditional post and rail it would probably have killed him.”

Horserail is available in three colours: black, brown and white. It is extremely versatile and can be used in a variety of applications such as paddocks, lunging rings, gallops, arenas and horse walkers.

The unique construction of Horserail gives strength and flexibility. The rail itself contains three strands of high tensile wire that has been tested to a breaking strain of 1.8 tonne, with no sharp corners or rough edges on the

rail or its attachments. If a horse runs into the fence it will simply bounce back off it.

Similarly, if a horse puts its leg through the rail, Horserail will not break, wrap or burn the horse’s body in any way. The rail is made from medium density polyethylene, which is the highest quality plastic available and is UV stable; it will not discolor or become brittle when exposed to even the most extreme weather conditions. It also contains a mould inhibitor, preventing unsightly green growth and all attachments are galvanized to prevent rusting.

Horserail also has the option to be electrified, giving you additional security.

Having this extra component built in means not only do you save on the cost of installing an additional fencing system but also have added peace of mind. Because of the way Horserail has been developed, the electric current will never break down, even after years of use and testing weather conditions.

Horserail is the only fencing company that now manufacturers a rail of fencing that can be electrified both top and bottom of the rail, better known as Hot-Top PLUS.

Horserail is extremely versatile and can be used in a variety of applications including paddocks, lunging rings and gallops

100

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Oct_134_AdFeaturev2_Owner Breeder 23/09/2015 14:36 Page 102

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As a word of caution, Ruth says: “We’ve been having a lot of issues with replica rails imported from China and offered as Horserail. This imitation fence will fail, fall apart, cannot be electrified and the brackets will rust within just a short period of time. If you have been offered the copied fence please take note that all of our brackets have the Horserail name engraved into them along with Horserail stickers on the rails too.

“We are the sole distributor of Horserail.

We sell direct, therefore keeping the cost as low as possible and also for a more personal customer service.”

www.horserail.org.uk

Norcroft For those who prefer the traditional wooden post and rail, Norcroft have over 40 years experience within the equine market and during that time have built a reputation for quality and service, while continuing to research and pioneer new fencing systems.

“Fencing remains an essential part of today’s equine industry. Owners and breeders rightly demand safety as a priority above all else, but also require strength, durability and a pleasing appearance,” say Norcroft, the sole European distributors of Keepsafe Diamond-Mesh Fence. The smooth springy texture of Keepsafe allows horses to brush and bump harmlessly against the surface and virtually eliminates fence-related equine injuries, as well as providing durability and low maintenance costs for a long-term economical benefit.

Keepsafe is the first choice of professionals and is widely used throughout the world as a comprehensive fencing solution for mares, foals, yearlings and stallions, as well as cattle and sheep. First manufactured in 1909, few wire systems can claim such durability.

Norcroft: traditional wooden post and rail supplier for over 40 years

Examples of Keepsafe remain on stud farms in the US after 60 years. Such durability offers long-term cost-effectiveness coupled with low maintenance costs. The counter-woven wire system provides unique safety, ensuring that no rough edges remain on either side.

The close-knit weave also bars predators from entering the paddock when installed to ground level.

Before any type of fencing is purchased, however, Norcroft recommend seriously considering the Square Deal horse fence.

Square Deal is manufactured by a US wire producer and is backed by 100 years of traditional fencing and carries the Red Brand label, a guarantee of product quality. Norcroft are the sole European distributor.

Square Deal offers durability few fencing systems can match. The heavy-duty bright finish galvanised wire is designed and

Calders & Grandidge: the widely-respected name in pressure-treated timber

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constructed to maximise the close woven pattern, offering maximum durability, even on impact, but preventing buckling or sagging, even after years of service. The narrow pattern prevents horses from stepping through or ‘walking down’ the fence.

www.norcroft.com

Calders & Grandidge With over 100 years of experience, Calders & Grandidge is one of the oldest and most wellrespected names in the UK pressure-treated timber sector and holders of the Royal Warrant for the supply of preserved timber fencing to Her Majesty The Queen.

Operating from a 46-acre site in Boston, Lincolnshire, they supply creosoted timber poles, railway sleepers, gates and fencing and are one of the leading suppliers of pressure-treated timber poles.

Calders & Grandidge pressure-treat timber with creosote for unrivalled long service life, or Celcure for a 15 to 30 year desired service life. Creosote pressure treatment not only extends the life expectance of timber products but is particularly useful in agricultural applications, as animals will not chew on creosoted timber.

The fencing supplied to Her Majesty can be found in situ at The Royal Studs and all Calders & Grandidge fencing and gate products are produced to the same high standards. With their own milling facilities and highly knowledgeable staff, they are able to produce bespoke products, as well as working with customers’ unique designs to create one-off products. They stock a full range of fencing and gates, available for nationwide delivery on their own fleet of specialist crane offload vehicles.

www.caldersandgrandidge.com THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

Oct_134_AdFeaturev2_Owner Breeder 23/09/2015 14:36 Page 103

AU T U M N PADDO CK M AINT ENANCE

Hay-Hutch: strong enough to withstand the kick of a horse, but easy to move

OUT WINTERING All-weather paddocks or large barns are becoming a preferred alternative to turning horses out into winter paddocks, but are not an option for everyone. Where horses are turned out during winter, lighter free-draining land with good natural shelter should be used. Horses should be moved out early in the spring to provide sufficient time for the damaged sward to recover before spring grazing.

Hay-Hutch Winter damage can be minimised with the aid of the Hay-Hutch, a moveable plastic container for feeding hay. Its portability prevents poaching and soil compaction, while the hutch itself keeps hay clean and dry and prevents wastage. A special locking bolt is supplied to prevent horses from rotating the lid to remove it.

The owner of the business and thoroughbred breeder herself, Gilly Metherell, came up with the first design back in 2005 and has been using them with her horses very successfully ever since.

A Hay-Hutch can save up to 25% of hay or haylage and its durable design ensures it will last for years. There are four different sizes available for all requirements, with a large Hay-Hutch (€394/£290.00) ideal for groups of horses. It has six apertures and holds two and a half small bales of hay. The medium (€242/£178.00) has three apertures and can be used in a paddock or large stable, holding one small bale. A smaller version is also available (€224/£165.00) for use outside or in a large stable. There is a mini size too for stables (£105.00).

When horses know that good, dry hay is always available within the Hay-Hutch they become more content and less likely to fight over it, so it can deter the behaviour of bullies among the group.

The Hay-Hutch is individually manufactured using high quality polymer, strong enough to withstand a kick from a horse, yet light enough

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

to pick up, roll or drag along. It is waterproof and will not rust or degrade. It takes around one hour to make each Hay-Hutch.

www.hay-hutch.co.uk

HEAVY WORK Many horse owners keep their horses at home and the use, maintenance and storage of tractors and heavier machinery is impractical.

Relying on contractors can also be costly and not always convenient, so mini-tractors make an ideal labour-saving addition to a small holding.

Avant Tecno Avant Tecno was founded in 1991 and manufactures an extensive range of high quality, compact, multi-purpose tool carriers. All equipment is designed and manufactured at the

company’s facility in Finland, where the most modern production technology is used. This includes automated sheet metal laser cutting machines, robot welding and automatic powder coat painting, with all processes strictly controlled by the Avant Tecno quality control system.

The UK branch of Avant Tecno is based near Thetford in Norfolk and has sold over 5,000 compact loaders to a broad spectrum of end users, including farmers, landscape gardeners, local authorities, horse owners and private individuals. Outlets around Britain promote the many benefits offered by the small but dynamic green machines and the vast range of tasks they are able to undertake when equipped with any of a choice of over 150 different attachments.

The Avant 200 series loader was developed as a compact multi-purpose work machine for homeowners, vacation houses and smaller farms. It is ideal for creating flowerbeds, new lawns and ponds, as well as lawn mowing and other maintenance jobs. Earthmoving and leveling is a quick and easy process with Avant.

Thanks to its excellent all-terrain capabilities the Avant 200 series works in forests as well, with the aid of its four-wheel drive and small turning radius. Avant has developed attachments for forest work, including timber trailer, hydraulic winch, log processor and log splitter.

The Avant 200 series is equipped as standard with a lift arm, powerful auxiliary hydraulics with oil cooler, hydraulic power steering, trailer coupling, work lights and safety frame with tinted plexiglass canopy and is ready to work immediately. Driving and working with the Avant 200 series is very easy, with two pedals for driving direction and speed, hand throttle and steering wheel. This makes driving safe and quick to learn.

www.avanttecno.com

Avant Tecno has been manufacturing high quality equipment since 1991

103

ownerbreeder ad pages 10-2015_OwnerBreeder Ad pages 10.2015 22/09/2015 10:25 Page 104

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Oct_134_DrStatz_Owner Breeder 24/09/2015 11:49 Page 105

DR STAT JOHN BOYCE CRACKS THE CODE

Dubawi’s strength at a mileplus keeping him in the race Strong stamina influence Galileo just shading it from a black-type and Timeform perspective

T

he title race for champion sire in Britain and Ireland is hotting up. At the time of writing, Galileo has a narrow lead over Dubawi and if the Coolmore stalwart holds on to that lead, it will be his sixth consecutive championship and seventh overall. Moreover, should another title fall Galileo’s way in 2015, it will be the 26th consecutive leading sire for Coolmore since Blushing Groom took the title in 1989, on the back of the exploits of Classic winners Nashwan and Snow Bride.

But despite Galileo’s apparent dominance, there is nothing at all to choose between him and Dubawi. In fact, from a European earnings perspective, it is Dubawi who holds a healthy lead heading into the business end of the season.

A few months back in this column, I attempted to shed some light on the in-built bias of the prize-money structure in our racing. The gist of my argument was that the opportunity to earn was far greater at distances above ten furlongs, such is the competitive nature of sprints and mile races where many runners compete for comparatively less money than their middledistance counterparts. Even the Group 1 races short of a mile are run for a fraction of the purses on offer for the Derby, Eclipse and King George.

