Thoroughbred Owner Breeder

Full speed ahead

Editor: Edward Rosenthal

Bloodstock Editor: Nancy Sexton

Design/production: Thoroughbred Group

Editorial: 12 Forbury Road, Reading, Berkshire RG1 1SB editor@ownerbreeder.co.uk www.theownerbreeder.com

Twitter: @TheOwnerBreeder Instagram: theownerbreeder

Advertising: Giles Anderson UK: 01380 816777

IRE: 041 971 2000

USA: 1 888 218 4430 advertise@anderson-co.com

Subscriptions: Keely Brewer subscriptions@ownerbreeder.co.uk 01183 385 686

The Owner Breeder can be purchased by non-members at the following rates:

1 Year 2 Year

UK £60 £100

Europe £90 £150

RoW £120 £195

The Owner Breeder is owned by the Racehorse Owners Association

Editorial views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the ROA or TBA

Our monthly average readership is 20,000

Racehorse Owners Association Ltd 12 Forbury Road, Reading, Berkshire RG1 1SB Tel: 01183 385680 info@roa.co.uk • www.roa.co.uk

Camacho and Brown hit top gear with sprint ace Shaquille

We all love a character, whether human or equine, and three-year-old colt Shaquille is rapidly turning into one of this season’s most enigmatic customers, his unorthodox style of racing proving no hindrance to big-race success.

The Racing Post comments on this year’s performances include “dwelt start, pulled hard”, “mounted in chute and taken down early”, and “reared start and slowly away” (twice) – yet despite those apparent negatives, the son of Charm Spirit has won all four starts in 2023, most recently taking the Commonwealth Cup and July Cup – both Group 1 contests – to confirm his status as an outstanding sprinter.

Home for Shaquille is the aptly-named Star Cottage stable in Malton, North Yorkshire, where Julie Camacho trains around 60 horses with husband Steve Brown. Camacho has trained a number of talented runners since taking over the licence from her father Maurice in 1998, including Elite Racing Club’s grand old stager Judicial, still racing with zest aged 11, yet there is little doubt that Shaquille has taken the yard to new heights.

Undoubtedly the most remarkable effort from the horse, named after US basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal, came at Royal Ascot in June. Forfeiting upwards of ten lengths after falling out of the stalls, he made relentless progress under Oisin Murphy to overhaul Little Big Bear near the finish, eventually scoring cosily by a length and a half.

At Newmarket in the July Cup, this time under Rossa Ryan, Shaquille again defied a slow start followed by a rapid dash to the front where he appeared to race far too keenly, yet still had enough in reserve to record another comfortable victory.

In these days of mega stables with hundreds of thoroughbreds on the books, it’s refreshing to see a smaller outfit thriving on the biggest stages the sport has to offer. Despite their run of success, the husband-and-wife team are not looking for a huge influx of horses, instead preferring to up the quality of their string.

“We want to improve the structure. Me and

Jules are too hands-on and getting older. We still want to be as close to the horses as much as possible, but there are certain things we could let go,” Brown tells Marcus Townend (The Big Interview, pages 26-30).

“We also want to do the job better. For all it is going fine, I am a great believer that it could always be better, no matter what you are doing. People come in with new energy and new ideas and want to work with you.

“We don’t want a huge amount more horses. We are comfortable with the numbers we have got but we want better horses for our owners. If horses are on the move now, we are in the mix for them and getting more phone calls.

“There has definitely been more interest in the yard with people asking about yearlings. That is maybe a result of what Shaquille has done.”

King Of Steel hasn’t yet managed a top-level triumph like Shaquille but his King Edward VII Stakes victory and placed efforts in the Derby and King George suggest it won’t be long before he corrects that statistic. Nancy Sexton spoke to Alberto Figueiredo, director of Bonne Chance Farm which bred King Of Steel and also US Grade 1 scorer Arabian Lion, to find out about this most international breeding operation (pages 32-36).

We also catch up with former top rider George Baker, whose career in the saddle was ended by a serious injury but can now be seen in a host of different roles, including TV pundit and jockey coach (The Finish Line, page 88).

Cover: Top sprinter Shaquille in relaxed mood with Julie Camacho at the trainer’s Star Cottage stable in Malton, North Yorkshire

Photo: Bill Selwyn

“It’s refreshing to see a smaller outfit thriving on the biggest stages”

Did you know?

Our monthly average readership is

20,000

Unity vital on levy and white paper stances

The end of July saw racing’s final submission to DCMS of the evidence to support a change in the way that the levy is calculated, in addition to some wider requests regarding the gambling white paper.

As readers will be aware, the government has now published the various consultations addressing the gambling review, most notably around the issue of affordability checks. The Racing Post and almost all other racing media has led strongly on the intrusive nature of the proposed checks, but just as importantly on the potential loss of significant income to our industry, which would be certain to impact prize-money levels. The media has also focused on the Gambling Commission’s role in this process and whether it is fit for purpose.

In addition, many owners have a bet on their horses when they run, and for some it is a fundamental part of the ownership experience. If that opportunity is removed because of those affordability checks, a significant number of owners may drift away from the sport.

All the while, time ticks on and the ability of this government to get its legislation passed before the next election becomes increasingly difficult. The BHA’s co-ordination of the racing industry’s response to both the levy review and the gambling white paper must be applauded, but inevitably the outcome of these efforts will be what the group is judged on.

The announcement made by the Betting and Gaming Council, the group that co-ordinates the betting operators’ response to industry issues, was somewhat at odds with the BHA’s compiled data. We need to resolve that issue urgently or there is a real risk that what was once a traditional war of words between the bookmakers and the racing industry could re-emerge and scupper the joint approach to the white paper and levy review.

On the latter subject, the saga of the review has been played out over almost three years. Initially as a response to the impact of Covid on our finances, there was an effort to bring forward the review, originally scheduled for 2024. It was felt at the time that there was a good chance of persuading government to come to the table a little earlier and initiate changes that would improve our income from the levy, but this early review ultimately failed to materialise. It is amazing to think now that this was before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and double-digit inflation in the UK.

We now must wait to see how the levy saga finally plays out, but we must remain hopeful of a positive result. One thing is for sure – the government would prefer an agreed industry position to the divisive debates of old.

The strategy work led by the BHA through the industry’s Commercial Committee continues at a pace, with the 2024 fixture list nearing completion. As has been revealed, next year

will see the introduction of a two-year trial of 160 ‘premier fixtures’ with increased prize-money, with many of those run during a protected two-hour window between 2pm and 4pm on Saturdays through the year. One further non-premier meeting will take place at the same time, with other meetings that would have previously been run during that period starting earlier or later.

This new schedule should increase the focus on our most high-profile fixtures, with expected increased levy generation to re-invest in the whole sport, but it is, of course, vital that the rest of the c1,300 fixtures, where the majority of owners, trainers and horses will be operating, remain competitive and rewarding.

There is a huge opportunity in the plans that are being pulled together and the industry leaders need to embrace the new concept to give it the greatest chance of success. This should not be just racing under a different name but an entirely new version of the sport we love and an opportunity to break out of the funding model that struggles to finance our expectations.

As I write, the yearling sales season has got off to a very positive start in Deauville. It was most encouraging to see bidders from many jurisdictions who have been relatively quiet for the last two or three years back in action and showing strong interest in French, English and Irish bloodstock.

The continued desire for our bloodstock further illustrates that if we get the changes to our racing product right, the returns could fundamentally improve and make Britain a true world leader on all fronts. We don’t have much time to exploit this window so we must be brave and fearless.

Charlie Parker President

“The government would prefer an agreed industry position to the divisive debates of old”

A RICH HISTORY OF SUCCESS

Recent GRADUATES include:

ACQUITTED

· Winter Stakes LR

BAYSIDE BOY

· Queen Elizabeth II Stakes Gr.1

· Champagne Stakes Gr.2

BE YOUR BEST

· P. G. Johnson Stakes LR

· 2nd Del Mar Oaks Gr.1

BURGARITA

· Prix Casimir Delamarre LR

· Prix de la Seine LR

· 2nd Prix Corrida Gr.2

· 3rd Prix de Diane Gr.1

EL DRAMA

· Dee Stakes LR

· 2nd Jebel Hatta Stakes Gr.1

FRANCESCO GUARDI

· Moonee Valley Gold Cup Gr.2

GARRUS

· Prix de Ris-Orangis Gr.3

· Abernant Stakes Gr.3

· 3rd Prix Maurice de Gheest Gr.1

HAQEEQY

· HH The President Cup LR

· Lincoln (Heritage Handicap)

IBERIAN

· 2nd Vintage Stakes Gr.2

IMPACT WARRIOR

· 3rd Del Mar Oaks Gr.1

JIMI HENDRIX

· Royal Hunt Cup, Royal Ascot

· 3rd Summer Mile Gr.2

JUMBY

· Hungerford Stakes Gr.2

· John of Gaunt Stakes Gr.3

LONE EAGLE

· Zetland Stakes Gr.3

· 2nd Irish Derby Gr.1

· 2nd Ormonde Stakes Gr.3

LUCKIN BREW

· 2nd Silver Tankard Stakes LR

MAMAHEART

· 3rd Premio Nogara LR

MARISTELLA

· 3rd Garnet Stakes LR

NEW ENERGY

· 2nd Irish 2,000 Guineas Gr.1

OVIEDO

· Zetland Gold Cup

· 3rd Acomb Stakes Gr.3

· 3rd The Steventon Stakes LR

PLACE DU CARROUSEL

· Prix de l’Opéra Gr.1

· Prix Cléopâtre Gr.3

· Prix Gontaut-Biron Gr.3

SAFFRON BEACH

· Prix Rothschild Gr.1

· Sun Chariot Stakes Gr.1

· Duke of Cambridge Stakes Gr.2

· 2nd Matron Stakes Gr.1

· 2nd 1,000 Guineas Gr.1

YEARLINGDON’TMISSOURCONSIGNMENTSAT

SAVVY VICTORY

· Gala Stakes LR

· 3rd Chester Vase Gr.3

SELF BELIEF

· Meld Stakes Gr.3

· Trigo Stakes LR

SHUWARI

· Star Stakes LR

SOLDIER RISING

· 2nd Man o’ War Stakes Gr.1

· 2nd Manhattan Stakes Gr.1

· 2nd Saratoga Derby Gr.1

· 3rd Sword Dancer Stakes Gr.1

STATEMENT

· Concorde Stakes Gr.3

· Navigation Stakes LR

STREETS OF GOLD

· €300,000 Tattersalls Ire Sales Stakes

· £100,000 2YO Series Final

· £100,000 York Nursery

· 3rd Jersey Stakes Gr.3

· 3rd Surrey Stakes LR

SWEET BELIEVER

· 2nd Fortune Stakes LR

· 3rd Gillies Stakes LR

· 3rd John Musker Stakes LR

VIOLET GIBSON

· 3rd Honey Ryder Stakes LR

WONDERFUL TIMES

· Prix Urban Sea LR

BAYSIDE BOY Gr.1 Winner

SAFFRON BEACH Gr.1 Winner

PLACE DU CARROUSEL Gr.1 Winner

TBA Leader

Production must match demand for UK horses

It has been a pleasant surprise to stud owners and stock farmers to see a return to a relatively normal British summer, with rain on and off keeping the paddocks green and the horses happy.

It brings home to those of us here and in northern Europe how we developed the thoroughbred racehorse to breed, live and thrive in our climate and reach its potential through the natural grass and feed we grow around us. The thoroughbred was not created to breed or grow in extremes of temperature or without natural grass available to it.

This means that many of the Middle Eastern and other countries instigating thoroughbred racing programmes, and those further east such as Hong Kong, have no option but to buy horses from the countries that can provide the optimum breeding and growing conditions for mares, foals, and yearlings.

The problem is that most of these countries are producing considerably less foals than they did at the turn of the century and there seems to be little sign of breeders worldwide making the substantial changes in breeding numbers required to fulfil this demand. The principle reason must be the economics of breeding and the recent Economic Impact Study produced by Pricewaterhouse Coopers for the TBA highlighted that 66 per cent of breeders were not profitable.

This study was based on 2021/22 figures and since then we have, like the rest of the world, seen substantial cost inflation in everything from labour to vets’ fees, feed and energy costs. If breeders at the upcoming yearling and foal sales are to recoup these extra costs and move forward to a more sustainable future, then prices will have to rise across the board.

If racehorses are being sold off the track to race abroad there is every chance that the owners of these horses will reinvest back into the sport, and if that is the case, then we should see that uplift in the market that we so badly need. We shouldn’t be so concerned about this trading of racehorses if it leads to that investment feeding through to the sales and increasing the returns to breeders, so that they in turn invest in the future.

This does of course mean that we have become a nursery for other racing jurisdictions and as breeders we shouldn’t be surprised or mind that many of our racehorses continue their racing careers outside this country. If we are able to breed durable racehorses that can continue their careers elsewhere then that helps with

Julian Richmond-Watson Chairman

the demand for those we produce.

The principal of supply and demand isn’t perfect but if owners and breeders are selling horses into a new and expanding market then hopefully they will reap the rewards and reinvest to move the market forward.

What we do need to ensure is that the better fillies remain in training here and go to stud in Great Britain –any loss of these overseas will deplete our broodmare band. Not only do these fillies tend to retire in the country in which they finished their racing careers, but they give

stallion owners the confidence to stand good stallions where good mares are domiciled. As has happened with the Elite Mares Scheme in National Hunt breeding, the availability of quality mares to a stud owner is vital in their decision-making in deciding where to locate their stallion and in wanting to give their stallion the best possible start to his career.

It makes it more important than ever that we encourage and incentivise owners and breeders to race and then breed from these females in this country. The race programme for both Flat and National Hunt has improved substantially in this regard and the Great British Bonus has focused unashamedly on supporting fillies and mares – any initiative in the future should build on that principle and focus on retaining them here. Breeding syndicates and other initiatives to bring in new and younger breeders are at the forefront of the TBA’s activities and retaining and improving our broodmare band is vital to our industry.

“If racehorses are being sold there is every chance that owners will reinvest back into the sport”

Dual champion jockey Paul Hanagan calls time on career in the saddle

Paul Hanagan, champion jockey on two occasions, retired last month after riding on the Friday of the Ebor meeting, citing fitness as a reason for his decision having suffered a bad fall in 2020.

Hanagan, who turns 43 this month, was champion apprentice in 2002 and won his first senior title in 2010, when partnering 191 winners, and successfully defended his crown the following year.

He enjoyed Classic glory in 2014, winning the Oaks on Taghrooda, the duo also landing that year’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. That came during Hanagan’s four-year spell as retained rider to the late Hamdan Al

Maktoum’s Shadwell operation.

The fall which was ultimately a prime factor in his decision to quit the saddle came on February 15, 2020, aboard Requinto Dawn at Newcastle, shortly before the Covid-19 curtain came down on the sport, with Hanagan suffering three fractured vertebrae.

Speaking on the first day of the Ebor meeting, when the news was announced out of the blue, Hanagan said: “As you can imagine it’s quite emotional. It’s difficult, I think any professional sportsperson will tell you, especially doing it as long as I’ve been doing it for.

“There’s a few things involved in making my decision, I had a pretty bad fall

a few years ago and I’ve never quite been the same after it, I fractured my back in three places.

“It’s not so much painful riding, but it’s getting to the level of fitness you need to be at to be a professional jockey and I don’t think I was getting to that standard.”

The trainer that Hanagan was most closely associated with throughout a riding career which began in September 1998 was Richard Fahey, for whom he broke his Group 1 duck on Wootton Bassett in the 2010 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere.

He also captured the July Cup for the trainer on Mayson, one of ten career top-level victories amid a total of 2,109 wins in Britain.

Jump racing reintroduced at Windsor

In a welcome boost to the diversity of jumps racing in Britain, Arena Racing Company (ARC) has announced the return of National Hunt action to Windsor.

The Berkshire track has a history of hosting jumping, having done so until 1998, with the course also temporarily staging a number of fixtures on behalf of nearby Ascot during its redevelopment in 2004 and 2005.

It is anticipated Windsor will have a small number of National Hunt meetings across the 2024-25 season, with the first slated to take place on

Sunday, December 15, 2024.

There will be no net increase in the number of fixtures it has over the year, with the new jumps meetings effectively switched from the afternoon Flat cards that have been traditionally held at the beginning and end of the season in April and October.

ARC reports it has made significant investment in the racing surface in order to pave the way for jumping’s return and, in conjunction with the British Horseracing Authority racecourse inspectorate and Professional Jockeys Association safety

BILL SELWYN & GEORGE SELWYN

Paul Hanagan savours his Royal Ascot strike on The Ridler in 2022 while he enjoyed Oaks and King George victories with Taghrooda

Windsor last staged jump racing in 2005

GEORGE SELWYN

Hanagan was attached to the Fahey yard from the start of his career until 2011, and then again from 2017 after his split with Shadwell, until 2022, when he went freelance.

Fahey said: “We grew up together, he was a wonderful stable jockey and a massive help as we built our operation at Musley Bank.

“He joined me as a 17-year-old and I was so proud to see his career develop as it did. From champion apprentice to two-time champion jockey, it was incredible, and I’ll never forget the battle for the first senior title in 2010.

“There were so many great days along the way, Group 1 wins for Wootton Bassett and Mayson and in recent years Royal Ascot victories with the likes of Perfect Power and, last season, The Ridler.

“He was someone I could trust and rely on, a key cog in our wheel and a great man to have on your side. I wish him a long and healthy retirement.”

Hanagan hanging up his boots coincided with the news he would become The Good Racing Company’s first Director of Racing. The company was formed in October 2020 by entrepreneur and racing enthusiast Phil Hawthorne as an innovative way to fund-raise through horseracing.

Hanagan said: “I’ve long admired The Good Racing Company and think the concept has enormous potential to redefine racing by exciting and uniting people around good causes.

“It’s already raised a great deal of money for Rob Burrow and the MND community, and I look forward to taking up this newly-created position to help the organisation grow, achieve success and raise more money for causes close to my heart.”

officers, has developed new areas to offer an optimal configuration.

The newly-configured jumps course will utilise previously dormant turfed areas of the site, and will eliminate the need for a crossover, as was previously utilised for jumps racing, and is still used over certain Flat distances.

Jump racing at Windsor will see runners take a continuous left-handed circuit, instead of the previous figure of eight.

In addition, a number of areas of the track, including the back straight, will be widened to allow space for both hurdle and chase races.

ARC Managing Director Mark Spincer said: “We have long held a

France Galop issues new decree on whip use

Jockeys who use their whip nine times or more in races in France will face immediate disqualification from the start of this month.

France Galop announced that regulations would be revised with the stated aim “to further strengthen deterrence against whip abuse”.

The ruling body unveiled a reduction in the number of permitted strikes from five to four in February, a measure which came into force in May.

From this month, if a jockey goes five strikes over that limit, their mount will be disqualified by the raceday stewards, before any bets on the race concerned are paid out.

The much lower limit of four strokes of the whip in France means that any jockey breaking the rules has relatively more room for manoeuvre before disqualification, despite the trigger point being nine, against, for example, ten on the Flat and 11 over jumps in Britain, where the limits are six and seven for each code.

The British Horseracing Authority amended its rules earlier in 2023. Any rider who exceeds the whip stroke limit by four or more is disqualified, although that is not imposed on raceday, instead being passed to the Whip Review Committee, which meets

desire to bring jump racing back to Royal Windsor racecourse, and we are really pleased to confirm this plan well ahead of the planned first fixture in December 2024.

“Whilst the racecourse hasn’t hosted regularly scheduled jumps fixtures since 1998, we believe that the plans we have put together with the BHA will mean the small number of fixtures that we would like to host will sit well alongside the long established, popular summer Flat programme.”

He added: “A significant amount of work has gone into considering the optimal layout for jumps racing at Royal Windsor, which will see the course configured differently to how it

It’s nine strikes and you’re out in France

on Tuesdays and Fridays.

In Ireland, the maximum number of times a whip can be used in a jumps race is seven, and on the Flat six. Any more than this and the stewards will review the ride and, if necessary, issue a penalty.

Rules differ in the major racing jurisdictions worldwide. In Australia, riders may use the whip five times in non-consecutive strides before the final 100 metres of a race, with no limits in that final stretch. Whips must not be used “in an excessive, unnecessary, or improper manner”.

That wording is similar to guidelines in Hong Kong and Japan, in terms of when a jockey could be penalised for use of the whip, but there is no stipulation as to how many times it can be used.

In the United States rules vary from state to state, but the majority do not have a set limit for the number of strikes.

was, but we believe it’s an excellent proposal to offer jump racing fans the chance to come back to Royal Windsor, whilst not impacting on the Flat programme, which is an important consideration.

“The proximity to the River Thames gives the track excellent drainage, and our records show the racecourse rarely ran jumps fixtures on heavy ground, with the majority of abandonments due to frost.

“Happily, turf management techniques have developed significantly since that time, so we are confident of providing excellent ground for the fixtures we would like to host in 2024 and 2025 and beyond.”

BILL SELWYN

Changes People and business

Racing’s news in a nutshell

Khalid Abdullah Juddmonte’s late founder, owner of champions Dancing Brave and Frankel, is inducted into the QIPCO British Champions Series Hall of Fame.

Julian Thick

Chief Executive of Newbury racecourse will step down before the end of March next year after ten years in the role.

Robbie Geoghegan

Irish jockey who claims 7lb is handed a 50-day ban for failing to pull up his injured mount Sole Pretender at Galway.

Sam Ewing

Antrim-based teenager is recovering following surgery on a broken tibia, sustained in a fall at Cork in August.

Andrea Atzeni

Takes decision to continue his career in Hong Kong, initially for six months, having struggled to secure enough good rides as a freelance.

Jim Crowley

Senior rider banned for 20 days and fined £10,000 for striking his mount Hukum nine times when winning the King George at Ascot.

Carl Hinchy

Owner who has enjoyed Grade 1 success over jumps states that he will leave the sport as a result of affordability checks regarding betting.

Per Widerstrom

Former Chief Executive of gambling operator Fortuna Entertainment Group is the new Chief Executive of William Hill’s parent company 888.

Gearoid Brouder

Positive test for a metabolite of cocaine at Gowran in May sees the Irish jockey receive a four-year disqualification from riding.

Blue Diamond Stud

Imad Alsagar’s operation increases its North American presence with the purchase of Stonereath Farm, a 252-acre property in Kentucky.

Sean McBride

Former assistant trainer has his ban for corruption reduced from seven years to five by the appeal board of the Independent Judicial Panel.

Wolverhampton

Arena Racing Company submits a planning application to develop a new greyhound racing track at the Midlands venue.

Tammy O’Brien

International Client Relations and Strategic Development Manager of Tattersalls Ireland joins the company’s board with immediate effect.

People obituaries

Harry de Bromhead 86

The father of leading trainer Henry de Bromhead enjoyed Cheltenham Festival success with Fissure Seal in the 1993 Gold Card Hurdle Final.

Ken Richardson 84

Controversial owner was warned off for 25 years following the victory of Flockton Grey – who was actually Good Hand – at Leicester in 1982.

James Underwood 94

Well-travelled journalist and pedigree expert whose Digest publication was essential reading for many in the bloodstock industry.

Leslie Garrett 91

Owned Cheltenham Festival victor Our Armageddon and Romany King, runner-up to Party Politics in the 1992 Grand National.

2023 Gr. 1 Winners include

Racehorse and stallion Movements and retirements

Subjectivist

Winner of the 2021 Gold Cup at Royal Ascot for owner Dr Jim Walker and trainer Mark Johnston is retired aged six.

Adayar

Godolphin’s Derby and King George winner in 2021 is retired aged five. A stud career beckons for the imposing son of Frankel.

Darver Star

Talented and versatile jumper for the Gavin Cromwell stable, winner of ten races and over £250,000 in prize-money, is retired aged 11.

Vadeni

French Derby and Coral-Eclipse winner for his owner-breeder the Aga Khan is retired and will join Siyouni at Haras de Bonneval in 2024.

Honor Code

Son of A.P. Indy, a dual Grade 1 winner in the US, is purchased by Yushun Stallion Station in Japan having stood at Lane’s End Farm since 2016.

Modern Games

Godolphin’s top-class globe-trotting miler, winner of five Group/Grade 1s, is retired aged four and will embark on a new career as a stallion.

Little Big Bear

Son of No Nay Never, last year’s champion two-year-old when his wins included the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes, is retired due to a fetlock injury.

Muhaarar

Sire of this year’s French 2,000 Guineas winner Marhaba Ya Sanafi moves from Haras des Faunes to Haras du Petit Tellier.