There is no doubt that this phenomenon plays a part in deciding where the sires’ championship goes. Essentially, if a stallion’s runners cannot compete successfully at the top in the ten- and 12-furlong races, it is almost inevitable that they will not be champion sire material. But it doesn’t mean the door is completely shut. Two of Coolmore’s other champion sires, Danehill and his son Danehill Dancer, couldn’t be described as mere stamina influences. Danehill could do it all: top-class sprinters, milers, middle-distance horses and stayers, but his big contributers during his three championship years were the likes of Dylan Thomas and Duke Of Marmalade, both excellent at ten furlongs and beyond.

Similarly, it was Mastercraftsman who helped Danehill Dancer to his title in 2009.

It is Dubawi’s strength beyond a mile that has him vying for the title this year. Al Kazeem, Postponed and Arabian Queen have all done their bit in the right races in 2015. But let’s leave the sires’ title aside and run the rule over Galileo and Dubawi, both from a black-type and Timeform perspective. The enclosed table shows THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

The average Timeform rating of the top ten runners

by Dubawi and Galileo after each year on the racecourse D"F

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how the pair’s top ten horses by average Timeform ratings compare as their careers have developed over time. The table looks at each sire’s first seven years at the races (not counting their first-year two-year-old runners), as Dubawi is only in year seven of his career.

By year five, there was nothing to choose between them, with Galileo’s top ten runners

Dubawi’s son Postponed after winning the King George under Andrea Atzeni

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averaging just 1lb more than Dubawi’s. In years six and seven that gap has grown to 2lb, helped in no small way by the arrival of the great Frankel. Galileo has since progressed his top ten average on to 132 by year 11, and the challenge for Dubawi over the next four years is to move his best ten average up by 5lb – a tall order indeed.

Another measure of a stallion’s success is his ratio of stakes winners, particularly when it is combined with Timeform ratings. Galileo’s 171 stakes winners represent 15% of his runners, while Dubawi’s 78 account for 14%. That said, Dubawi’s 78 stakes winners have an average Timeform rating of 115, which is just about the best in the business – in fact, it is 1lb ahead of Galileo. It is also remarkable that by the end of year seven, no sire has had more stakes winners or Group winners than Dubawi.

When it comes to aptitude, these two great stallions definitely fall into different camps. The average winning distance of Galileo’s mature stock is 11 furlongs, while Dubawi’s winners aged three and up average nine furlongs. Even more interesting is the fact that the siblings of Galileo’s runners in general prefer shorter trips (9.3 furlongs), suggesting that he does contribute plenty of stamina to his offspring, unlike Dubawi (9.0 furlongs).

105

Oct_134_DataBook_Layout 1 24/09/2015 09:52 Page 106

DATA BOOK ANALYSIS BY ANDREW CAULFIELD

European Group 1s 218 GROSSER PREIS VON BERLIN G1 BERLIN-HOPPEGARTEN. Aug 9. 3yo+. 2400m.

1. SECOND STEP (IRE) 4 9-6 £85,271 b g by Dalakhani - My Dark Rosaleen (Sadler’s Wells) O-Merry Fox Stud Limited B-Merry Fox Stud Limited TR-Luca Cumani 2. Ito (GER) 4 9-6 £31,008 b c by Adlerflug - Iota (Tiger Hill) O- Gestut Schlenderhan B-Gestut Schlenderhan TR-Jean-Pierre Carvalho 3. Nutan (IRE) 3 8-9 £11,628 b c by Duke of Marmalade - Neele (Peintre Celebre) O- Stall Nizza B-Juergen Imm TR-P Schiergen Margins 0.75, 0.75. Time 2:28.60. Going Good.

Age 2-4

Starts 9

Wins 5

Places 3

Earned £198,599

Sire: DALAKHANI. Sire of 46 Stakes winners. In 2015 - SECOND STEP Sadler’s Wells G1, ALEX MY BOY Sadler’s Wells G2, GUARDINI Dynaformer G2, CANDARLIYA Barathea G3, AYRAD Sadler’s Wells LR. 1st Dam: My Dark Rosaleen by Sadler’s Wells. Own sister to SILK AND SCARLET. Dam of 2 winners: 2010: MALLORY HEIGHTS (g Dalakhani) 2 wins at 3.

2011: SECOND STEP (g Dalakhani) 5 wins at 3 and 4 at home, Germany, Grosser Preis von Berlin G1, Dunaden at Overbury Jockey Club S G2, Finale S LR, 2nd Arqana Princess of Wales’s S G2.

2013: Yellow Band (f Dalakhani) unraced to date.

2014: (c Distorted Humor) 2nd Dam: Danilova by Lyphard. unraced. Dam of SILK AND SCARLET (f Sadler’s Wells: Robert H Griffin Debutante S G2), DANGER OVER (c Warning: Prix de Seine-et-Oise G3). Grandam of EISHIN APOLLON, MASTER OF HOUNDS, MINORETTE, Big Hunter, Belle Jeanne, Play The Game, Treat Yourself.

Broodmare Sire: SADLER’S WELLS. Sire of the dams of 368 Stakes winners. In 2015 - BLAZING SPEED Dylan Thomas G1, DIAMONDSANDRUBIES Fastnet Rock G1, FLINTSHIRE Dansili G1, GUST OF WIND Darci Brahma G1, SECOND STEP Dalakhani G1.

The Dalakhani/Sadler’s Wells cross has produced: CHINESE WHITE G1, CONDUIT G1, RELIABLE MAN G1, SECOND STEP G1, ALEX MY BOY G2, Little White Cloud G2, DEEM G3, SHREYAS G3, YAHRAB G3, Highly Toxic G3, Murmansk G3, Unwritten Rule G3, AKLAN LR, AYRAD LR, MIREILLE LR, Oranais LR.

SECOND STEP b g 2011 Mill Reef Hardiemma Abdos Delsy Kelty DALAKHANI gr 00 Mr Prospector Miswaki Hopespringseternal Daltawa Crystal Palace Damana Denia Nearctic Northern Dancer Natalma Sadler’s Wells Bold Reason Fairy Bridge Special MY DARK ROSALEEN b 05 Northern Dancer Lyphard Goofed Danilova Irish River Ballinderry Miss Manon Shirley Heights

Darshaan

Juddmonte’s lengthy foal-sharing arrangement with Coolmore centred on that great stallion Sadler’s Wells.

On the racecourse this partnership’s finest representatives were the St Leger winner Brian Boru and the high-class international ten-furlong horse Powerscourt. Several of the fillies produced by the foal share have also gone on to shine as broodmares.

For example, the unraced Soviet Moon produced the Derby and Arc winner Workforce for Juddmonte, and the Gr2 winner Silk And Scarlet has become one of those very rare broodmares with Gr1 winners to her

106

credit in three different countries – Master Of Hounds in Dubai, Eishin Apollon in Japan and Minorette in the US. Now Silk And Scarlet’s younger sister My Dark Rosaleen has also become a Gr1 producer, thanks to her son Second Step. Unlike her sister, My Dark Rosaleen failed to win, but was second twice. The highly progressive Second Step added the Gr1 Grosser Preis von Berlin to his earlier success in the Gr2 Jockey Club Stakes. The gelding’s German victory makes him Dalakhani’s fourth Gr1 winner out of a Sadler’s Wells mare, following Conduit (St Leger, King George and two editions of the Breeders’ Cup Turf), Chinese White (Pretty Polly Stakes) and Reliable Man (Prix du Jockey-Club).

A notable feature of the pedigrees of My Dark Rosaleen and Silk And Scarlet is that they are inbred 2 x 3 to the great Northern Dancer. Viviana, a very successful Juddmonte broodmare, was another inbred 2 x 3 to Northern Dancer, as was Youmzain’s successful dam Sadima and Chichicastenango’s dam Smala.

My Dark Rosaleen is also a half-sister to the Gr3-winning sprinter Danger Over, whereas their dam Danilova was a half-sister to Sanglamore, winner of the Prix du Jockey-Club and Prix d’Ispahan.

Second Step’s third dam, Ballinderry, won the Gr2 Ribblesdale Stakes and was a daughter of the highly successful broodmare Miss Manon.

219 KEENELAND PHOENIX STAKES G1 CURRAGH. Aug 9. 2yoc&f. 6f.

1. AIR FORCE BLUE (USA) 9-3 £112,403 b/br c by War Front - Chatham (Maria’s Mon) O-Mrs John Magnier,Mr M.Tabor & Mr D.Smith B-Stone Farm TR-Aidan O’Brien 2. Washington DC (IRE) 9-3 £36,822 b c by Zoffany - How’s She Cuttin’ (Shinko Forest) O-Mrs John Magnier,Mr M.Tabor & Mr D.Smith B-P. Hyland & C. & J. Mchale TR-Aidan O’Brien 3. Buratino (IRE) 9-3 £17,442 ch c by Exceed And Excel - Bergamask (Kingmambo) O-Godolphin B-Darley TR-Mark Johnston Margins 2, 0.5. Time 1:11.88. Going Good.

Age 2

Starts 3

Wins 2

Places 1

Earned £147,831

Sire: WAR FRONT. Sire of 32 Stakes winners. In 2015 - AIR FORCE BLUE Maria’s Mon G1, JACK MILTON Forty Niner G1, LINES OF BATTLE Arch G1, DEPARTING Pulpit G2, WAR CORRESPONDENT Rahy G3, WAR DISPATCH Unbridled’s Song G3.

1st Dam: Chatham by Maria’s Mon. 3 wins at 2 and 3 in USA, 2nd Esplanade S LR. Dam of 2 winners: 2009: Pinkie Pact (f Broken Vow) ran on the flat in USA. 2010: (c Arch) 2011: Emperesse (f Empire Maker) ran on the flat in USA. 2012: BUGLE (f War Front) 2 wins at 3 in USA. 2013: AIR FORCE BLUE (c War Front) 2 wins at 2, Keeneland Phoenix S G1, 2nd Coventry S G2.

2nd Dam: Circle Of Gold by Seeking The Gold. unraced. Own sister to FLANDERS. Dam of Chatham (f Maria’s Mon, see above). Grandam of MISS DOUBLE D’ORO. Broodmare Sire: MARIA’S MON. Sire of the dams of 17 Stakes winners. In 2015 - AIR FORCE BLUE War Front G1, DON’T LEAVE ME Lemon Drop Kid G3, CYCLOGENISIS Stormy Atlantic LR.

AIR FORCE BLUE b/br c 2013 Nearctic Natalma Admiral’s Voyage Pas de Nom Petitioner Fappiano Rubiano Ruby Slippers Forli Lara’s Star True Reality Wavering Monarch Majestic Light Uncommitted Caro Carlotta Maria Water Malone Seeking The Gold Mr Prospector Con Game Storm Bird Starlet Storm Cinegita Northern Dancer

Danzig WAR FRONT b 02 Starry Dreamer

Maria’s Mon CHATHAM b 04 Circle Of Gold

When Air Force Blue quickened to take the Phoenix Stakes, he became Aidan O’Brien’s 14th winner of this Group 1 contest, despite being the youngest in the seven-horse field with a May 2 birthday.

A $490,000 yearling, Air Force Blue comes from the sixth crop by War Front. This crop, numbering 66, was sired when the Claiborne stallion’s fee had risen to $60,000 from $15,000.

This was a consequence of some excellent efforts by his first-crop three-year-olds, such as The Factor, Summer Soiree and Soldat. War Front’s next crop was sired at $80,000 and his fee then soared to $150,000.

Despite this considerable rise in War Front’s fee, he will be hard pressed to improve substantially on his achievements so far. From 400 foals of racing age, he has already been represented by 20 Graded/Group winners – an impressive 5%. Air Force Blue is his ninth G1 winner and there is also a winner of a local Gr1 in Hong Kong.

Air Force Blue’s year-older sister Bugle has won twice at up to nine furlongs, which bodes well for Air Force Blue’s prospects at three. War Front was never tried on turf but Air Force Blue is the latest in a lengthy line of very talented turf performers by him. Indeed only two of his nine Gr1 winners – The Factor and Peace And War – gained an important victory on dirt.

Air Force Blue should be suited by a mile as a three-year-old. Although his dam Chatham did her winning over sprint distances, she is a daughter of Maria’s Mon, sire of the Kentucky Derby winners Monarchos and Super Saver.

Seeking The Gold, the sire of Air Force Blue’s second dam Circle Of Gold, also stayed a mile and a quarter well, once finishing a close second in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Circle Of Gold had a distinguished sister in Flanders. This champion American two-year-old filly was gaining her third Gr1 success when she gallantly defeated Serena’s Song to win the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies, despite suffering fractures in her right foreleg.

Flanders has continued to shine, principally as the dam of the champion Seattle Slew filly Surfside. Altogether three of her daughters and granddaughters have so far produced

Graded/Group winners, one being last year’s smart French filly High Celebrity (out of a daughter of Surfside).

220 LARC - PRIX MAURICE DE GHEEST G1 DEAUVILLE. Aug 9. 3yo+. 1300m.

1. MUHAARAR (GB) 3 8-12 £155,031 b c by Oasis Dream - Tahrir (Linamix) O-Mr Hamdan Al Maktoum B-Shadwell Estate Co Ltd TR-Charles Hills 2. Esoterique (IRE) 5 8-13 £62,023 b m by Danehill Dancer - Dievotchka (Dancing Brave) O-Baron Edouard de Rothschild B-Societe Civile de L’Ecurie de Meautry TR-A. Fabre 3. Gordon Lord Byron (IRE) 7 9-2 £31,012 b g by Byron - Boa Estrela (Intikhab) O-Dr Cyrus Poonawalla/Morgan J Cahalan B-R. H. Alder TR-T. Hogan Margins 0.5, 0.5. Time 1:15.33. Going Good.

Age 2-3

Starts 10

Wins 6

Places 3

Earned £853,708

Sire: OASIS DREAM. Sire of 97 Stakes winners.

In 2015 - GOLDREAM Machiavellian G1, MUHAARAR Linamix G1, CLADOCERA Pivotal G2, ERTIJAAL Seeking The Gold LR, MIRZA Primo Dominie LR, MOOHAARIB Selkirk LR, MUARRAB Wolfhound LR, NAADIRR High Chaparral LR, PEARLY STEPH Pivotal LR, POLYBIUS Selkirk LR. 1st Dam: Tahrir by Linamix. 2 wins at 3, 2nd Tote Ten to Follow Wentworth S LR. Own sister to MISTER CHARM. Dam of 5 winners: 2007: Tamaathul (g Tiger Hill) 3 wins, 2nd Dubal Firebreak S G3.

2008: Raasekha (f Pivotal) Winner at 3, 3rd Mobile Casino EBF Conqueror S LR. Broodmare.

2009: SAJWAH (f Exceed And Excel) 2 wins at 2, Irish Stall.Farm EBF Dick Poole S LR. 2010: RUFOOF (f Zamindar) 2 wins at 3.

Broodmare.

2012: MUHAARAR (c Oasis Dream) 6 wins at 2 and 3 at home, France, Darley July Cup G1, Commonwealth Cup G1, LARC - Prix Maurice de Gheest G1, Irish TB Marketing Gimcrack S G2, AON Greenham S G3, 3rd vision.ae Middle Park S G1, Portland Place Properties July S G2, Titanic Belfast Winkfield S LR. 2013: Mootaharer (c Dubawi) unraced to date.

2015: (c Dubawi) 2nd Dam: MISS SACHA by Last Tycoon. 1 win at 3 Topaz Sprint S LR. Dam of MISTER SACHA (c Tiger Hill: Prix de Guiche G3, 3rd Prix Daniel Wildenstein Casino Barrierre G2), MISTER CHARM (g Linamix: Prix Djebel LR, Prix Jacques de Bremond LR (twice), 2nd Prix de la Jonchere G3, Prix des Chenes G3), Tahrir (f Linamix, see above) Broodmare Sire: LINAMIX. Sire of the dams of 87 Stakes winners. In 2015 - MUHAARAR Oasis Dream G1, SUMBAL Danehill Dancer G2, CARLA BIANCA Dansili G3, EYE IN THE SKY Sinndar G3, ASHLAN Dansili LR, AVABIN Amadeus Wolf LR, ROYAL DOLOIS Silver Frost LR, WOMAN O WAR Kingda Ka LR. The Oasis Dream/Linamix cross has produced: MUHAARAR G1, THAI HAKU G2, ALBARAAH G3.

MUHAARAR b c 2012 Danzig Green Desert Foreign Courier OASIS DREAM b 00 Dancing Brave Hope Bahamian Mendez Linamix Lunadix TAHRIR gr 02 Last Tycoon Miss Sacha Heaven High

Northern Dancer Pas de Nom Sir Ivor Courtly Dee Lyphard Navajo Princess Mill Reef Sorbus Bellypha Miss Carina Breton Lutine Try My Best Mill Princess High Line Triumphant

See race 124 in the August issue

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Oct_134_DataBook_Layout 1 24/09/2015 09:52 Page 107

Caulfield on Arabian Queen: “In fighting off the challenge of the previously unbeaten Golden Horn, she demonstrated all the toughness that had distinguished the career of her dam”

221 P. FRESNAY LE BUFFARD JACQUES LE MAROIS G1 DEAUVILLE. Aug 16. 3yo+c&f. 1600m.

1. ESOTERIQUE (IRE) 5 9-1 £310,062 b m by Danehill Dancer - Dievotchka (Dancing Brave) O-Baron Edouard de Rothschild B-Societe Civile de L’Ecurie de Meautry TR-A. Fabre 2. Territories (IRE) 3 8-13 £124,047 b c by Invincible Spirit - Taranto (Machiavellian) O-Godolphin S.N.C. B-Darley TR-A. Fabre 3. Wild Chief (GER) 4 9-4 £62,023 b c by Doyen - Wild Angel (Acatenango) O-Stall Furstenhof B-Walter Hacker TR-J. Hirschberger Margins 1.5, 1.5. Time 1:36.12. Going Soft.

Age 3-5

Starts 15

Wins 5

Places 8

Earned £812,453

Sire: DANEHILL DANCER. Sire of 168 Stakes winners. In 2015 - ESOTERIQUE Dancing Brave G1, LEGATISSIMO Montjeu G1, JAZZI TOP Zafonic G2, SUMBAL Linamix G2, WALTZING MATILDA Gone West G2, AFFAIRE SOLITAIRE Alzao G3, OSAILA Entrepreneur G3.

1st Dam: Dievotchka by Dancing Brave. unraced. Dam of 10 winners: 1995: RUSSIAN HOPE (c Rock Hopper). 11 wins at 2 to 6 in France, Kingdom of Saudi Ara, Grand Prix de Deauville G2.

1996: RUSSIAN SHIFT (g Night Shift) 9 wins in France.

1997: RUSSIAN TYCOON (c Last Tycoon) 2 wins at 3 in France.

1999: DIEVOTCHKINA (f Bluebird) 2 wins at 3 in France. Broodmare.

2000: RUSSIAN HILL (f Indian Ridge) 2 wins at 3 and 5 in France, Grand Prix de Compiegne LR, 2nd Prix de Royallieu Hotel du Golf Barriere G2, Prix Corrida G2. Dam of RUSSIAN SOUL (g Invincible Spirit: 8 wins at 4 to 7, 2015 at home, UAE, Newbridge Renaissance S G3, Ford Mustang Shelby Al Shindagha Sprint G3) 2001: Russian Love (f Machiavellian). Broodmare.

2002: ARCHANGE D’OR (c Danehill) 4 wins at 3 in France, P.Eugene Adam (G.P.de Maisons-Laffitte) G2. Sire.

2004: RUSSIAN DESERT (c Desert Prince) 3 wins at 2, 3 and 5 in France, Prix Matchem LR, 3rd P.Eugene Adam (G.P.de Maisons-Laffitte) G2.

2005: RUSSIAN CROSS (c Cape Cross) 4 wins at 2, 3 and 5 in France, Prix Guillaume d’Ornano G2.

2007: RUSSIAN SYMBOL (f Danehill Dancer) Winner at 3 in France. Broodmare.

2008: Something Strange (f Holy Roman Emperor) ran on the flat in France. Broodmare.