Ballymount Boy

High-class juvenile trained by Adrian Keatley is purchased by Wathnan Racing prior to his second place in the Group 3 Acomb Stakes at York.

Great State

Listed-winning sprinter for the Richard Fahey stable is sold by owner Al Mohamediya Racing and will continue his career in Hong Kong.

Horse obituaries

Tedburrow 31

Remarkable sprinter, latterly trained by Eric Alston, won 21 races in total between the ages of two and ten including three Group 3s.

Sole Pretender 9 Stable star for Norman Lee, winner of ten races including a Grade 3 hurdle, suffers a fatal injury at Galway.

Maple Leaf Mel 3

High-class filly succumbs to injury just yards from the finish line when set to take the Grade 1 Test Stakes at Saratoga.

Art Collector 6

US dirt runner won the Woodward Stakes and Pegasus World Cup, both Grade 1s, for owner Bruce Lunsford and trainer Bill Mott.

Windmill Farm, Lambourn

Outstanding Stud Farm & Rehab Centre

M4 (J14) 6 miles, Hungerford 8 miles, Newbury 14 miles

• Immaculate country house: 3 main reception rooms, kitchen and conservatory, 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, space on second floor for 3 more bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Office. Well stocked mature garden.

• Accommodation barn with 2 flats

• Exceptional stabling with: 23 boxes, covered lunge ring, outdoor school, Horse walker, water treadmill

•·Railed paddocks over chalk downland

Approximately 36.58 acres (14.806 ha)

Offers in excess of £4.2 million

The Big Picture

It’s Hukum by a head in an epic King George

There was no hiding place in this year’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes as Ascot’s midsummer showpiece brought together ten of the best middle-distance horses in Britain and Ireland. It was a vintage renewal deserving of an epic finish and it got one as Hukum (right) and Westover thrilled racegoers with a ding-dong battle which went the way of Shadwell’s six-year-old by a head, to the delight of rider Jim Crowley, trainer Owen Burrows and Sheikha Hissa (above with their prizes).

Photos Bill Selwyn

The Big Picture

Paddington too powerful

Having successfully stepped up to a mile and a quarter in the Coral-Eclipse, the Aidan O’Brien-trained Paddington reverted to a mile for the showpiece contest at Glorious Goodwood, the Qatar Sussex Stakes. Ryan Moore was keen to make it a good test on the rain-softened ground and Coolmore’s three-year-old galloped on powerfully to triumph by a length and a half from French raider Facteur Cheval and Maxime Guyon (left).

Photo Bill Selwyn

The Big Picture

Princess powers home

It might not be a Group 1 but the King George Stakes at Goodwood is often a highlight of the Glorious meeting. Battaash made it his own between 2017 and 2020, and last month brought an emphatic winner in the wonderful homebred Highfield Princess, who gave ownerbreeder John Fairley, trainer John Quinn and jockey Jason Hart another memorable day.

Photos Bill Selwyn

Goodwood

Conditions on the South Downs at Goodwood were at times far from glorious this year, but any set of connections who had a winner would still have left all smiles. Notable winners included (from top) Sumo Sam, who won the Lillie Langtry by a whopping eight and a half lengths; Al Husn (Jim Crowley, blue and white), who had Nashwa and Blue Rose Cen behind her in the Nassau Stakes; Quickthorn, like Sumo Sam a wide-margin winner under Tom Marquand, in his case in the Goodwood Cup; and the King and Queen’s Desert Hero, yet another for Marquand but by the much tighter margin of a neck in the Gordon Stakes

The Big Picture

Cup field find it heavy going

Conditions at Goodwood had deteriorated by the time the Stewards’ Cup was staged on the final day of the meeting, to the extent that the final three races were abandoned. The heavy ground didn’t inconvenience Aberama Gold, however, who kept on strongly down the centre of the track under Andrea Atzeni to cross the line three-quarters of a length ahead of Apollo One while accompanied by the loose Rumstar, who unshipped his rider after exiting the stalls. Aberama Gold, trained by David O’Meara for Evan Sutherland, will need a different jockey for his next assignment, with Atzeni having relocated to ride in Hong Kong.

Photo Bill Selwyn

The Big Picture

Mostahdaf magic on Knavesmire

Almost all of the focus before the Juddmonte International at York last month was on Paddington, the odds-on favourite going for a fifth Group 1 victory on the bounce. He had only three rivals in what racecourse officials admitted was a disappointing turnout for their flagship contest, but a busy campaign caught up with the Ballydoyle three-year-old (left) as he could never quite bridge the gap to Shadwell’s Mostahdaf (centre), expertly ridden from the front by Frankie Dettori. Nashwa kept on to finish runner-up.

Photo Bill Selwyn

Lack of clear strategy risks consultation catastrophe

Remember the days when it was impossible to walk down any city, town or village high street without bumping into someone wanting to carry out a survey? Clipboard in hand, a group of seemingly students bibbed up for identification would ask for thoughts about Oxfam, with a cheery request for a direct-debit donation as their punchline, or a middle-aged mum would seek views about local amenities.

Except, of course, to those of us who were never asked for an opinion, even when desperate attempts at attracting attention involved crossing the road for no other apparent reason. Still, the consultation continued.

Nowadays, that situation no longer exists. Consultation goes hand in hand with the social media scene, and every step of everyday life comes with a follow-up survey. Even my local GP surgery asked for a rating on being recommended to others for appointments – chance would be a fine thing, but that’s another story.

Ease of modern communications makes it all the more odd

Brits popular overseas

It’s high season for whingeing about British connections losing horses to foreign lands – the latest being Jersey Stakes runnerup Zoology, bound for Australia – while trousering handsome sums that help to sustain business. A strange reaction when you consider that Britain has been a trading nation for the best part of a century, ever since, for instance, the Aga Khan of the time sold his Derby winners Bahram and Mahmoud to the US.

Evidence that such exports are overall detrimental to British racing are, so far, largely anecdotal. The bucket might have a few holes in it, but as long as it keeps being topped up, the balance remains sustainable.

Fostered by agents who have a global book of clients, the raw material provided by Britain will continue to be attractive to overseas interests as long as its international competitiveness remains high. The same also goes for its senior personnel.

David Eustace, who helps manage a huge operation with Ciaron Maher, is the latest Brit to join Australia’s training ranks, along with Matt Cumani and Annabel Neasham, while the States has long been home to ex-pats Jonathan Sheppard, Graham Motion and Michael Dickinson, and more recently Tom Morley and Simon Callaghan.

Elsewhere around the world, the biggest demand from a British perspective has been racecourse expertise. A distinguished army career was a prerequisite for the first three CEOs of the Hong Kong Jockey Club – Maj-Gen Bernard Penfold, Gen Sir John Archer and Maj-Gen Guy Watkins –although all three proved excellent businessmen, and the first-named had the considerable assistance of former journalist Tim Thompson in guiding the building of Sha Tin racecourse to its opening in October 1978.

Farther south, in Singapore, David McHarg oversaw the opening of Kranji racecourse in March 2000, in between acting as Clerk of the Course at the five Scottish tracks and Fontwell and Plumpton in an all-too-short life.

that the Professional Jockeys Association has got itself into such a muddle over the last couple of years. The Bryony Frost case, whips, fixture breaks and most recently saunas: all hot

Hong Kong has benefited from the expertise of Tony Kelly, who masterminded the building of the Conghua training centre, Stephen Higgins as Head of Raceday Operations, Charlie Henson the Manager of the Quarantine Stables and Tom Chignell the Executive Manager of Racing Integrity and betting analysis, not to mention Nigel Gray, who stood down in January after 16 years in the job of Head of Handicapping.

Similarly, the first steps to modern professionalism in the UAE were taken along British lines, as trodden by Lord John Fitzgerald, the governing body’s first Chief Executive, Melvin Day, who spent 26 years as Senior Handicapper, and Pat Buckley, who moved from Oman to serve as Racing Director of the Abu Dhabi Equestrian Club from its inception in 1991 to his death in February 2021.

Times change and the UAE has a smaller British representation than in the recent past, as does Qatar, following central committee changes. However, lack of numbers there has been more than made up by events in neighbouring Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

Bahrain’s Rashid Equestrian and Horseracing Club began its expansion by appointing Neil Mackenzie Ross as Facilities Manager and Clerk of the Courses, and he has been followed on the roster by Ed Veale as Director of Racing and International Relations, Phil Smith as Head of Handicapping and Paul Barton in a stewarding advisory role.

Smith’s retirement from the BHA has opened up other avenues for his handicapping skills, with Greece first off the mark, and then Saudi Arabia coming a-calling, as it did for David Mackinnon as Chief Racecourse Officer, and more imminently for Michael Prosser and Keith Ottesen, who are leaving Newmarket and Newbury respectively.

All familiar names in Britain, and all leaving a gap, which in the case of Prosser is being filled by Andrew Morris as Head of Racing and in Ottesen’s by George Hill as Clerk of the Course. A deplorable brain drain? No, it’s called natural progression in the modern world.

GEORGE SELWYN

Jockeys have complained about the removal of racecourse saunas

topics on which the PJA as a body has been found wanting in its responses to these major issues, largely, it seems, because it has not been able to consult effectively with the broad mass of its members.

Having railed against changes to the whip rules, which were implemented after a welter of consultation that directly included two representatives of the PJA, a groundswell of support for the reintroduction of saunas on racecourses lifted several more jockeys into media prominence, despite the PJA’s overwhelming agreement to their removal in the midst of Covid restrictions.

Among the reasoning for the new approach, according to the PJA, is that taking out racecourse saunas “has created physical and mental wellbeing issues for jockeys that far outweigh any perceived risk of dehydration by sauna use.” Exactly what has changed from pre- to post-Covid is hard to see.

What is incontrovertible is the estimate of £8 million that it would cost to re-insert those saunas that have been taken out of racecourse facilities, many of which have been seriously upgraded in the meantime. Where does the PJA think this money would come from? Especially as its members agreed for them to be removed in the first place.

Or maybe the mass of jockeys were not fully aware of what was going on around Covid time. It seems there’s consultation and there’s consultation.

Take the BHA, for instance, which has been hot on involving anyone and everyone in its search for industry acceptance. A particularly revealing example has been the make-up of some of its committees that have driven diversity and inclusion way up the agenda, when, perhaps, grassroots education and training might have been more worthy of immediate attention.

And now the government’s white paper on gambling reform is deep into a consultation period that has been widened and complicated by a similar process begun by the Gambling Commission. Racing interests, as much as those representing gambling operators and participants, need to be aware of the ramifications, starting with those surrounding affordability checks.

Among the Gambling Commission’s first set of consultations is an online survey that sets 30 questions on the topics of financial vulnerability checks and financial risk assessments of customers. Straightforward they are not.

As licensing expert David Clifton pointed out: “My immediate impression on first reading this particular consultation was that it is not easy to see the wood for clumps of trees scattered throughout it.”

So, there’s consultation and there’s consultation, and a significant slice of British racing’s future depends on making sure the facts are gathered and presented in coherent form to counter anti-gambling lobbying.

At that point, you must excuse me while I repair to the kitchen to consult with myself about whether it should be tea or coffee, or maybe something a little stronger.

TWYDIL® ARTRIDAY

Through its unique formula, TWYDIL® ARTRIDAY participates in the daily maintenance of a good functioning of the joints for a better locomotor comfort. TWYDIL® ARTRIDAY is particularly recommended for horses in training and during a competition period.

• Unique antidoping control: each batch is officially certified by the LCH (after controls on finished product, urine and blood of a horse having received three times the recommended quantity).

TWYDIL® is used by most of the successful professionals in the world.

“The PJA has been found wanting because it has not been able to consult effectively with members”

The Big Interview Next LEVEL

Words: Marcus Townend • Photos: Bill Selwyn

Julie Camacho concedes that her preferred way to celebrate a big win with husband Steve Brown is stopping at a service station for an egg sandwich, a low-key habit that hasn’t changed despite training Shaquille to Group 1 success in both the Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot and the July Cup at Newmarket this summer.

Training the season’s top sprinter could have meant the regular sound of champagne corks popping at Camacho’s Star Cottage stable, situated next door to Malton & Norton Golf Club, but old habits die hard.

“We are just used to grafting – I am quite happy without the limelight,” says Camacho.

But the reality is things have changed significantly as the Camacho stable looks forward to another top-level shot with Shaquille in the Haydock Sprint Cup on September 9.