2010: ESOTERIQUE (f Danehill Dancer). 5 wins at 3 to 5 at home, France, Prix Rothschild G1, P. Fresnay le Buffard Jacques Le Marois G1, Qatar Bloodstock Dahlia S G3, Prix Vanteaux G3, 2nd Queen Anne S G1, Poule d’Essai des Pouliches G1, LARC - Prix Maurice de Gheest G1, 3rd Prix du Muguet G2.

2011: Histrionique (c Lawman) 2nd Dam: High And Dry by High Line. 1 win at 2, 3rd Waterford Candelabra S G3. Grandam of COOL CREEK, CATHY’S STAR, Encanto Park, Yo Claudio, Chilldown. Third dam of KODI BEAR, MILES RULES, ITALIAN BOY, P TOWN JOHN, S’Il Vous Plait. Fourth dam of RIVERTIME, STORM OF WIND. Broodmare Sire: DANCING BRAVE. Sire of the dams of 71 Stakes winners. In 2015 - ESOTERIQUE Danehill Dancer G1, RED ARION Agnes Tachyon G2, ZACK HALL Muhtathir LR.

ESOTERIQUE b m 2010 Danzig Danehill Razyana DANEHILL DANCER b 93 Sharpen Up Mira Adonde Lettre d’Amour Lyphard Dancing Brave Navajo Princess DIEVOTCHKA b 89 High Line High And Dry Photo Flash

Northern Dancer Pas de Nom His Majesty Spring Adieu Atan Rocchetta Caro Lianga Northern Dancer Goofed Drone Olmec High Hat Time Call Match II Picture Light

Although Danehill Dancer sired numerous good sons, headed by Mastercraftsman and Choisir, he was arguably a better sire of fillies. They outnumber the colts nine to six among the former champion sire’s 15 northern hemisphere Gr1 winners, and among them were the Classic winners Dancing Rain, Speciosa, Again and Legatissimo, the latest 1,000 Guineas winner.

Esoterique nearly added her name to this list, as it was only in the final strides of the 2013 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches that she had victory snatched from her.

Esoterique is tough as well as very talented. Just a week after she had run Muhaarar to half a length in the Prix Maurice de Gheest on her first appearance in a sprint, the five-year-old proved too strong for the males in the Prix Jacques le Marois.

Esoterique clearly goes well at Deauville, also the scene of her previous Gr1 victory in the Prix Rothschild.

Esoterique was foaled when her dam Dievotchka was 21. It isn’t hard to understand why Dievotchka’s owner, Baron Edouard de Rothschild, was keen to keep breeding from this accomplished broodmare daughter of Dancing Brave.

Dievotchka had already been represented by five stakes winners, each by a different stallion. Three of her colts – Russian Hope, Archange d’Or and Russian Cross – won at Gr2 level over middle distances in France.

As Archange d’Or was by Danehill, Danehill Dancer was an obvious alternative following Danehill’s death in 2003.

Esoterique’s female line was developed with considerable success by the late Jim Joel. Her third dam, Photo Flash, was second in the 1,000 Guineas, while her fourth dam Picture Light was third in the same race, which was won in 1944 by Esoterique’s sixth dam Picture Play.

Esoterique’s second dam High And Dry is also the third dam of the smart 2015 three-year-old Kodi Bear, by Danehill’s son Kodiac.

222 JUDDMONTE INTERNATIONAL STAKES G1 YORK. Aug 19. 3yo+. 10f.

1. ARABIAN QUEEN (IRE) 3 8-9 £518,542 b f by Dubawi - Barshiba (Barathea) O-Mr J. C. Smith B-Littleton Stud TR-David Elsworth 2. Golden Horn (GB) 3 8-12 £196,591 b c by Cape Cross - Fleche d’Or (Dubai Destination) O-Mr A. E. Oppenheimer B-Hascombe & Valiant Studs TR-John Gosden 3. The Grey Gatsby (IRE) 4 9-6 £98,387 gr c by Mastercraftsman - Marie Vison (Entrepreneur) O-Mr F. Gillespie B-M. Parrish TR-Kevin Ryan Margins Neck, 3.25. Time 2:09.90. Going Good to Soft.

Age 2-3

Starts 11

Wins 4

Places 1

Earned £687,477

Sire: DUBAWI. Sire of 103 Stakes winners. In 2015 AL KAZEEM Darshaan G1, ARABIAN QUEEN Barathea G1, ERUPT Caerleon G1, HUNTER’S LIGHT Barathea G1, NEW BAY Zamindar G1, NIGHT OF THUNDER Galileo G1, POSTPONED Dubai Destination G1, PRINCE BISHOP Prospect Bay G1, SHAMAL WIND Machiavellian G1, SRIKANDI

THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER

Hurricane Sky G1.

1st Dam: BARSHIBA by Barathea. 7 wins at 3 to 6, Bet 365 Lancashire Oaks G2 (twice). Dam of 1 winner: 2012: ARABIAN QUEEN (f Dubawi) 4 wins at 2 and 3, Juddmonte International S G1, Qipco Duchess Of Cambridge S G2, Investec Princess Elizabeth S G3, 3rd Qatar Nassau S G1.

2013: Australian Queen (f Fastnet Rock) unraced to date.

2015: (f Dubawi) 2nd Dam: Dashiba by Dashing Blade. 2 wins at 3, 2nd EBF Upavon S LR. Dam of BARSHIBA (f Barathea, see above), DOCTOR DASH (g Dr Fong: Weatherbys Bank Stonehenge S LR), Dashing Star (g Teofilo: 2nd John Smith’s Silver Cup H LR) Broodmare Sire: BARATHEA. Sire of the dams of 81 Stakes winners. In 2015 - ARABIAN QUEEN Dubawi G1, HUNTER’S LIGHT Dubawi G1, BLUE BAYOU Bahamian Bounty G3, CANDARLIYA Dalakhani G3, BOOMSHACKERLACKER Dark Angel LR, BREX DRAGO Mujahid LR, CLOCKWINDER Intikhab LR, JORDAN PRINCESS Cape Cross LR, JOYFUL HOPE Shamardal LR, TALL SHIP Sea The Stars LR, TIGER TOPS Tiger Hill LR. The Dubawi/Barathea cross has produced: ARABIAN QUEEN G1, HUNTER’S LIGHT G1, MONTEROSSO G1, DANADANA G3.

ARABIAN QUEEN b f 2012 Dubai Millennium DUBAWI b 02 Zomaradah

Barathea BARSHIBA ch 04 Dashiba

Seeking The Gold Mr Prospector Con Game Colorado Dancer Shareef Dancer Fall Aspen Shirley Heights Deploy Slightly Dangerous Dancing Brave Jawaher High Tern Northern Dancer Sadler’s Wells Fairy Bridge Habitat Brocade Canton Silk Elegant Air Dashing Blade Sharp Castan Northfields Alsiba Etoile Grise

In fighting off the challenge of the previously unbeaten Golden Horn in the Juddmonte International, Arabian Queen demonstrated all the toughness that had distinguished the career of her dam Barshiba.

This big daughter of Barathea raced no fewer than 33 times over five years, despite being blind in one eye. Barshiba was always keen in her races and made much of the running when she gained the second of her successes in the Gr2 Lancashire Oaks.

Arabian Queen is similarly keen – she made all when gaining previous Group successes over six furlongs as a two-year-old and an extended mile at three. She therefore proved well suited to following the pacemaker in the International.

Arabian Queen’s sire Dubawi had quickly established his potential as a mate for Barathea mares by siring Monterosso, whose victory in the 2011 Dubai World Cup just about coincided with Arabian Queen’s conception. Since then the Dubawi/Barathea nick has been ably represented by Hunter’s Light (a Gr1 winner in Italy and the UAE) and Danadana (Gr3 Huxley Stakes), as well as Arabian Queen. These four stakes winners come from the nick’s total of 27 foals of racing age, which equals 15%, compared to Dubawi’s

overall figure of 10% black-type winners.

Arabian Queen’s victory must have been especially pleasing for owner/breeder Jeff Smith, who had seen his colt Norse Dancer beaten less than a length by Sulamani in the 2004 International. Smith has the added satisfaction that Arabian Queen’s first two dams, Barshiba and Dashiba, were bred at Littleton Stud after he purchased the Hampshire farm in 1984. Dashiba’s sire Dashing Blade, who started his stallion career at Littleton, was also bred by Smith, while Arabian Queen’s third dam Alsiba was another bred at Littleton, but before it was owned by Smith.

For more detail about Arabian Queen’s pedigree, see Caulfield Files elsewhere in this issue.

223 DARLEY YORKSHIRE OAKS G1 YORK. Aug 20. 3yo+f. 12f.

1. PLEASCACH (IRE) 3 8-11 £207,459 b f by Teofilo - Toirneach (Thunder Gulch) O-Godolphin B-J. S. Bolger TR-J. S. Bolger 2. Covert Love (IRE) 3 8-11 £78,652 b f by Azamour - Wing Stealth (Hawk Wing) O-FOMO Syndicate B-Sommerville Bloodstock TR-Hugo Palmer 3. Sea Calisi (FR) 3 8-11 £39,363 b f by Youmzain - Triclaria (Surumu) O-Martin S. Schwartz Racing B-Derek Bloodstock TR-Francois Doumen Margins Neck, Neck. Time 2:32.70. Going Good to Soft.

Age 2-3

Starts 8

Wins 4

Places 3

Earned £446,099

Sire: TEOFILO. Sire of 43 Stakes winners. In 2015 KERMADEC Fuji Kiseki G1, PLEASCACH Thunder Gulch G1, AROD Rahy G2, TAMAANEE Perugino G2, FLIGHT RISK Nordico G3, FIREGLOW King’s Best LR, GENERAL SHERMAN Machiavellian LR, PARISH HALL Montjeu LR, RESONATES Warning LR, ROUND TWO Kingmambo LR. 1st Dam: TOIRNEACH by Thunder Gulch. 2 wins at 2 and 3. Dam of 1 winner: 2011: Ionsai Nua (f New Approach) unraced.