The operation was already on an upward curve. Last season – Camacho’s 25th with a training licence – she landed a personal best with 47 winners, not far from double her previous highest seasonal tally.

Shaquille’s wins have now ensured Camacho has become the first female British Flat trainer to win over £1 million in

a season.

Brown says: “It is certainly different. We have moved the yard to a different level, which is great. It is what you strive for and why everyone works hard.

“You hope these horses might come along. There is a little bit of satisfaction from that, but my view is that you are always pushing forward and looking for your next runner. It doesn’t matter what level – it is trying to get the best out of every horse we have.”

Camacho’s name may be on the trainer’s licence, but this operation is very much a partnership.

Julie, 56, who gained work experience with William Jarvis in Newmarket and Sally Hall in Middleham, says: “Really we should have a joint licence, but Steve has never done his modules and it’s a pain in the backside to do them.

“The licence was in my [maiden] name in the first place because Jeannie Brown was training in Malton when I started, and it was just going to get too complicated to have two Mrs J Browns training in the town.”

Steve, 55, who learnt the ropes from a clutch of trainers including Brian Ellison, Jimmy Fitzgerald and Luca Cumani, adds: “Not being on the licence doesn’t bother

The exploits of brilliant sprinter Shaquille has put the North Yorkshire stable of Julie Camacho and Steve Brown in the spotlight in 2023 with the promise of plenty more to come

Julie Camacho and Steve Brown with stable star Shaquille, winner of two Group 1s so far this year

“We are just used to grafting

– I am quite happy without the limelight”

Julie Camacho and Steve Brown

The Big Interview

me at all. It has been a bit more of a chore this year to explain to people what the structure is, but most people pick it up quite quickly.”

Julie and Steve may not enjoy shouting about their successes but there is tangible action that has emerged from their recent run. Adverts for an assistant trainer to join the operation “where quality and numbers continue to rise” ran last month and a new appointment will be made shortly.

Steve says: “We want to improve the structure. Me and Jules are too hands-on and getting older. We still want to be as close to the horses as much as possible, but there are certain things we could let go.

“We also want to do the job better. For all it is going fine, I am a great believer that it could always be better, no matter what you are doing. People come in with new energy and new ideas and want to work with you.

“We don’t want a huge amount more horses. We are comfortable with the numbers we have got but we want better horses for our owners. If horses are on the move now, we are in the mix for them and getting more phone calls.

“There has definitely been more interest

in the yard with people asking about yearlings. That is maybe a result of what Shaquille has done.”

The current situation is in stark contrast to where Julie and Steve found themselves just over 20 years ago when, rather than advertising for new members to join their team, it looked like their staff would have to find new jobs.

Julie had taken over the family stable from her father Maurice in 1998 but with only 15 horses on the books and limited success – they had only 18 wins in four

seasons from 2001 to 2004 – the operation seemed unviable, especially with a young family to support.

In May 2001, the local Gazette & Herald ran a story under the headline ‘End of an era for the Camacho family’, with Julie explaining that their training operation would finish when the turf Flat season ended in November.

It really would have been the end of an era. Maurice had trained for 24 years, following his stepfather Charlie Hall who had started training in 1942.

Maurice’s big wins included Clear Cut in the 1975 Mackeson Gold Cup, while stable stalwart Avro Anson, who ran in the Grand National for both Maurice and Julie, was agonisingly disqualified after passing the post first in the Stayers’ Hurdle at the 1994 Cheltenham Festival.

Julie recalls: “You felt you were working hard and long hours, which we still are now, but now we are having more success. We didn’t have many horses, not enough anyway.”

Steve, who both played and managed in semi-professional football and still coaches when time allows, helping with the youth teams at York City, adds: “You couldn’t see the wood for the trees. The

Shaquille overcomes a slow start to take the July Cup under Rossa Ryan to the delight of his connections (below)

rewards weren’t there, and you were asking yourself why [you were doing it]. Was it better just to go and work for someone else and have a lot less stress?

“I had the opportunity at the same time to go into football coaching. I was offered the job as assistant youth coach at York, but we decided to do the horses instead, which was madness!

“Football is a volatile industry, but it is a lot easier. Those lads are having an early day when they start at 9.30am. We have done half our day by then – they will do an hour and a half and go home.”

Nowadays, there are just over 60 horses in training at Star Cottage and, while a few boxes might be added, the focus is on

Julie Camacho and Steve Brown

enough to do anything else.

“After I left school I went to secretarial college for a week and hated it.”

Rio Riva, who won five times and was second in the 2007 Lincoln Handicap, was a star for the stable, while the big standardbearer in recent years has been Judicial. He’d run four times and won three races when he was switched from the Roger Charlton stable by Elite Racing after being gelded.

Under the care of the couple who have two daughters, Sam, 22, and Steph, 17, Judicial, who was regarded as wayward when he joined the North Yorkshire outfit,

upping the quality.

So, what changed their minds and made them stick at it?

“It was probably like a lot of trainers, a question of what else do you do?” Julie explains. “I think a lot of trainers carry on for that reason, hoping that the next good horse is going to come. We had [12-time winner] Tessajoe. Where do you want her to go to be trained? It is not easy to let go.

“We are also very lucky in that the family own the yard. If we were paying big rent it would have been much tougher. Training is all I have ever known and wanted to do. Mum kept something I did at primary school where I said I wanted to train racehorses. I probably wasn’t clever

has won 15 of his 52 races, including the 2018 Coral Charge at Sandown and the 2020 Chipchase Stakes at Newcastle, both Group 3 races. At 11 years old he is still going.

Steve says: “Judicial has been amazing. You get more confidence and belief that we can handle a good horse and put them on the right track and get them there on the given day in the top form to win.”

That belief has served them well with Shaquille, but his path to the top has been both unexpected and eventful.

On paper, you would not have bet much on Shaquille winning a seller let alone a Group 1 for his owner-breeder Martin Hughes, who races the colt in partnership with friends Peter Rawlings and Michael O’Shaughnessy.

His oldest brother Sleight, by Showcasing, was originally in training with Hughie Morrison, who told Hughes he wasn’t good enough to race in his colours. He was right. Sleight didn’t manage a win in 19 starts for trainer Iain Jardine.

Shaquille’s other brother Helpful, by Oasis Dream, has also been moved on from the Hughes string having been beaten 46 lengths when finishing last of ten in a Warwick bumper in May for trainer Paul Webber.

Steve explains: “I reckon they thought they’d leave the next one in the north hoping to win a little race. I think that is how we ended up with Shaquille.”

It also helped that Hughes has threes mares with the Camacho operation and is

“There has been more interest –that is a result of what Shaquille has done”

The Big Interview

advised on mating plans by Maurice and Julie’s brother, Matt.

Born at nearby Battlefield Stud, Shaquille – who is by Charm Spirit, now standing for €5,000 at Haras du Logis Saint-Germain in Normandy – was back in a paddock outside the Camacho kitchen window within a week of being born.

Those paddocks are now home to his Cable Bay yearling colt brother, while dam Magic, a Galileo mare, also has an Iffraaj colt foal.

It is hoped they take after Shaquille, ability-wise at least. Quiet as a lamb largely at home, Shaquille becomes a coiled spring at the track with a neat impression of a caged tiger, as he showed on his winning debut at York in July last year when he also broke a rib of his groom.

Brown recalls: “He was horrendous. I have never been racing with a horse who has behaved as badly. I was embarrassed.

“Shaquille was pretty sleepy at home so looked like a horse who would get seven furlongs or a mile. If you saw him on the gallops, A, you wouldn’t be impressed and B, you would think how relaxed he is.

“He was 125-1 the night before the race and he was 75-1 to be in the first five or six. We are not a gambling yard, but we won a few quid that day. We said to the owners if he is not in the first five or six something has gone badly wrong. He had shown enough in his work.”

Defeat followed when he pulled too hard in the Acomb Stakes at York’s Ebor meeting but, dropped back to six furlongs, Shaquille won again at York and Wolverhampton as a two-year-old.

A winter’s worth of work went up in

smoke when Shaquille failed to go into the stalls when fancied for the Three-YearOld Championships Conditions Stakes on All-Weather Finals Day at Newcastle in April, but the racing world sat up and took notice when he ran away from a competitive field of handicappers at Newmarket half an hour after the 2,000 Guineas on May 6.

Brown says: “A lot of horses show speed and then decelerate. He keeps going. He is relentless. That is his main weapon – his ability to run an even six furlongs and not decelerate.

“He surprised James Doyle when he managed to keep going at Newmarket. He said he did plenty wrong. He thought he’d get to the furlong marker and stop

‘We must adapt and try new things’

The big change for racing next year will be the introduction of around 160 premier fixtures.

For a two-year trial period, two premier fixtures will be staged between 2pm and 4pm on a Saturday afternoon, aimed at better horses with enhanced prize-money on offer.

Some meetings will have to be run earlier and some later to de-clutter the two-hour window. The aim is to make the best of the action more identifiable, not only to the sport’s committed customers but also in the hope of selling the sport to potentially new fans.

Questions remain, principally around where the money will come from to boost the purses, but Steve Brown reckons the experiment is worth a try and should be backed.

He says: “I am happy to watch and see how it works. I think we constantly need to adapt. If we can find something which is beneficial to racing, we need to look at it.

“That is the way the world is now. You have to be open-minded and try new things.

“You look at football now and there is hardly a day when there is not a game on the TV of some quality, so you have to be flexible in your thought process. Why not try it?

“If it doesn’t work you can always go back to the way it was.”

because he was so keen early – but he said he couldn’t pull him up!”

It has been the same in most of Shaquille’s other races, winning despite being his own worst enemy.

The nearest Shaquille has got to a perfect race was when he won the Listed Carnarvon Stakes at Newbury in May. He overcame a seemingly disastrous start when giving away half a dozen lengths at Royal Ascot, rearing as the stalls opened, and he also fluffed the start in the July Cup before tanking his way to the front and winning impressively.

Rectifying theses glitches with a horse who is largely good as gold at home is tricky, but Brown has been working on a plan with Craig Witheford, who specialises in building racehorses’ confidence around the starting stalls procedure.

Brown continues: “We are going to have Craig come up to look at one or two things to see if we can get him to jump out the stalls more conventionally. There is only so much you can do, but Craig has one or two things in his mind. It’s your job to explore the options.”

After Haydock, Shaquille has an entry in the Champions Day Sprint at Ascot, although Brown is not sure he would run if the race was run on heavy going. Longerterm plans for the colt depend on Hughes.

Brown adds: “There have been plenty of offers for him, but Martin has consistently said he will sort his future out at the end of the season from a stallion perspective, or whether he stays in training at four. So we know as much as anyone else.”

The hope at Star Cottage is that Shaquille, who looks to have the potential to take his performances to yet another level, will still be around in 2024 to keep those low-key celebrations going.

Julie Camacho and Steve Brown

Judicial is still going strong for the Camacho stable at age 11

DO YOU KNOW THE CODE?

Everyone at a British and Irish thoroughbred auction is legally bound by the Bloodstock Industry Code of Practice

SCAN FOR THE CODE

ignorantia legis neminem excusat (ignorance of the law excuses no one)

Bonne Chance Farm Open MIND

A global outlook has reaped major dividends for the Kentucky nursery Bonne Chance Farm, currently riding high as the breeder of top three-year-old colts King Of Steel and Arabian Lion

Words: Nancy Sexton

If proof was ever needed of how small the racing world has become, then look no further than King Of Steel. Conceived in France, bred in Kentucky by a farm with roots in South America, sold at Keeneland and trained in Newmarket, the background to this year’s winner of the King Edward VII Stakes is certainly cosmopolitan and adheres to the idea that it’s rarely a bad idea to think outside the box.

That is certainly true of his breeder Bonne Chance Farm, a youthful operation located in Versailles in Kentucky. Efforts

are being to made cultivate a broodmare band with an emphasis on diversity as well as quality and with current top American three-year-old Arabian Lion also advertising its credentials this year thanks to a series of high-profile performances on dirt, those efforts are certainly being well rewarded. Indeed, King Of Steel and Arabian Lion are members of a threeyear-old crop for Bonne Chance Farm that numbers just 14.

Bonne Chance is the Kentucky division of leading South American operation Stud RDI, owned by Gilberto Sayão da

Silva and Paulo Fernando de Oliveira. Several years following its launch in 2008, it experimented with investing in Europe and with success, especially in light of the fact that the second batch of purchases included King Of Steel’s winning dam Eldacar, purchased for €95,000 under the banner of France Turf International as an Arqana yearling.

Not content with expanding their reach merely to Europe, the Kentucky property – then known as Regis Farms –was added in 2015 and renamed Bonne Chance Farm. Today under the eye of director Alberto Figueiredo and manager John Durr, it is the hub of Bonne Chance’s northern hemisphere operations, and with great efficiency if recent results are any indication.

Back in June, Amo Racing’s King Of Steel, a strapping son of Wootton Bassett, outran his odds of 66-1 by pushing the eventual winner Auguste Rodin to half a length on his seasonal debut in the Derby.

Arabian Lion: Grade 1 winner belongs to the same crop as King Of Steel

ALAMY

King Of Steel pictured as a young foal with his foster mare at Bonne Chance Farm

Despite his starting price, the colt had always been held in high regard by connections and he proved that performance was no fluke next time out with an easy victory in the King Edward VII Stakes at Royal Ascot. Roger Varian subsequently saddled him to run a fine third behind Hukum and Westover in the King George and he heads into the autumn priced at around 10-1 and 12-1 for the Champion Stakes and Arc.

Meanwhile, just days after King Of Steel’s runner-up effort at Epsom, his former paddock mate Arabian Lion served notice that he would become a force in the American three-year-old division by taking the Grade 1 Woody Stephens Stakes at Belmont Park. In the process, he earned a slice of history as the first Grade 1 winner for his sire, the American Triple Crown hero Justify.

Hopes also run high for another

member of that three-year-old crop, the Uncle Mo filly Nom De Plume, who looks to have black type as a priority after making it two from three in good style in allowance company at Ellis Park.

“Watching King Of Steel in the Derby was a great moment for Bonne Chance and Stud RDI,” says Figueiredo. “I started in the industry when I was 14-years-old doing catalogue research for a sales company [Agencia Paulista do Puro Sangue] in Brazil. They had stacks of The British Racehorse, a wonderful magazine, and in there we would read all these stories about the different Derby winners.

“So years later, it was very special to be looking at the screen and seeing a Bonne Chance-bred run in the Derby. And when he was second, it was even more so.”

While there is understandably much pride in producing a horse of the calibre of King Of Steel, his story is also one

tinged with sadness. His dam Eldacar was initially retired to stud in France after a lengthy and successful racing career with Mikel Delzangles, during which time she won at Fontainebleau and Clairefontaine. After foaling fillies by Lope De Vega and Wootton Bassett, the daughter of Verglas returned to the latter and was sent across the Atlantic to Kentucky. It was there in February 2020 that she foaled a large dark grey, almost black, colt; sadly, she died foaling, meaning that King Of Steel was raised by a foster mare.

There is some solace, however, in the fact that Bonne Chance still owns her four-year-old Wootton Bassett daughter Macadamia, a recent winner at Horseshoe Indianapolis.

“We were shareholders in Wootton Bassett when the horse stood at Haras d’Etreham,” recalls Figueiredo. “We sent him some mares, one of which was Eldacar ››

King Of Steel runs out the impressive winner of the King Edward VII Stakes at Royal Ascot

BILL SELWYN

Bonne Chance Farm

›› and she produced a lovely filly, Macadamia. That filly was so nice that we decided to go back to him the next year.

“Around that time, we decided to regroup and bring everything back to Kentucky. We had bought the farm in 2015, so we were invested in it and we felt there was no sense in having everything based around the world. The farm is 330 acres on great land. We mix it with cattle and as we’re not overpopulated with horses, it means we can rotate everything quite easily.

“So we brought all the stock back to Kentucky including Eldacar from France. She produced a big colt and unfortunately we lost her foaling – we tried everything to save her but sadly we were unable to.”

There is something majestic about King Of Steel. Anyone who has seen him in the flesh will attest to his imposing stature but with that, it’s understandable how the commercial market viewed him with some suspicion when he came under the hammer as part of the Gainesway consignment during Book 2 of the 2021 Keeneland September Sale. His auction price of $200,000, paid by agent Alex Elliott on behalf of Amo Racing, was by no means a bargain sum but it rested well below the day’s average of around $280,000 – and as subsequent events have shown, it did turn out to be a steal.

“Even though he was so big he was always a lovely horse, very athletic and straightforward,” says Figueiredo. “He was never awkward, despite his size, and he was always forward enough for the sales.

“At that point, Coolmore had bought Wootton Bassett [in a multi-million euro deal] and so there was a lot of talk about

Yet as Figueiredo points out, there was a silver lining.

“As it turned out, it was a benefit to the horse that Kia [Joorabchian] bought him,” he says. “He’s a big horse with a big stride. I don’t think the tight turns that we have in the US would have seen him to best effect. Kia bought him and took him to Europe. So it worked well in the long term.”

Arabian Lion was more of a long-term project for Bonne Chance but again it has worked out, starting with when the stud sold the Justify colt for $600,000 at last year’s OBS Spring Two-year-olds in Training Sale in Florida.

“Arabian Lion was a late foal, born on May 1, so we decided to send him straight to the two-year-old sales to give him time to mature,” says Figueiredo. “We have a very good relationship with Hidden Brook Farm, they do a lot of consigning for us in Kentucky and at the two-year-olds sales. I remember Mark Roberts, their two-yearold manager in Florida, rang me up one day and said, ‘Do you guys still have the dam of this horse?’ I said, ‘Yes, we do’. He said, ‘Don’t sell her, this colt could be good’.

“We got a very good price for him, Amr Zedan bought him and he got a good colt. So it was a good result for everyone. Last time at Belmont [when winning the Woody Stephens Stakes], he looked very, very special.”

Kentucky, and the outcome is Arabian Lion.

“We like to target very good families when we buy mares, that is very important,” explains Figueiredo. “And we like to buy a nice physical. We look at mares who have at least a decent race record – not necessarily big stakes winners but winners, mares that look like they tried on the track.

the stallion, there was a real buzz. King Of Steel was the only one by him to be offered in North America that year. And the price, $200,000, wasn’t bad at all. But then this is Wootton Bassett, the only one in the US, and so to be honest, we were a bit shocked that he didn’t make more. We knew he was liked but the size put some people off – I had people come up to me and say, ‘Alberto, we like your Wootton Bassett but he’s just too big’.”

Arabian Lion’s pedigree epitomises the goal behind the development of Bonne Chance’s broodmare band. He is out of Unbound, a stakes-placed daughter of leading broodmare sire Distorted Humor and a direct descendant of American champion Personal Ensign, whose legacy covers numerous top-flight winners. As such, the mare was afforded a chance with Justify in his first season, when he commanded $150,000 at Ashford Stud in

“I actually prefer to buy yearling fillies because then you have more information at your disposal coming out of the barn – their soundness, level of ability, whether they have a good mind. Then you can use that knowledge when it comes to the matings.”

Figueiredo is in an excellent position to appreciate how a global approach can benefit an operation. A native of Brazil, he was a partner manager in the Brazilian division of Pan American Bloodstock Agency before shifting to Haras São Jose and Expedictus, where he oversaw the launch of the international side of the operation. He joined Stud RDI in 2009.

“I worked with Haras São Jose, one of

Established in 2015, Bonne Chance Farm is managed by Alberto Figueiredo (inset)

“Even though he was so big he was always a lovely horse, very athletic”

BONNE CHANCE FARM

the biggest and oldest breeders in Brazil, during the 1990s,” he says. “They had some very good horses at the time like Siphon, who was also very good for Richard Mandella in California, and Romarin, who also did well in the US. It was a great experience in successfully bringing horses from South America to North America to race.

“The stud had a very good stallion named Felicio, a son of Shantung who won the Grand Prix de Paris who was imported out of France. He sired [champion] Itajara and he was the sire of Siphon and Romarin. Then during the mid-1990s, they imported another successful stallion called Know Heights, by Shirley Heights. It was seeing success like that which gave me the confidence to know that the mixing of bloodlines can work.”

Indeed, a glance at the mares currently based at Bonne Chance is another snapshot of a melting pot of bloodlines at work. For example, the current residents Perichole and Pretty Girl were Group 1 winners in Brazil and Argentina while stakes producer Bonne Rafaela is a

Brazilian-bred daughter of Elusive Quality from a highly successful Brazilian family. Fellow stakes producer Era Uma Vez is one of three Galileo mares on the farm alongside Exuberante, a relation to the Aga Khan’s top miler Darjina, and Golden Ballad, a half-sister to Belmont Stakes

winner Drosselmeyer out of the top dirt filly Golden Ballet.

The Medicean mare Gipoia was a Listed winner in France while the aforementioned Unbound and Lucas Street have bred Grade 1 winners on the dirt; Lucas Street is the dam of Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint heroine Wavell Avenue. Bonne Chance is also home to May Be Now, the dam of their Grade 1-winning turf miler Ivar.

“The industry has become truly global,” says Figueiredo. “Just look at the history of the sport. During the early 1900s, the Americans went to Europe, bought a lot of good stallions and invested in bloodlines. Then during the 1970s, Robert Sangster and John Magnier, the Maktoum family and Japanese buyers all came to the US to invest in American bloodlines.

“It’s very important to keep diversifying and introducing new blood.

“Just look at Ivar for example. His granddam Dans La Ville was bred in Chile and is from a very good Chilean family. She went to Kentucky and was bred to Smart Strike. The foal, May Be Now, went back to South America, won a Group 2 race [the Grande Premio Marciano de Aguiar Moreira], was bred to Agnes Gold, a son of Sunday Silence, and foaled Ivar.”

A champion in his native Argentina, Ivar was later sent to the US where he won the 2020 Grade 1 Shadwell Turf Mile at Keeneland and ran third in the Breeders’ Cup Mile. He currently stands for Stud RDI in Argentina at Haras Carampagne.

Figueiredo says: “So you have a Chilean mare by an American stallion who then visited a Japanese-bred stallion – and the result is Ivar, a Grade 1 winner against the best in the US.”

He adds: “I do believe that it doesn’t matter if the ability is on turf or dirt, it’s still ability. Yes, the US market remains more driven by the dirt horse but if you look at

BONNE CHANCE FARM

BONNE CHANCE FARM

Bonne Chance Farm is home to a select but international broodmare band

Bonne Chance Farm

Value a key point at Keeneland September

Stretched over 12 days from September 11 and consisting of 4,194 yearlings, the Keeneland September Sale is billed as the world’s marketplace.

There is indeed something for everybody. Last year’s edition, for example, attracted 1,321 buyers from 25 different countries. In turn, they fuelled a competitive market that yielded a record turnover of just over $405 million to make it the highest grossing Kentucky horse auction ever. The average of $141,097 was also a record.

Led by a $2.5m son of Quality Road knocked down to Talla Racing, Woodford Racing and West Point Thoroughbreds, 30 yearlings sold for a million dollars or more. And with the top end of the market in such evidently rude health at the recent record-breaking Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale, it is reasonable to expect more of the same during the early days of the Keeneland September Sale.

A total of 390 yearlings have been catalogued for the two-day Book 1, among them such standouts as a Kingman half-sister to Irish Derby runnerup Adelaide River (lot 72), a Tapit sister to this year’s Grade 1-winning three-yearold Tapit Trice (lot 86), a Tapit halfbrother to champion Monomoy Girl (lot 103), an American Pharoah half-brother to 1,000 Guineas winner Winter (lot 186), a Quality Road daughter of the Aidan O’Brien-trained Group 1 winner Roly Poly (lot 295) and Curlin colts out of champions Midnight Bisou (lot 232) and Songbird (lot 325).

Yet, of course, this is a six-book sale and so one that is going to be brimming with value. Indeed, the sale has produced numerous bargains over the years, perhaps none better value than this season’s Belmont Stakes winner Arcangelo, who was bought for just $35,000 by owner Jon Ebbert out of Book 3 in 2021.

Another American Classic colt of this year, Kentucky Derby third Angel Of Empire, was plucked out of Book 4 for $70,000 by Albaugh Family Stable.

American turf races, the fields tend to be larger and the quality is very good.

“We enjoy supporting turf stallions in Kentucky. I have a lot of time for Karakontie at Gainesway, he produces a lot of winners and we’ve used him most years. We’ve also used Raging Bull at Gainesway and I’m a

European interests have also fared well, notably the band of breeze-up buyers who work the sale deep into the later books year after year. They include Johnny Collins of Brown Island Stables, who paid just $6,000 for Horris Hill Stakes winner Kenzai Warrior and $10,000 for subsequent multiple Grade 1 winner Mshawish.