2012: PLEASCACH (f Teofilo) 4 wins at 2 and 3, Tattersalls Irish 1000 Guineas G1, Darley Yorkshire Oaks G1, Irish National Stud EBF Blue Wind S G3, 2nd Ribblesdale S G2, Irish Stallion Farms EBF Salsabil S LR. 2013: Brontide (g Vocalised) 2nd Dam: WANDERING PINE by Country Pine. 1 win at 3 in USA. Dam of CAPOMORANO (c Bluegrass Cat: Clasico Laffit Pincay Jr LR) Broodmare Sire: THUNDER GULCH. Sire of the dams of 62 Stakes winners. In 2015 LOVELY MARIA Majesticperfection G1, MSHAWISH Medaglia d’Oro G1, PLEASCACH Teofilo G1, DELAGO’S SECRET Encosta de Lago G3, EL BILLARISTA El Corredor G3.

PLEASCACH b f 2012 Sadler’s Wells Galileo Urban Sea TEOFILO b 04 Danehill Speirbhean Saviour Gulch Thunder Gulch Line of Thunder TOIRNEACH b 05 Country Pine Wandering Pine Wandering Lace

Northern Dancer Fairy Bridge Miswaki Allegretta Danzig Razyana Majestic Light Victorian Queen Mr Prospector Jameela Storm Bird Shoot A Line His Majesty Mountain Sunshine Private Account Shujinsky

See race 53 in the July issue

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Oct_134_DataBook_Layout 1 24/09/2015 09:52 Page 108

DATA BOOK STAKES RESULTS

European Group 1s 224 COOLMORE NUNTHORPE STAKES G1 YORK. Aug 21. 2yo+. 5f.

1. MECCA’S ANGEL (IRE) 4 9-10 £175,801 gr f by Dark Angel - Folga (Atraf) O-Mr David T. J. Metcalfe B-Yeomanstown Stud & Doc Bloodstock TR-Michael Dods 2. Acapulco (USA) 2 8-0 £66,650 ch f by Scat Daddy - Global Finance (End Sweep) O-Mrs John Magnier,Mr M.Tabor & Mr D.Smith B-Dr C. Giles TR-Wesley A. Ward 3. Mattmu (GB) 3 9-11 £33,356 b c by Indesatchel - Katie Boo (Namid) O-Mr James Bowers B-Mr J. Bowers TR-Tim Easterby Margins 2, 2. Time 0:57.20. Going Good to Soft.

Age 2-4

Starts 14

Wins 8

Places 5

Earned £340,345

Sire: DARK ANGEL. Sire of 24 Stakes winners. In 2015 - MECCA’S ANGEL Atraf G1, BIRCHWOOD Exceed And Excel G2, GUTAIFAN Lahib G2, MARKAZ Atraf G3, STORMFLY Lomitas G3, BOOMSHACKERLACKER Barathea LR, DELIZIA Whipper LR, DIVINE Common Grounds LR, FANCIFUL ANGEL Groom Dancer LR, HEAVEN’S GUEST Tagula LR, PROMISED MONEY Primo Dominie LR, REALTRA Dr Devious LR, SOVEREIGN DEBT Most Welcome LR. 1st Dam: Folga by Atraf. 6 wins at 2 to 4, 2nd EBF Lansdown S LR. Dam of 2 winners: 2011: MECCA’S ANGEL (f Dark Angel) Sold 16,000gns yearling at TAOC2. 8 wins at 2 to 4 at home, France, Coolmore Nunthorpe S G1, Dubai International Airport World Trophy G3, Prix de Saint-Georges G3, John Smith’s Original Scarbrough S LR, 2nd Invincible Spirit Sapphire S G2, Shadwell EBF Stallions H.Rosebery S LR, Julia Graves Roses S LR. 2012: MARKAZ (c Dark Angel) 2 wins at 2 and 3, John Sunley Memorial Criterion S G3.

2014: (f Dark Angel) 2015: (f Dark Angel) 2nd Dam: DESERT DAWN by Belfort. 3 wins at 2 and 3 at home, France Prix d’Arenberg G3. Dam of DESERT KAYA (f Bikala: Prix de Lieurey LR), Folga (f Atraf, see above) Broodmare Sire: ATRAF. Sire of the dams of 4 Stakes winners. In 2015 - MECCA’S ANGEL Dark Angel G1, MARKAZ Dark Angel G3.

The Dark Angel/Atraf cross has produced: MECCA’S ANGEL G1, MARKAZ G3.

MECCA’S ANGEL gr f 2011 Royal Applause Acclamation Princess Athena DARK ANGEL gr 05 Machiavellian Midnight Angel Night At Sea Clantime Atraf Flitteriss Park FOLGA b 02 Belfort Desert Dawn Cast Pearls

Waajib Flying Melody Ahonoora Shopping Wise Mr Prospector Coup de Folie Night Shift Into Harbour Music Boy Penny Pincher Beldale Flutter Geopelia Tyrant Belle de Retz Cutlass My Girl Pearl

Although Mecca’s Angel was putting in her best work in the closing stages when she wore down the American raider Acapulco to take the Nunthorpe Stakes, this fast filly has only once been asked to tackle a distance as long as six furlongs. A look at the bottom half of her pedigree makes it easy to understand why. Her broodmare sire, the Cork and Orrery Stakes winner Atraf, was a sprinter pure and simple and so was his sire Clantime, a five-furlong specialist who numbered two victories in the Gr3 Palace House Stakes among his nine wins. Clantime in turn was a son of

108

Music Boy. Although this sprint-bred horse won the Gimcrack over six furlongs at two, Timeform’s final assessment of him was that he was a very speedy racehorse, ideally suited by five furlongs on top of the ground.

Folga, the dam of Mecca’s Angel, was another sprinter, whose six wins were equally divided between five and six furlongs, and the next dam, Desert Dawn, did all her winning over the minimum trip, her best win coming in the Gr3 Prix d’Arenberg. Desert Dawn, who once finished a good fifth at 100-1 in the King’s Stand Stakes, was bought by Jean-Luc Lagardere for 43,000gns at the end of her racing career, but her price fell to 12,500gns as a 14-year-old.

The speed isn’t confined to the bottom half of Mecca’s Angel’s pedigree. Her sire Dark Angel did all his winning over five and six furlongs, notably taking the Middle Park Stakes before disappointing in the Dewhurst.

Dark Angel didn’t race at three, so noone knows how far he might have stayed, but seven furlongs is within the compass of most of his Group winners, such as the top six-furlong sprinter Lethal Force, Mecca’s Angel’s younger brother Markaz, Estidhkaar, Lily’s Angel, Birchwood, Exogenesis and Stormfly.

225 DARLEY PRIX JEAN ROMANET G1 DEAUVILLE. Aug 23. 4yo+f. 2000m.

1. ODELIZ (IRE) 5 9-0 £110,736 ch m by Falco - Acatama (Efisio) O-Mrs Barbara M. Keller B-Aleyrion Bloodstock Ltd TR-K. R. Burke 2. Bawina (IRE) 4 9-0 £44,302 b f by Dubawi - Esneh (Sadler’s Wells) O-Wertheimer et Frere B-Wertheimer et Frere TR-C. Laffon-Parias 3. Avenir Certain (FR) 4 9-0 £22,151 b f by Le Havre - Puggy (Mark of Esteem) O-A. Caro/G. Augustin-Normand B-Mme E. Vidal TR-Jean Claude Rouget Margins Neck, 0.75. Time 2:14.27. Going Soft.

Age 3-5

Starts 21

Wins 5

Places 14

Earned £330,723

Sire: FALCO. Sire of 6 Stakes winners. In 2015 ODELIZ Efisio G1, FALCONET Woodman LR. 1st Dam: Acatama by Efisio. unraced. Dam of 4 winners: 2009: CHARITABLE ACT (g Cadeaux Genereux) 3 wins at 2 to 4.

2010: ODELIZ (f Falco) Sold 18,062gns yearling at AROCT. 5 wins at 3 and 5 at home, France, Germany, Darley Prix Jean Romanet G1, F.G.G. Gedachtnisrennen Hamburger Meile G3, Prix de Liancourt LR, 2nd E P Taylor S G1, TBA Atalanta S G3, Investec Princess Elizabeth S G3, Lodge Park EBF Park Express S G3, 3rd Betfred Middleton S G2, Investec Princess Elizabeth S G3, D. C. Lavarack & Lanwades Stud S G3, P.d’Automne-Fonds Europeen de L’Elevage LR. 2011: TRIPTYKA (f Mastercraftsman) Winner at 3 in France.

2012: ACASTER MALBIS (c Arcano) Winner at 3.

2013: Prince Admiral (c Zanzibari) unraced to date.

2014: (f Siyouni) 2nd Dam: TANZANIA by Alzao. 2 wins at 3. Dam of AMORAMA (f Sri Pekan: Del Mar Oaks G1, John C Mabee H G1, 3rd Gamely Breeders’ Cup H G1), UNCOILED (c Giant’s Causeway: Shirafuji S LR, 2nd Kyoto Daishoten G2), TABLE RONDE (f Astronomer Royal: Prix Volterra LR, 2nd Prix de Lieurey G3), Milwaukee (f Desert King: 3rd Prix Belle de Nuit LR), SHANGANI (g Giant’s Causeway: stanjames.com Greatwood Gold Cup H Chase G3). Grandam of AMPERE, TUNKWA.

Broodmare Sire: EFISIO. Sire of the dams of 38 Stakes winners. In 2015 - ODELIZ Falco G1, REALITY BITES Silent Times G1, OFF LIMITS Mastercraftsman LR.

ODELIZ ch m 2010 Polar Falcon Pivotal Fearless Revival FALCO b 05 Unbridled Icelips Sea Hill Formidable Efisio Eldoret ACATAMA b/br 05 Alzao Tanzania Triple Couronne

Nureyev Marie d’Argonne Cozzene Stufida Fappiano Gana Facil Seattle Slew Featherhill Forli Native Partner High Top Bamburi Lyphard Lady Rebecca Riverman Trillion

After Falco had won the 2008 Poule d’Essai des Poulains, French breeders clubbed together to keep the son of Pivotal in France and he started out at Haras d’Etreham at a fee of €8,000.