However, one of the greatest bargains of all time has to be the champion sprinter and successful stallion Dream Ahead, who was snapped up for $11,000 during session 13 by Federico Barberini for Tally-Ho Stud back in 2009.

The European breeze-up community have had more reason in recent years to work the American yearling sales hard following the inauguration of the Goffs Dubai Breeze-Up Sale at Meydan, where much of the emphasis is on dirt-bred horses.

One vendor to have effectively taken advantage of all that the American market has to offer is Tom Whitehead’s Powerstown Stud, which has topped both renewals of the Dubai Sale to date, firstly with a Curlin colt whose value rose from $150,000 to €620,000 and then with a son of Gun Runner, who blossomed from a $165,000 yearling into a €545,000 breezer.

Closer to home, Keeneland also hit the headlines at Royal Ascot, not only

big fan of Kantharos.”

Naturally that thinking translates to the farm’s draft for the upcoming Keeneland September Sale, where those on offer range from a Medaglia d’Oro filly out of the Speightstown mare Goiaba catalogued during the opening session

as the source of King Of Steel but also Valiant Force, between them the winners of the King Edward VII and Norfolk Stakes in the colours of Kia Joorabchian’s Amo Racing. Valiant Force, in particular, proved an inspired buy as a relatively inexpensive $100,000 purchase by Robson Aguiar and the O’Callaghan family of Tally-Ho Stud.

A glance at some of the stallions represented in this year’s later books reveals the potential value on offer. The likes of Justify, Not This Time, Uncle Mo, Kitten’s Joy, War Front and American Pharoah each have yearlings catalogued in Books 4 to 6 alongside those with a proven record in Europe such as Blame, Caravaggio, English Channel, Hard Spun, More Than Ready, Point Of Entry and Silent Name. The young European stallions Persian King, Sottsass and Roman Candle are also represented.

Nor are the pedigrees lacking. With a War Front daughter of Italian Group 1 winner Odeliz (lot 3057), a Kantharos granddaughter of Oaks heroine Ramruma (lot 1990), a Kitten’s Joy halfbrother to top turf mare Miss Temple City (lot 2948) and a Kitten’s Joy daughter of Chilean champion Vamo A Galupiar (lot 3199) among those catalogued within those later days, there is certainly plenty for value hunters to get their teeth into at Keeneland.

to a Constitution colt out of Pretty Girl and half-brother to Wavell Avenue from the first crop of Improbable. Stock by Caravaggio and Kantharos should also pique the interest of European buyers. And who knows, perhaps there is another King Of Steel among them.

BILL SELWYN

Connections celebrate the win of graduate Valiant Force in the Norfolk Stakes

Orby, amplified

The Yorton Sale

David Futter: ‘As each year has gone by, we have gained a better feel for what the market wants’

Upward CURVE

David Futter took advantage of a gap in the market to launch the Yorton Sale with Goffs – and it hasn’t taken long for the auction to hit its stride

Words and photos: Carl Evans

Britain’s most innovative bloodstock auction since the first breeze-up was held in 1977 is about to take place for the fifth time.

That breeze-up auction at Doncaster was an original, and so is the Futter family’s Yorton Sale, which takes place on a private stud farm and bucks the current trend for selling unbroken young jumpers/ stores at the age of three. Instead it offers them as yearlings and two-year-olds, following a pattern popular in France and which has the aim of working and educating jumpbred thoroughbreds at a younger age.

Overdoing a very young horse is likely to prove counter-productive, but in the hands of talented practitioners who know when and how to press the buttons it is said to benefit musculoskeletal development, cartilage and tendons, while providing early lessons which benefit the embryonic racehorse once they enter training. David Futter, who runs Yorton Stud with his wife Birte and sons Lester and Riley, tried and found no downside to the method, and spotting a gap in the market decided to stage a sale devoted to younger stores.

The next renewal takes place amid bucolic Powys countryside on September 7 and involves a 50-lot catalogue comprising 39 two-year-olds and 11 yearlings by 31 sires. Fourteen fillies are

joined by 34 geldings and two colts, each lot to be sold at the stud by Goffs. In case you are in any doubt at a time when inboxes receive daily marketing updates about online sales, Yorton’s is of the traditional, horse-in-the-ring type.

Tim Kent, Managing Director at Goffs’ UK division, says of the Yorton Sale: “It’s a good concept offering something different, and the addition of the BHA’s junior hurdle series has made buying twoyear-old stores more appealing. There’s greater understanding from trainers and point-to-point handlers that getting on with horses earlier does them no harm.

“Nothing happens fast, but people are starting to see benefits from good pinhooks [when Yorton Sale graduates are reoffered at the age of three] and racing results.”

It is a classic midsummer morning – classic for 2023 – and the pick-up truck’s wipers are on maximum as Futter navigates lanes narrowed by rain-bent foliage while driving to his latest project. It is a leased 325-acre farm of sweeping hills, lush grass and broad-leaved trees, a perfect and peaceful venue for the stud’s large broodmare band to raise foals.

A man of restless energy, he may wear out but will never rust away. There were no equestrians in his immediate family, but he developed the bug for horses at a local riding school and made his first steps

“People are seeing benefits from good pinhooks and racing results”

The Yorton Sale

in business by selling hunters. Adding equine dentistry to his repertoire enabled him to compile the funds to develop a stud, and that knowledge of horse molars complements Birte’s role as the resident vet.

Of the fifth anniversary of the Yorton Sale, he says: “As each year has gone by we have gained a better feel for what the market wants. Any money we have made has been reinvested in getting better stock for the next sale or one after.

“It has become a little more challenging because trade for horses has gone up and that means we are paying more for the horses we buy in as foals or yearlings for the sale. Some come from public auction, others we buy privately from breeders, often in France and Germany, but almost 50 per cent of the catalogue involves homebred horses, not all by our own stallions.”

Offering yearling and two-year-old stores to the market was a gamble, but the sale made a good start in 2019 with a £105,000 top lot. Covid’s intervention did not help the second sale, which resulted in slightly lower figures, but turnover has reached a seven-figure sum in the past two years and the average and median prices have steadily risen. The average price last year was £31,862 following 36 sales from 41 lots.

Perversely the Futters’ auction has presented them with an issue not faced by other studs; the need to sell foals to generate turnover while pondering whether to keep them to sell at Yorton as

yearlings or two-year-olds. Futter says: “We have to sell to survive, while keeping one eye on the following year and having enough of the right horses for our sale. We manage this by selling when a horse is ready to sell – if a horse is ready to sell as a foal we will take it to Doncaster or sell it privately off the farm. You have to be a stockman and know your stock.

“All the sales companies make more money out of auctioning Flat horses rather than jumpers, but we are lucky in Britain that we have two companies selling jumping horses. Goffs in particular has been very good at offering breeders opportunities to sell stock and I hope their new Select National Hunt Foal Sale and Show is well supported. It is important to look at the bigger picture and get behind the industry.”

At a time when stallion-centricity is acute, he says: “People are beginning to recognise that Yorton is good at prejudging young stallions and backing them

Lester, Birte, David and Riley Futter, accompanied by Arthur the dog

by putting their young stock into our sale. It has been part of our foundation in picking some sires very few people have heard of – if a young horse looks like a racehorse and the pedigree suggests he or she will stay a mile and a half on the Flat or go jumping, we will buy them, even though the sire is unproven.”

Victorian farm to thriving stud

The Futters’ recently acquired acreage is in addition to the fields and buildings they rent at Leighton from racehorse owners and breeders James and Jean Potter. No ordinary buildings, but a brickbuilt former Victorian model farm which in 2010 the Potters bought from the local council on condition they carried out a restoration programme.

That work continues within the restrictions placed on a Grade II building of such historical importance, while the Futters have used it to create a thriving stud, home to four stallions.

Studs and stables come in myriad designs, and there is no doubt that a purpose-built contemporary structure would look very different to Leighton, but it should be a must-see for anyone with

an interest in breeding and racing.

Walking around the rectangular complex you can smell the history and marvel at the vision of its founder, John Naylor, who erected the farm between 1847 and 1860, bringing together the best of Victorian industrial and agricultural practice. By staging the Yorton Sale at Leighton, the Futters introduce customers to all areas of their business, and it is doubtful many leave without a sense of awe at the premises.

Futter says: “Many years ago when

I was trading hunters I wanted to stage a sale at home. It promotes your brand and reputation, and if you sell successful horses people will hopefully come back. Yorton graduates have won and been placed in Graded races, and we want to reach the stage where people looking for a young horse will have our name on the tip of their tongue.

“Yorton is a working stud farm, not a sales complex, so we cannot put in place rubber runways and the like, but we have put more loose jumping in and placed artificial grass surfaces within the yards. In addition to the temporary structures such as a sales office and auctioneers’ podium, we have food and refreshment areas and have created a better flow from the stabling to the auction ring for horses and clients.

“Any money we have made has been reinvested in getting better stock”

The inaugural 2019 sale produced a future star in Grade 1-winning hurdler Inthepocket

The 2019 sale produced a £105,000 top lot to set the ball rolling for future years

BILL SELWYN

The Yorton Sale

“Goffs [Goffs UK at previous sales] have become massive partners and a big help in this. We could not have started without their help, and as a result of that partnership they held a series of pointto-point sales at Yorton in 2020 and 2021, which was a great help to vendors when Covid was making their trade very difficult.”

Would he like to stage similar auctions in future? “You can never say never, but at the moment the sales calendar is very tight,” he answers. “The point-to-point handlers from Ireland seemed to like our sales, they could get off the boat and be with us in two hours and because of our location the agents could come in, do business and leave without any distractions. The door hasn’t been closed, but there is nothing planned.”

Futter has never been afraid of competition, believing it is good for business and saying: “You have to be confident in what you are producing.” He sees no threat from Goffs’ inclusion of a section of two-year-old stores at its one-day Doncaster September Sale, which takes place the day before Yorton’s auction, having been staged in August last year.

It is thought Doncaster will catalogue some 20 two-year-olds, roughly half the number of last year, but buyers of horses in that age group, particularly those travelling from Ireland and France, now have two opportunities to purchase – at Doncaster and Yorton – in a 24-hour window.

Futter says: “What I can say about our sale is that we select very nice horses and we try to create an event by bringing together people from all areas of the

industry in a welcoming atmosphere. Feedback suggests people like buying from one family who have worked with and know the horses and who will say, ‘The reserve is this’. We won’t put a horse in the sale if we have any doubts or feel it needs more time. If a horse misbehaves we withdraw it.

“We believe in putting on a sale where we can stand behind every horse, price them correctly, look a buyer in the eye and tell them all about the horse. If people don’t buy we hope they enjoy the experience and will return another day.”

Futter’s take on stallions

As for stallions, Futter says: “We had five at the start of the year, but lost Masterstroke to a heart attack early in the last covering season, which was a blow.

“Scalo has been leased to France [Haras de Gelos] and Linda’s Lad has been leased to James and Amelia Gray [of Lincolnshire’s Elusive Bloodstock], but we are standing Pether’s Moon, Gentlewave, Arrigo and Ito. We were delighted to get Ito for the latest covering season because he is by Adlerflug, who was a wonderful sire, he’s out of a Grade 1-winning mare and he’s a full-brother to Group 1 winner In Swoop, who stands at Coolmore [Beeches Stud]. There’s a lot to like about him.”

Yorton stood six stallions in 2022, but Futter does not envisage returning to that number in the near future. He says: “The market has changed dramatically in the past three or four years and not only in this country. In France and Ireland too breeders are going to two or three popular sires and it makes it very difficult. I just hope one of those sires makes it with success on the track, because when

people turn on a stallion they turn on it, which makes it tough for breeders to shift stock.

“Too many breeders are breeding to sell rather than to breed winners, and I understand they have bills to pay, but there is only one way to become a successful breeder and that is by producing winners on the track. Being commercial doesn’t always suit a mare. It’s a chicken and egg situation and we need a new system.

“The Great British Bonus [GBB] has been fantastic for fillies, and while better prize-money would help breeders, it would also be of benefit if there was an incentive scheme to encourage them to put horses into training, rather than breeding for the sales ring.

“The racing authorities have to bear in mind that without breeders there is no racing. We are lucky that many breeders produce horses out of passion and thank God they do. If it was just for financial gain there would be far fewer of them.”

Are fledgling studs such as Dahlbury and Alne Park Stud, the popularity of Nathaniel to jump breeders and the potential of Golden Horn, hitting his own books of mares? He says: “It will have an effect on our stallions, but I’ve been in this game a long time and you need new faces coming in. I don’t just mean stallion investors, but people like Grace and Dan Skelton, who are starting up a stud farm from scratch and investing in mares and infrastructure.

“We need people like that, because investors will come and go, while stud owners are in for the longer term. We need Nathaniels and Golden Horns in this country.”

Potential sale candidates are brought in from grass on a soggy morning in Leighton

Do

spiritofsport.io/cheltenham

WALL FOR ASHES AT CHELTENHAM

In partnership with The Jockey Club a Cremation Wall is being built at Cheltenham Racecourse at the Centaur entrance. All of those whose ashes go into this beautiful engraved wall will be buried under the racecourse in 2074 and be remembered on a special memorial plaque at the racecourse. Places are limited.

BUY A DESIGNATED NICHE

Those who purchase a space in the wall will have an inurnment event for friends and family to celebrate their loved one's life together at Cheltenham Racecourse. The wall is accessible 365 days per year.

The Camden Colt (IRE), Tiger Belle (IRE), Uluru

Breeders’ Digest

Nancy Sexton Bloodstock Editor

Optimism ahead of a sale punching above its weight

Yearling sales season is well and truly upon us with barely a week going past now when there isn’t a major sale in some shape or form.

If the market follows last year’s example, it is likely to be strong but selective – in other words, competitive for the lots that adhere to commercial demands. Yet as we are reminded on an annual basis, good horses can spring up from all corners of the sport, allowing for the opportunity for those who work each sale hard to be rewarded.

The Tattersalls Ireland September Sale doesn’t command the same amount of column inches as the elite yearling sales but for those hunting for value, it rarely fails to disappoint. Consider this: up to the second week of August, last year’s renewal had supplied 58 two-year-old winners, who between them had won 76 races. Five of them, namely Folgaria, Graceful Thunder, Man With The Plan, Myconian and Tiger Bell, are stakes winners. They complement a list of older graduates currently headed by the Grade 1 American Oaks heroine Rhea Moon and Group 2 Mooresbridge Stakes winner Layfayette.

Rhea Moon was bought for just £24,000 by the BBA Ireland at the Newmarked-based edition in 2021, while Layfayette was even cheaper at €4,000 when sold to Emmanuel Hughes in 2018.

Against those bargain levels, vendors can also take heart in the fact that it’s a progressive sale if recent renewals are anything to go by, with last year’s aggregate of €12,421,000 falling only second to the year before. The median was a record €26,000 while six yearlings made €100,000 or more.

“Last year was really solid,” says Tattersalls Ireland Chief Executive Officer Simon Kerins. “We’ve always had a couple make €100,000-plus but the €40,000 to €80,000 market was really strong last year, which was great to see. There were some good pinhooking touches as well – you had €30,000 foals going to €70,000 or €80,000.”

Tattersalls Ireland has catalogued

762 yearlings for this year’s sale, all of whom are eligible for the €250,000 Tattersalls Ireland Super Auction Sales Stakes at the Curragh next September.

“Successful graduates are our best marketing tool and 58 two-year-old winners up to early August is a great promotional angle,” says Kerins. “But people also like the idea of a sales race. Ours is the longest running of its kind, it’s worth €250,000, there is money down to tenth place and the winning vendor gets use of an Overlander twostall horsebox for a year.”

There is an ambition at Tattersalls Ireland to keep driving this sale, as well as others on the calendar, forward. For example, significant investment has been made in the sales complex itself, as Kerins outlines.

“We have put in new showing lanes and a new pre-parade ring,” he says. “We’ve improved the walkway into the complex, as before it was a bit of a tradesman’s entrance, we’ve increased the size of the grooms’ canteen and there is a new Honeysuckle bar, which has been very well received. It’s been gradual and continuous but there have been significant improvements made since May of last year and they’ve been well received.”

He adds: “I’ve had people say it gives the place a better feel. We want to get better horses and raise standards, and better facilities help us attract better horses. We have an ambitious team at Tattersalls Ireland and we want to do it well.”

That team includes Orla McKenna, Head of Bloodstock, and Mary

Lanigan, Head of Marketing, as well as an inspection team that consists of Tattersalls Chairman Edmond Mahony, Timmy Hillman, Jamie Codd, Tammy O’Brien, Robbie Power, Luke Coen and John O’Kelly.

So what can we expect from the sale this year?

“There is, I think, a synergy between our breeze-up sale in May and September Yearling Sale,” says Kerins. “The breeze-up was great this year, it was phenomenal – the depth of buyers was extraordinary. And hopefully that translates to September.

“We’ve very pleased with the catalogue and plenty of buyers, including those from Britain, are already booked in to attend. We again have a lot of foreign interest, particularly from Italy, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. There are a lot of proactive agents out there and I’m sure they’ll be busy again.”

LANDMARK RESULT

A momentous landmark came the way of Sea The Moon last month when the stallion sired the first three home in the Preis der Diana, otherwise known as the German Oaks.

Muskoka, owned by Stall Golden Goal and trained by Henk Grewe, backed up her recent success in the Brummerhofer Stuten-Meile to land the prestigious event, running down the leader Kassada to win by a neck with fellow Sea The Moon filly Sea The Lady back in third.

Such an achievement is Galileo territory and indeed you have to go back to 1910 for the last stallion, Ard Patrick, to pull off the same feat. In fact, it’s been a wonderful season so far for Lanwades Stud’s Sea The Moon, whose three-year-old crop also includes German Derby hero Fantastic Moon.

This crop was conceived in 2019 off the back of the promise of his first twoyear-old runners. The son of Sea The Stars has remained consistently popular since then, and with good cause given his stud record currently consists of 29 stakes winners, four at the highest level. With that in mind, there is every reason to think that he will remain on the ascent.

TATTERSALLS IRELAND

Simon Kerins: ‘we have an ambitious team’

Sales Circuit • By Carl Evans

Records smashed as yearling season kicks off in style

Arqana August Yearling Sale

To the unending conundrum of the chicken and egg or Adam and Eve, we can now add this three-day sale in Deauville in Normandy, France’s biggest yearling auction and Europe’s first of the season.

In attempting to analyse its appeal to some of the world’s premier racing operations and their commanders in chief, and after it posted another record set of figures, which came first? Have French consignors upped their game? Has the broodmare band in France improved markedly? It might be whimsical to suggest the coastal location in high summer and the appeal of French cuisine and markets have any real bearing, or do they? Or something else?

A wave of world-class stallions has often been quoted as a factor behind buoyant yearling auctions in Britain and Ireland, and Siyouni’s emergence as a top-notcher in France has done no harm, but he is not carrying this sale on his own. He featured third on the list of sires by turnover, with Dubawi in pole position ahead of Frankel and, notably, the first-crop sire Ghaiyyath in fourth.

Former France resident Wootton Bassett was in seventh – although his current yearlings were bred at Coolmore Stud – and you had to slide down the list to number 21 to find the name of the next France-based sire, the late Le Havre.

Whatever the reason, much of the

business had a sense of high-end familiarity about it. The usual stallion names headed the top-ten board, the Henri Bozo-managed Ecurie des Monceaux was the leading vendor for the 12th successive year – turning over €15.8 million or 27 per cent of the sale’s aggregate – and Godolphin led buyers ahead of Coolmore.

Turnover of slightly more than €57m was a rise of 15 per cent from the record figure of 12 months ago, and compares to €38m five years ago and €34m ten years ago. Those figures give an indication of the rise in popularity of

the event. The latest average price of €233,275 was a gain of 11 per cent while the median raced up by 21 per cent to €170,000. Ten years ago, the average was €134,000, the median €80,000.

The prestige of being the sale’s most valuable horse fell to a daughter of Dubawi who had the cachet of being a half-sister to Group 1-winning stallion Wooded and to this year’s Phoenix Stakes winner Bucanero Fuerte. The last-named colt joined Amo Racing out of this sale last year for €165,000, little money as it turned out, but the market was alert to the latest family member and it took a bid of €2.4m by Oliver St Lawrence to secure the filly for Fawzi Nass and his Bahraini clients.

Bred by Gestut Zur Kuste, a Swissbased group of investors headed by Christoph Muller, the filly was consigned by Nicolas de Chambure’s Haras d’Etreham, which enjoyed a superb sale, trading 19 horses for €6.4m at an average of nearly €341,000.

While major racing and breeding operations will always be represented at significant auctions, this sale managed to draw in the big cats themselves. John Magnier joined son MV and members of the Coolmore entourage which invested €2.2m in a Monceaux-consigned Siyouni colt out of a half-sister to Shamardal bought in partnership with Peter Brant – who was

The Dubawi half-sister to Bucanero Fuerte headed proceedings at €2.4 million

ZUZANNA LUPA/ARQANA

ZUZANNA LUPA/ARQANA

MV Magnier made three high-profile purchases with Peter Brant’s White Birch Farm

also present – of White Birch Farm.

Sheikh Mohammed made the trip and his Godolphin operation’s ten purchases included a €1,250,000 Dubawi colt whose dam was a threeparts sister to Persian King, while Qatar’s Sheikh Joaan was seen wandering the yards with his Al Shaqab allies who upped their spend to €3,560,000 when securing nine horses. Benoit Jeffroy, a director at the sheikh’s Haras de Bouquetot, said his boss’s presence had been a factor in Al Shaqab’s increased involvement.

Twelve months ago trainer Yoshito Yahagi, a champion in Japan, was in the spotlight when investing €2.1m in the sale’s top lot, a Siyouni brother to Arc winner and sire Sottsass who remains unraced. This time Yahagi was headed on the top lot, but his €1m bid secured a Wootton Bassett colt out of the Stakes-winning mare Magic America. This Siyouni colt led the way among Ecurie des Monceaux’s draft at €2.2 million

TALKING POINT

• France’s most talked-about horse in 2023 is Ace Impact, who, as a graduate of the Arqana August Sale, is a resounding advertisement for an auction that goes from strength to strength.

The son of Cracksman was bought for €75,000 at the 2021 edition, did not reach the track at two, but has won €1m in five unbeaten runs this year. Further riches await in

Paris on the first Sunday of October. Similarly this season’s leading two-year-old Bucanero Fuerte was another great endorsement of the gems available in Deauville following his purchase there last year for €165,000.

With two such fine sales for Book 3 money, it begs the question, why spend more? Explaining that to the uninitiated is certainly challenging.

Arqana August Yearling Sale

Sales Circuit

Tattersalls Ireland July Store Sale

Sales of the 2023 crop of three-yearold store horses were brought to a conclusion at this two-day event held in Fairyhouse.

First staged in 2021 after being moved from an August slot, it comprised Parts 1 and 2 and provided vendors with a chance to sell stock who had missed store auctions in May and June, been too backward at that time or were thought more likely to change hands at a lower-tier event. The result was 650 catalogued lots, up from 599 last year, which proved a little too much to swallow and the figures took a dip.

Part 1 did not fare badly, and increased the clearance rate by two points to one of 72 per cent through sales of 192 of the 268 offered lots. Despite that the aggregate was down eight per cent at €2.6m, the average was curbed nine per cent to €13,595 while the median was down eight per cent at €11,000.

Trade at Part 2 was sluggish initially, and while it picked up later in another lengthy session, 99 lots failed to change hands. The 125 who did – a clearance

rate of 56 per cent – turned over €752,500, a drop of 30 per cent, albeit 26 fewer lots were offered. The average price was down nine per cent at €6,020 while the median mark of €5,000 was static.

Simon Kerins, CEO of Tattersalls Ireland, took a positive view and described the event as “vibrant” while acknowledging “the select nature of the market” particularly at Part 2. Reflecting on another good season of store trade at his company he expressed his gratitude to the team at Irish Thoroughbred Marketing who “play a pivotal part to ensure the success of all our sales”.

Geldings by Shantou and Noroit headed trade at Part 1 when selling for €55,000. Railstown Stud’s Shantou was knocked down to agent Hamish Macauley, who was acting for County Waterford’s Matthew Flynn O’Connor, a point-to-point handler with a good record of turning metal into gold. The two men were hoping to repeat a trick they had performed three years ago when buying a Shantou gelding out of

Tattersalls Ireland July Store Sale

an Oscar mare, naming him Stay Away Fay, and, after winning a point-to-point, selling him for £305,000 to Paul Nicholls. A future chaser, he won the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle for Nicholls in March.