Unfortunately, by 2015 he had been transferred to Haras du Grand Chesnaie, with his fee lowered to €2,500. It is possible that his future lies as a sire of jumpers, as his son Peace And Co won the 2015 Triumph Hurdle.

Falco’s best representatives on the Flat include Snowday (Gr3 Prix du Bois) and that tough filly Odeliz. Odeliz had won nothing more important than a Listed race before she turned five, but she had shown herself capable of a good deal more when a half-length second to Just The Judge in the Gr1 EP Taylor Stakes in 2014.

She has continued to improve in 2015, firstly becoming a Gr3 winner in Germany and now a Gr1 winner in the Prix Rothschild.

Odeliz has a notable pedigree in that her fourth dam is Trillion, a remarkable racemare and producer who also ranks as the fourth dam of Treve. Odeliz’s third dam Triple Couronne was a sister to the brilliant Triptych and the Gr1 winner Barger. Odeliz’s dam Acatama is an unraced half-sister to Amorama, a dual Gr1 winner in the US who now ranks as the dam of the smart 2015 French three-year-old Ampere.

226 DARLEY PRIX MORNY G1 DEAUVILLE. Aug 23. 2yoc&f. 1200m.

1. SHALAA (IRE) 9-0 £155,031 b c by Invincible Spirit - Ghurra (War Chant) O-Al Shaqab Racing B-Mogeely Stud TR-John Gosden 2. Gutaifan (IRE) 9-0 £62,023 gr c by Dark Angel - Alikhlas (Lahib) O-Al Shaqab Racing B-E. Mulhern & Abbeville Stud TR-Richard Hannon 3. Tourny (FR) 8-10 £31,012 b f by Country Reel - Maka (Slickly) O-G Augustin-Normand & Mme E Vidal B- Earl Haras Du Logis & J Ince TR- P Bary Margins 1.75, 5. Time 1:13.31. Going Soft.

Age 2

Starts 5

Wins 4

Places 0

Earned £318,347

Sire: INVINCIBLE SPIRIT. Sire of 94 Stakes winners. In 2015 - SHALAA War Chant G1, TERRITORIES Machiavellian G1, AJAYA Hennessy G2, IMPASSABLE Green Tune G2, MUTHMIR Danehill G2, CABLE BAY Diktat G3, LOCAL TIME Medicean G3, ARCTIC GYR Kris S LR, GRENDISAR Mark of Esteem LR, MR OWEN Theatrical LR, PRETEND Indian Ridge LR, PROFITABLE Indian Ridge LR, RIVELLINO Pivotal LR, THAT IS THE SPIRIT Acatenango LR.

1st Dam: Ghurra by War Chant. 3 wins, 3rd Wilshire H G3. Own sister to Zifzaf. Dam of 3 winners: 2009: Nepali Princess (f Mr Greeley) unraced.

Broodmare.

2010: PEARL CASTLE (g Montjeu) 5 wins.

2011: Dai Bando (g Montjeu) Winner over hurdles at 3, 2nd Bar One Racing Juvenile Hurdle G3.

2012: Go White Lightning (f Lord Shanakill) 2013: SHALAA (c Invincible Spirit) Sold 170,000gns yearling at TAOC1. 4 wins at 2 at home, France, Darley Prix Morny G1, Arqana July S G2, Qatar Richmond S G2.

2015: (f High Chaparral) 2nd Dam: Futuh by Diesis. 1 win at 2, 2nd Doncaster S LR. Dam of HAYIL (c Dayjur: Thoroughbred Corp. Middle Park S G1), Tamhid (c Gulch: 2nd Strensall S LR, 2nd Bernard Baruch H G2), Ghurra (f War Chant, see above), Zifzaf (g War Chant: 3rd Fourstardave H G2), Ebraam (g Red Ransom: 2nd Betdaq Golden Rose S LR), Elnahaar (c Silver Hawk: 3rd Feilden S LR), Farqad (c Danzig: 3rd Crimbourne Stud On The House S LR). Grandam of Poetical. Third dam of DRAGON PULSE. Fourth dam of MIND OF MADNESS. Broodmare Sire: WAR CHANT. Sire of the dams of 6 Stakes winners. In 2015 - SHALAA Invincible Spirit G1, IVEAGH GARDENS Mastercraftsman G3.

The Invincible Spirit/War Chant cross has produced: SHALAA G1, Ballymore Castle LR.

SHALAA b c 2013 Northern Dancer Pas de Nom Sir Ivor Foreign Courier Courtly Dee INVINCIBLE SPIRIT b 97 Sharpen Up Kris Doubly Sure Rafha Artaius Eljazzi Border Bounty Northern Dancer Danzig Pas de Nom War Chant Kris S Hollywood Wildcat Miss Wildcatter GHURRA b 02 Sharpen Up Diesis Doubly Sure Futuh Drone Hardship Hard And Fast Danzig

Green Desert

When John Gosden was wondering whether to allow Shalaa to take his chance in the Prix Morny on Deauville’s very soft ground, he must have recalled taking another highly talented son of Invincible Spirit to Deauville virtually a year earlier. That was Kingman, who coped very well with the soft ground in the Jacques le Marois – just as he’d coped with even softer ground in the Irish 2,000 Guineas. Shalaa was also untroubled by the ground, again shaping like a potential champion.

Invincible Spirit is a grandson of Danzig and Shalaa’s dam, the talented Ghurra, is by Danzig’s Breeders’ Cup Mile winner War Chant, which means that Shalaa is inbred 3 x 3 to the great Danzig. But that’s not all. The third generation of Shalaa’s pedigree also features the outstanding brothers Kris and Diesis – winners between them of 17 of their 22 starts – so he is the product of two similarly-bred parents.

Kris and Diesis also feature in the third generation of another of Invincible Spirit’s accomplished two-year-old sons, the 2009 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner Vale Of York.

Another inspiration for the 2012 mating which resulted in Shalaa may well have been Our Jonathan, a dual Group winner at two who was inbred 3 x 4 to Danzig and 3 x 4 to Kris. More recently we have seen a Gr3 success by Rawaaq, an Invincible Spirit filly with Kris and Diesis in her third generation.

Shalaa cost 100,000gns as a foal and 170,000gns as a yearling. He isn’t

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Caulfield on Shalaa: “Another inspiration for the mating which resulted in the Morny winner may well have been Our Jonathan, who was inbred 3 x 4 to Danzig and 3 x 4 to Kris”

Invincible Spirit’s only good 2015 winner inbred 3 x 3 to Danzig, another being Muthmir. This gelding, who added the Gr2 King George Stakes to his earlier success in in the Gr2 Prix du Gros-

Chene, is out of a Danehill mare.

Shalaa’s dam Ghurra, who stayed at least nine furlongs, is a three-parts sister to the Dayjur colt Hayil, winner of the 1997 Middle Park Stakes. Their dam

Futuh also produced the very useful Tamhid, and she also ranks as the third dam of the Irish National Stud stallion Dragon Pulse, a winner at Gr2 and Gr3 levels. Shalaa’s third dam, Hardship, was

weighted just 10lb below the best juvenile filly of 1979 and his fourth dam, Hard And Fast, was rated 110 on the Daily Racing Form Free Handicap for three-year-old fillies.

Group 2 and 3 Races Date 04/08 06/08 08/08 08/08 09/08 09/08 13/08 13/08 14/08 15/08 15/08 15/08 15/08 15/08 16/08 16/08 18/08 19/08 19/08 20/08 21/08 22/08 22/08 22/08 22/08 22/08 22/08 22/08 22/08 23/08 23/08 23/08 23/08

Grade G3 G3 G3 G3 G3 G3 G3 G3 G2 G2 G2 G3 G3 G3 G3 G3 G2 G2 G3 G2 G2 G2 G2 G3 G3 G3 G3 G3 G3 G2 G2 G3 G3

Race (course) Irish Stall.Farms EBF Give Thanks Stakes (Cork) Ballyroan Stakes (Leopardstown) Betfred Rose of Lancaster Stakes (Haydock Park) germantb.com Sweet Solera Stakes (Newmarket) Qatar Racing Phoenix Sprint Stakes (Curragh) OSAF Prix de Reux (Deauville) Invesco Desmond Stakes (Leopardstown) Totepool Sovereign Stakes (Salisbury) Shadwell Prix de Pomone (Deauville) Prix Guillaume d’Ornano-Logis St Germain (Deauville) Betfred Hungerford Stakes (Newbury) Prix Gontaut-Biron-Hong Kong Jockey Club (Deauville) Prix de Lieurey (Deauville) Betfred Geoffrey Freer Stakes (Newbury) Prix Minerve (Deauville) Grosser Preis der Sparkasse Krefeld (Krefeld) Prix de la Nonette (Deauville) Betway Great Voltigeur Stakes (York) Tattersalls Acomb Stakes (York) Pinsent Masons Lowther Stakes (York) Weatherbys Hamilton Lonsdale Cup (York) Breast Cancer Research Debutante Stakes (Curragh) Irish TB Marketing Gimcrack Stakes (York) Curragh Stakes (Curragh) Gerrardstown Stud Renaissance Stakes (Curragh) Longines Prix du Calvados (Deauville) 888sport Solario Stakes (Sandown Park) TBA Atalanta Stakes (Sandown Park) Betfred Strensall Stakes (York) Galileo EBF Futurity Stakes (Curragh) Darley Prix Kergorlay (Deauville) Ballycullen Palmerstown St Leger Trial (Curragh) Kilfrush Stud Royal Whip Stakes (Curragh)

Dist 12f 12f 10f 7f 6f 12.5f 8f 8f 12.5f 10f 7f 10f 8f 13f 12.5f 10f 10f 12f 7f 6f 16f 7f 6f 5f 6f 7f 7f 8f 8.5f 7f 15f 14f 10f

Horse Zannda (IRE) Fields of Athenry (IRE) Intilaaq (USA) Blue Bayou (GB) Mattmu (GB) Loresho (FR) Cougar Mountain (IRE) Kodi Bear (IRE) Baino Hope (FR) New Bay (GB) Adaay (IRE) Bello Matteo (FR) Maimara (FR) Agent Murphy (GB) Candarliya (FR) Palace Prince (GER) Jazzi Top (GB) Storm The Stars (USA) Recorder (GB) Besharah (IRE) Max Dynamite (FR) Ballydoyle (IRE) Ajaya (GB) Bear Cheek (IRE) Moviesta (USA) Great Page (IRE) First Selection (SPA) Nakuti (IRE) Mondialiste (IRE) Herald The Dawn (IRE) Alex My Boy (IRE) Order of St George (IRE) Found (IRE)

Age 3 3 3 2 3 4 4 3 4 3 3 4 3 4 3 3 3 3 2 2 5 2 2 2 5 2 2 4 5 2 4 3 3

Sex F C C F C C C C F C C C F C F C F C C F G F C F G F C F H C C C F

Sire Azamour Galileo Dynaformer Bahamian Bounty Indesatchel Halling Fastnet Rock Kodiac Jeremy Dubawi Kodiac Montmartre Makfi Cape Cross Dalakhani Areion Danehill Dancer Sea The Stars Galileo Kodiac Great Journey Galileo Invincible Spirit Kodiac Hard Spun Roderic O’Connor Diktat Mastercraftsman Galileo New Approach Dalakhani Galileo Galileo

Dam Zanoubiya Last Love Torrestrella Oshiponga Katie Boo Luna Gulch Descant Hawattef Baino Ridge Cinnamon Bay Lady Lucia Lidawar Hideaway Heroine Raskutani Candara Palace Princess Zee Zee Top Love Me Only Memory Dixieland Kiss Mascara Butterfly Cove Nessina See Nuala Miss Brickyard Areeda Villa Sonata Sheba Five Occupandiste Hymn of The Dawn Alexandrova Another Storm Red Evie

Broodmare Sire Dalakhani Danehill Orpen Barathea Namid Gulch Nureyev Mujtahid Highest Honor Zamindar Royal Applause Sendawar Hernando Dansili Barathea Tiger Hill Zafonic Sadler’s Wells Danehill Dancer Dixie Union Monsun Storm Cat Hennessy Kyllachy A P Indy Refuse To Bend Mozart Five Star Day Kaldoun Phone Trick Sadler’s Wells Gone West Intikhab

Index 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259

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DATA BOOK EXCLUSIVE STALLION STATISTICS – FULL SIRE LISTS AT OWNERBREEDER.CO.UK

Leading sires 2015 by percentage of stakes winners to runners Name

Galileo Dubawi Monsun Shamardal Sea The Stars Dark Angel Doyen Lope de Vega Mastercraftsman Invincible Spirit Dansili Raven's Pass Dalakhani War Front Hurricane Run Fastnet Rock Le Havre Bahamian Bounty New Approach Danehill Dancer Paco Boy Nayef Scarface Teofilo Siyouni Dutch Art Pivotal Duke Of Marmalade Muhtathir Kaneko Victory Gallop Authorized Cape Cross Oasis Dream Kodiac American Post Dylan Thomas Makfi Azamour High Chaparral Win River Win Compton Place Divine Light Montjeu Motivator Okawango Mount Nelson Sir Percy Strike The Gold Halling Unaccounted For

YOF

1998 2002 1990 2002 2006 2005 2000 2007 2006 1997 1996 2005 2000 2002 2002 2001 2006 1994 2005 1993 2005 1998 2003 2004 2007 2004 1993 2004 1995 2001 1995 2004 1994 2000 2001 2001 2003 2007 2001 1999 1999 1994 1995 1996 2002 1998 2004 2003 1988 1991 1991

Sire

Rnrs

Wnrs

%WR

Sadler's Wells Dubai Millennium Konigsstuhl Giant's Causeway Cape Cross Acclamation Sadler's Wells Shamardal Danehill Dancer Green Desert Danehill Elusive Quality Darshaan Danzig Montjeu Danehill Noverre Cadeaux Genereux Galileo Danehill Desert Style Gulch Montjeu Galileo Pivotal Medicean Polar Falcon Danehill Elmaamul Pivotal Cryptoclearance Montjeu Green Desert Green Desert Danehill Bering Danehill Dubawi Night Shift Sadler's Wells Virginia Rapids Indian Ridge Sunday Silence Sadler's Wells Montjeu Kingmambo Rock Of Gibraltar Mark Of Esteem Alydar Diesis Private Account

238 181 57 224 93 205 48 84 158 230 147 77 97 40 81 105 108 132 133 136 95 120 24 174 75 150 154 159 80 84 115 118 178 210 232 100 170 102 139 175 72 109 75 114 86 89 89 134 45 136 91

96 87 31 108 43 80 23 39 53 93 58 30 36 14 35 44 40 44 49 60 35 46 12 69 27 61 60 50 30 51 53 46 79 86 83 39 63 45 59 64 23 33 29 38 27 31 38 58 22 54 47

40.34 48.07 54.39 48.21 46.24 39.02 47.92 46.43 33.54 40.43 39.46 38.96 37.11 35.00 43.21 41.90 37.04 33.33 36.84 44.12 36.84 38.33 50.00 39.66 36.00 40.67 38.96 31.45 37.50 60.71 46.09 38.98 44.38 40.95 35.78 39.00 37.06 44.12 42.45 36.57 31.94 30.28 38.67 33.33 31.40 34.83 42.70 43.28 48.89 39.71 51.65

Races

AWD

Earnings (£)

SH

130 127 39 167 57 120 30 54 77 136 87 39 52 25 55 60 57 63 72 94 45 67 20 104 39 89 96 89 46 105 102 58 108 120 129 51 102 62 93 92 47 49 47 54 40 53 61 79 45 73 97

10.6 9.6 11.1 8.1 10.5 7.2 9.8 8 10.3 7.3 10.3 9.3 11.7 7 11.6 9 8.7 6.7 9.2 8.8 6.9 9.9 8.2 9.8 7.8 7.6 8.7 10.2 10 7.7 7.8 11.4 9.5 8.2 6.7 8.4 9.3 8.7 10.3 10.5 8.8 6.1 8.4 12.2 11.2 8.2 9.2 10.1 9.1 10.7 8.4

4,283,308 5,072,194 650,487 2,727,128 1,265,662 2,322,821 528,316 841,171 1,781,447 2,945,568 1,291,973 762,316 889,712 620,964 619,698 1,278,721 852,309 763,782 934,165 2,578,726 557,386 921,573 591,887 2,207,831 1,082,531 1,055,966 1,546,080 1,921,935 648,677 1,491,040 1,710,050 726,141 2,921,926 2,429,643 1,609,204 753,821 1,203,952 867,542 1,424,906 1,610,675 894,896 543,839 1,397,036 645,526 688,212 895,785 699,613 683,271 928,755 1,779,171 1,585,959

45 29 10 31 17 25 8 12 15 21 15 8 8 5 6 12 8 9 12 14 4 6 1 20 8 9 16 11 4 5 5 7 17 14 12 6 8 5 13 12 4 3 3 5 6 2 5 6 2 7 2

%

18.91 16.02 17.54 13.84 18.28 12.2 16.67 14.29 9.49 9.13 10.2 10.39 8.25 12.5 7.41 11.43 7.41 6.82 9.02 10.29 4.21 5.00 4.17 11.49 10.67 6.00 10.39 6.92 5.00 5.95 4.35 5.93 9.55 6.67 5.17 6.00 4.71 4.90 9.35 6.86 5.56 2.75 4.00 4.39 6.98 2.25 5.62 4.48 4.44 5.15 2.20

SW

%

28 17 5 17 7 13 3 5 9 13 8 4 5 2 4 5 5 6 6 6 4 5 1 7 3 6 6 6 3 3 4 4 6 7 7 3 5 3 4 5 2 3 2 3 2 2 2 3 1 3 2

11.76 9.39 8.77 7.59 7.53 6.34 6.25 5.95 5.70 5.65 5.44 5.19 5.15 5.00 4.94 4.76 4.63 4.55 4.51 4.41 4.21 4.17 4.17 4.02 4.00 4.00 3.90 3.77 3.75 3.57 3.48 3.39 3.37 3.33 3.02 3.00 2.94 2.94 2.88 2.86 2.78 2.75 2.67 2.63 2.33 2.25 2.25 2.24 2.22 2.21 2.2

Exceptional month sends Galileo top Monsun has finally relinquished his lead in a table he has made his own in recent years. This is not only because his percentage has dropped slightly but because Galileo enjoyed an exceptional month. Dubawi in second increased his percentage fractionally.

Galileo had seven new stakes winners from only another 12 runners during the month.

Ballydoyle (Debutante Stakes), Fields Of Athenry (Ballyroan Stakes), Mondialiste (Strensall Stakes), Order Of St George (Irish St Leger Trial) and Recorder (Acomb Stakes) all won their first Group race.

Another ‘mover’ in the top ten is Dark Angel, now in sixth place from eighth. More dramatically, War Front is now 14th after being 40th, but that is typical for a sire with relatively few runners. He had another three facing the starter, taking his total to 40, and Air Force One’s success in the Phoenix Stakes doubled his number of stakes winners.

Leading sires of two-year-olds 2015 by earnings Name

Dark Angel Invincible Spirit Kodiac *Zoffany Showcasing *Canford Cliffs Exceed And Excel Galileo Victory Gallop Acclamation War Front Lion Heart Equiano Zebedee Paco Boy Royal Applause Shamardal Pastoral Pursuits *Dream Ahead Iffraaj Scat Daddy *Roderic O'Connor American Post Compton Place Sri Pekan

YOF

2005 1997 2001 2008 2007 2007 2000 1998 1995 1999 2002 2001 2005 2008 2005 1993 2002 2001 2008 2001 2004 2008 2001 1994 1992 Holy Roman Emperor 2004 Rock Of Gibraltar 1999 Bosporus 1995 Dubawi 2002 Air Chief Marshal 2007 *Halicarnassus 2004 Bushranger 2006 Kheleyf 2001 Turtle Bowl 2002 Country Reel 2000 Raven's Pass 2005 Siyouni 2007 New Approach 2005 Fast Company 2005 Teofilo 2004 Fastnet Rock 2001 Dehere 1991 Mountain Cat 1990 Kyllachy 1998 *Lilbourne Lad 2009 Dutch Art 2004 Arcano 2007 *Poet's Voice 2007 Bahamian Bounty 1994

Sire

Rnrs

Wnrs

Acclamation Green Desert Danehill Dansili Oasis Dream Tagula Danehill Sadler's Wells Cryptoclearance Royal Applause Danzig Tale Of The Cat Acclamation Invincible Spirit Desert Style Waajib Giant's Causeway Bahamian Bounty Diktat Zafonic Johannesburg Galileo Bering Indian Ridge Red Ransom Danehill Danehill Night Shift Dubai Millennium Danehill Dancer Cape Cross Danetime Green Desert Dyhim Diamond Danzig Elusive Quality Pivotal Galileo Danehill Dancer Galileo Danehill Deputy Minister Storm Cat Pivotal Acclamation Medicean Oasis Dream Dubawi Cadeaux Genereux

56 42 91 54 49 54 50 23 32 63 12 29 46 68 34 45 29 29 32 33 9 30 14 23 8 40 34 18 29 20 12 51 48 20 8 24 21 12 32 16 28 8 16 34 55 25 39 38 28

23 13 29 16 17 23 17 11 14 24 7 9 16 18 10 19 13 10 14 9 6 8 6 4 5 9 6 7 11 7 7 13 13 6 5 7 6 5 13 3 9 4 6 7 13 8 11 8 6

%WR

41.07 30.95 31.87 29.63 34.69 42.59 34.00 47.83 43.75 38.10 58.33 31.03 34.78 26.47 29.41 42.22 44.83 34.48 43.75 27.27 66.67 26.67 42.86 17.39 62.50 22.50 17.65 38.89 37.93 35.00 58.33 25.49 27.08 30.00 62.50 29.17 28.57 41.67 40.63 18.75 32.14 50.00 37.50 20.59 23.64 32.00 28.21 21.05 21.43

Races

AWD

Earnings (£)

Top horse

Earned (£)

32 19 42 23 24 31 22 14 25 25 10 14 24 26 14 21 17 13 18 11 6 10 8 5 11 10 8 12 13 8 10 15 15 10 6 8 7 7 16 6 9 8 9 9 14 14 12 14 8

5.9 5.7 5.7 5.9 5.6 6.2 6.1 7.3 6.0 6.1 6.4 5.7 5.5 5.7 6.0 6.0 6.4 5.6 6.0 7.3 5.7 6.8 6.3 5.5 5.9 6.2 6.8 5.9 7.2 6.8 6.0 6.3 5.8 6.4 5.8 6.1 6.5 6.8 6.0 6.2 6.9 6.0 6.1 5.5 5.8 6.0 6.1 6.4 5.9

647,672 620,988 547,837 412,774 388,729 368,871 325,341 306,080 293,307 285,331 243,629 238,434 233,099 219,984 205,703 194,602 194,304 187,848 165,569 163,167 158,159 156,120 153,228 150,797 148,997 148,136 144,649 143,699 139,093 135,558 132,778 129,205 123,725 119,903 119,843 118,798 116,382 113,895 113,093 112,911 112,000 107,350 106,987 106,640 106,265 105,948 104,529 104,465 103,474

Gutaifan Shalaa Besharah Illuminate Tasleet Painted Cliffs Buratino Ballydoyle Ildir Beyi King Of Rooks Air Force Blue Ilkaan Fly On The Night Zebstar Galileo Gold Still On Top Lumiere Ferryover Final Frontier Ribchester Acapulco Great Page Robin Of Navan Lathom Radyocu Mayfair Lady Tony Curtis Princess Westport Tanaza Rougeoyant Helgalein Now Or Never Kurland Danza de la Barre Tourny Ibn Malik Kotama Herald The Dawn Four's Company Fireglow How High The Moon Rumba Kinowa Kachy Lil's Joy Ottone Shadow Hunter Whitman Blue Bayou

134,095 308,433 184,911 92,181 208,789 62,482 125,202 69,906 89,044 58,893 137,272 67,294 52,830 22,740 123,720 39,217 51,544 64,080 37,400 48,263 123,360 81,271 59,502 132,838 69,108 38,797 29,502 36,126 35,353 36,614 62,100 27,550 16,344 32,147 80,928 47,528 16,710 65,907 18,100 43,350 21,739 43,807 46,529 49,002 13,078 38,717 36,355 30,369 40,198

Spirit closes the gap after Shalaa stunner Shalaa’s impressive victory in the Prix Morny gave Invincible Spirit a boost and he is breathing down the neck of Dark Angel, albeit with significantly fewer winners – 13 against 23.

Dark Angel increased his tally by five during the month and his percentage of winners to runners is 41%. That puts him third behind Canford Cliffs and Royal Applause among sires with 40 runners or more.

Canford Cliffs has a lead of seven in the first-season sires race based on numbers. He notched another five to take his tally to 23, while Zoffany, in first position on earnings, had six to move on to 16.

They have both had 54 runners and both had 12 newcomers, a figure none of the others in the list could match.

Dream Ahead had four new winners and is on 14, followed by Frozen Power, who failed to add to his score of ten.

Statistics to September 3; *denotes first-season sire

110

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24 HOURS WITH… THIERRY JARNET

112

GEORGE SELWYN

I

have no problem getting up and don’t need an alarm. When I’m going to gallop horses at Chantilly I am out of bed by six o’clock.

Even if I am not riding out, I am still up in good time because I am a natural early riser, though sometimes I might stay in bed until seven.

First thing I always check my phone for messages to see if there is a change of plan for working the horses. I will have a cup of coffee and if I am on duty at Criquette Head’s, it is only about five minutes in the car. If I am not riding out for Criquette or perhaps her brother, Freddy, or Pascal Bary I will be helping my wife Sandrine, who trains 40 Arabs and thoroughbreds. We also have three cats and four big dogs. I don’t take the dogs out; they are here to guard the house and stables.

I am lucky because in the morning it is always the thought of going to the gallops and riding that makes me happy and brings a smile to my face.

Amber, our 18-year-old daughter, rides out for Sandrine in the mornings. She does not ride in races but says that being among the horses every day is one of her biggest pleasures. She does a lot of the secretarial work for us and, when needed, acts as an interpreter. Amber is planning to study International Commerce.

After I have ridden out, breakfast is just a croissant and coffee, accompanied by Paris Turf, France’s racing daily, which helps keep me up to date. Normally I won’t eat anything else until the evening – I can easily miss lunch.

I weigh 52.5 kilos and am 1.55 metres tall. It was more difficult to go without food when I was young, but as I have got older and with more experience I am able to

The last few seasons have been the greatest in the career of veteran jockey THIERRY JARNET thanks to Treve.

Another Arc victory would be classical music to the 48-year-old’s ears! manage my diet much better.

I am not as hungry for my food as I used to be, but I do take pleasure in cooking at home.

I often spend the winter in Japan, America and Hong Kong, where I won the Hong Kong Vase on Ange Gabriel.

When I think of all the countries where I have ridden, I enjoy America the most; I like the flat, turning tracks over there. The American sunshine and hospitality makes you feel very welcome as well. I finished second on Ski Paradise behind Lure in the 1993 Breeders’ Cup Mile at Santa Anita and it would be great if I could win a Breeders’ Cup race.

During the European season I have been to England many times and won the Champion Stakes on Tel Quel, the 2,000 Guineas on Pennekamp and the Coronation Cup on Apple Tree, not forgetting how I nearly caught Australia’s champion Black Caviar on Moonlight Cloud at Royal Ascot. I think my total of winners in France and around the world is about 2,600 and I have won the Cravache d’Or [jockeys’ title] four times.

I hardly need to say that my greatest memories since I started riding when I was 15, 33 years ago, centre around the last two Arc de Triomphes on the wonderful mare, Treve.

Her acceleration sets her apart from any other horse I have ridden. If she wins a third Arc she will become part of racing legend. I also have a special place in my heart for my first two Arc wins on Subotica and Carnegie.

I rode Treve at the end of August and she felt exceptional. But in her Arc prep race, the Vermeille, she was even better. She was fresh, so I had to keep a strong hold of her, but her acceleration was fabulous. I believe she is better than she has ever been – better than when she won her two Arcs.

Treve has filled out, is stronger and, incredibly for a five-year-old, still maturing.

She has a very good brain, takes her work very seriously and is a true professional in everything she does. If any horse deserves to be the first to win three Arcs, it is Treve.

One of my favourite ways to relax is catching up on my sleep at home. I also enjoy going into Paris with Sandrine and Amber for some shopping. I find that takes me out of myself and away from the daily routine of riding.

We sit down to our evening meal at about 7pm. I eat everything, meat, fish, whatever there is. I nearly always make it myself because Sandrine does not cook, but Amber helps. I will take a glass of red wine and produce any meal; there is no particular speciality.

After dinner I watch television, mainly the news, or listen to classical music, which I love. Sometimes I go to a concert or the cinema – I really enjoyed the recent film Jurassic World. One of our favourite holiday spots is Florida; I love to swim in the pool under the Florida sun.

I go to bed between 9.30 and 10pm and very often listen to classical music before falling asleep.

Interview by Tim Richards

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Renewed appreciation!

New Approach’s fourth crop are now two and, according to Timeform, only two stallions in Europe have produced a better bunch.

Stallions by average Timeform rating of 2015 juveniles

1 2 3

Galileo Sea The Stars

New Approach

85.5 80.6 80.2

4 5 6 7 8 9 7

Pivotal Dream Ahead Exceed And Excel Teofilo Invincible Spirit Dansili Raven’s Pass

77.9 77.4 76.8 76.6 74.5 72.9 72.7

More than 10 runners, to 16 September

Seven Group or Listed winners this year, including G2 Futurity Stakes winner Herald The Dawn.

There’s more like this in the Darley Buyers’ Guide www.darleystallions.com/buyers-guide-2015 or download the DAR LEY CO F F EE TABLE app from the App Store