Liss House’s Noroit gelding, a full-brother to Grade 2-winning chaser Funambule Sivola, was bought on spec by licensed trainer John McConnell, while Kent-based agent David Phelan bought a son of Buck’s Boum for €54,000 out of Johnny Collins’ Brown Island Stables draft.

Niall Bleahen’s Liss House sold the joint-top lot at Part 1, and clinched the number one spot at Part 2 when selling a Lucky Lion gelding for €32,000 to Eoin Barry and Sean Aherne. Named Arthur, the gelding had a page of black type and been foaled by the Law Society mare Ajesha, who won six races over jumps at up to Listed level. Those successes came in Germany, a country where jump racing does not achieve the worldwide recognition enjoyed by its Flat counterpart, but Arthur could yet turn out to be a king.

This Shantou gelding from Railstown Stud jointly headed trade at €55,000

Macauley snapped up the jointtopping Shantou gelding with Ballycrystal

Part I Figures

Part II Figures

Goffs UK August Sale

Racehorse owner Mike Newbould’s pragmatic reaction to ageing and a health issue was to offer a partial dispersal of stock he owned with wife Eileen at this one-day mixed sale.

It did not come without some personal turmoil, for Newbould described his decision as ‘gutwrenching’, but he can take comfort in some successful transactions and through the ongoing journey most owners experience when parting with horses who race on in new colours.

Topping the sale, and by a very wide margin, was the Newboulds’ 148-rated chaser Third Time Lucki, an eight-yearold with nine wins and just over

£180,000 in prize money on his CV while campaigning from Dan Skelton’s Warwickshire yard. The gelding’s new home is with Fergal O’Brien after that trainer’s partner, Sally Randell, fended off interest from Gordon Elliott to secure the prize with a bid of £190,000.

Randell revealed Third Time Lucki had been bought for cousins Lee and Mark Craze, who own several horses at the yard, but were looking for one capable of running at Cheltenham in March.

The Newbould dispersal, which was handled by well-known consignor Jamie Railton, also resulted in the £60,000 sale of an unraced four-year-old by in-vogue sire Doctor Dino who was knocked down to Jerry McGrath – he was unable to reveal future plans – while another member of the draft, the bumper-placed Goonhilly, returned to Skelton’s yard. The trainer said the five-year-old son of Mount Nelson would be sold to new owners and then go novice hurdling.

The pick of non-Newbould horses proved to be the three-year-old sprinter

Quintus Arrius, a son of Mehmas who had been carrying the colours of Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum from Kevin Ryan’s stable. Wins at Newcastle and Hamilton had boosted his profile and persuaded trainer Chris Grant to make a successful bid of £50,000.

Twelve months ago this sale had included a 38-strong section of twoyear-old stores, an innovation to coincide with the BHA’s new series of juvenile hurdle races. However, after conversations with vendors it was decided to offer those horses at Goffs’ Doncaster September Sale, thereby giving consignors more time to clear their three-year-old stores before prepping the younger-age group.

Their absence in part explained a notably smaller August Sale – down from 280 catalogued lots to 171 – which had a knock-on effect on turnover, down 29 per cent. However, the average price was up 24 per cent at £11,356, while the clearance rate gained eight points at 80 per cent through sales of 100 of the 125 lots offered.

Classy chaser Third Time Lucki joined Fergal O’Brien on behalf of Lee and Mark Craze

Consignor Jamie Railton sold four of the top five lots on behalf of Mike Newbould

GOFFS/SARAH FARNSWORTH

Sales Circuit

Goffs UK August Sale

Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale

Breed the best to the best and hope for the best. The $4 million colt who topped Fasig-Tipton’s Saratoga Sale still has a few hoops to jump through if he is to live up to those expectations but it’s so far so good in light of the reception given to the strapping chestnut at the boutique New Yorkbased auction, writes Nancy Sexton

Very few yearling colts with his kind of pedigree power ever come to auction. By one of America’s leading sires in Curlin and bred by Spendthrift

Farm out of its four-time champion Beholder, the colt is the product of parents who won eight Eclipse Awards and 18 Grade 1 races between them.

Hall Of Famer Beholder was particularly accomplished, with her 18 wins highlighted by two renewals of the Breeders’ Cup Distaff. In turn, she is a half-sister to perennial North American champion sire Into Mischief and the former Aidan O’Brien-trained Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner Mendelssohn. Not only that, the daughter of Henny Hughes has already produced Grade 3 winner Teena Ella.

Offered on behalf of Spendthrift Farm by Taylor Made Sales Agency, her latest son duly dominated the sale on a $4m bid to agent Donato Lanni, acting for Amr Zedan’s Zedan Racing. Zedan is swiftly becoming a major force in American racing, his colours carried to victory by the recent Grade 1 winners Arabian Lion, Taiba, Princess Noor and the ill-fated disqualified Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit. Like those horses, this colt will ultimately join trainer Bob Baffert.

The price made the colt the most expensive yearling to sell at Saratoga since 2000 and the joint-third highest priced lot to ever pass through the famed auction. You have to go back to 1984 for the most expensive, a $4.6m Northern Dancer colt, followed by a $4.2m Seattle Slew colt in 2000 and a $4m Roberto colt, who also sold in 1984.

His sale contributed to an outstanding renewal, one that featured a record average of $487,370. Even more spectacular was the average of $566,039 recorded during the second session. The cumulative aggregate of $75,055,000 was also a record while the median remained the same at $375,000.

The $4 million Curlin - Beholder colt was the most expensive Saratoga yearling since 2000

Bob Baffert will train the Curlin colt for Amr Zedan after his purchase at Fasig-Tipton

FASIG-TIPTON

Race programme & closing dates

INTERNATIONAL PATTERN RACES:

BAHRAIN TURF SERIES RACES: Stabling nominations close on Thursday 26th October 2023

Sales Circuit

responsible for a colt out of the Grade 1 Spinaway Stakes heroine Rachel’s Valentina, herself the only daughter of champion Rachel Alexandra, who sold for $1.5m to Eclipse Thoroughbred Partners. Veteran Tapit, meanwhile, fired in a pair of million-dollar colts in a half-brother to Grade 3 winner Mr. Money, who made $1.2m to Mandy Pope’s Whisper Hill Farm, and a son of Grade 1 winner Paola Queen, who sold for $1.1m to agent Mike Ryan.

“We’ve experienced some magical nights at Saratoga in the past and you’ve heard me talk about the Saratoga magic – but they were nothing like tonight,” said Fasig-Tipton President Boyd Browning, alluding to the sale’s outstanding second session. “It was literally spectacular from the very first hip into the ring to the very conclusion. It was just phenomenal. It was rewarding to see people send their best horses and then have the results and success we saw tonight.”

Zedan also went to $3.2m for an Into Mischief colt out of All American Dream, an American Pharoah half-sister

to Wind Fire, winner of the Listed Scurry and St Hugh’s Stakes for Qatar Racing. Into Mischief was also

TALKING POINT

While European participation was muted, the opening session was led by the sale of a Quality Road colt for $1.1m to Alex Elliott and Ben McElroy, acting on behalf of Amo Racing. Plans call for the colt, a son of Grade 3 winner I’m A Looker sold by Gainesway on behalf of breeder Stonestreet, to head to Ireland to be broken.

• Few stallion shares come up for auction and when the stallion in question is one of the world’s brightest young names, then fireworks are likely to follow. That was indeed the case ahead of the second evening of trade in the sale of a share in the rapidly ascendant Kentucky stallion Not This Time. Based at Taylor Made Stallions, the son of Giant’s Causeway is the sire of five Grade 1 winners out of his first four crops, none of which were bred off fees higher than $15,000, and was one of America’s busiest stallions this year at a career-high fee of $135,000. The share sold for $2 million to a syndicate that comprised of D. J. Stable, BlackRidge Stables, Barry Fowler and John Cummins.

Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Yearling Sale

Amo Racing struck at $1.1 million for this Quality Road colt, who is on his way to Ireland

FASIG-TIPTON

The Racing World’s Property Advisors of Choice

We have Partners and Executives who have lived and worked among racing all their lives. With 40 years of experience, we offer a property service to private clients and family trusts looking to own property in the UK, whether for lifestyle or investment purposes.

Edward Clarkson

Based in the Southwest, Ed has been racing horses of various ability all his life. His eldest son ran a lap of every English national hunt racecourse in five days aged eleven, raising over £15k for the IJF. eclarkson@propertyvision.com

Robert Fanshawe

Rob is well known in the racing community for buying and selling stud farms across the UK, Ireland, and France over the last 15 years. He lives near Marlborough, well known in Lambourn and often seen in Newmarket and at the Sales. rfanshawe@propertyvision.com

+44 (0)1635 813 130

Lucinda Eaton

Lucinda, who represented Team GB in eventing operates in the Cotswolds and Oxfordshire and is involved in horses of all disciplines. Her family train in Gloucestershire and she is most often seen at Cheltenham. leaton@propertyvision.com

Edward Lucas

Based in the North of England, the highlight of Ed’s year was purchasing a beautiful Northumberland farm for a point-to-point family. Most often seen at Aintree and Bangor-on-Dee and covers all the Northern racing centres. elucas@propertyvision.com

A nod to past and present as landmarks celebrated

There have been a few noteworthy milestones passed recently concerning three stallions in particular.

Yeomanstown Stud’s Dark Angel sired his 100th stakes winner when his four-year-old daughter Heredia crossed the line nearly four lengths clear of her opposition in the Listed Dick Hern Stakes at Haydock.

On the same afternoon, the young Dubawi stallion Too Darn Hot opened his Group winner account at Newmarket when his juvenile daughter Fallen Angel was no less impressive when taking the Group 3 Sweet Solera Stakes by three

lengths, helping Too Darn Hot become the 15th son of Dubawi to sire a Group winner.

And last but not least, Kingmambo continued to make his presence felt as a broodmare sire through the top-class King George winner Hukum.

Dark Angel has been a mainstay among the ranks of speed sires for the past ten years or so. Ever since his daughter Lily’s Angel took the Listed Empress Stakes as a two-year-old back in 2011, he has been on plenty of breeders’ shortlists. And when Lethal Force proved top class by winning both the Group 1 Diamond Jubilee Stakes and July Cup,

even the big owner-breeders found it hard to resist getting involved, the likes of Battaash, Harry Angel and Persuasive all representing the big racing operations.

At the ripe old age of 18, the son of Acclamation is still on everyone’s radar as he continues to supply quality racehorses, mostly in the sprinting sphere but with a few noteworthy exceptions. 2023 has been another fruitful year for the Yeomanstown veteran, his 14 stakes winners featuring Group 1 winners Khaadem and Alfareeq, while both Alflaila (Timeform 126) and Art Power (TF121) are two highly-rated Group 2 winners with the quality of form to go up

GEORGE SELWYN

Too Darn Hot: became the 15th son of Dubawi to sire a Group winner when Fallen Angel won the Sweet Solera Stakes

a grade. Meanwhile, the Group 3 Princess Margaret heroine Sacred Angel provides ample evidence that the Dark Angel train is not slowing down to any great degree.

With a stallion as well-bred and classy as Too Darn Hot, expectations will always run high. This son of Dubawi was the first-season stallion in 2020 that got the most blue-blooded support in his first year at Dalham Hall Stud. Keeping pace with the likes of Blue Point on a winner count this year was never on the cards, but breeders still need early evidence that he can deliver the goods, so Fallen Angel is a very welcome first Group winner. Moreover, her ease of victory promises that she could go all the way to the top of the two-year-old filly staying division and there would be nothing better for Too Darn Hot than to have a Group 1 Fillies’ Mile winner on his CV at this early stage of his career.

We can debate as to how many of Dubawi’s 15 sire sons of Group winners have truly made the grade. As things stand there are a handful that breeders have endorsed after seeing their early crops. We are all waiting with bated breath for this current crop of Night Of Thunder two-year-olds to produce some good results this year and next as they are from his best ever book of mares. Given that his stakes winner strike-rate from the elite mares he has covered so far is on a par with Dubawi’s general output, there ought to be a star or two among them.

John Boyce cracks the code

KINGMAMBO’S NH-FOALED G1 WINNERS AS A DAMSIRE

The same applies to Haras de Bonneval’s Zarak, who is still waiting for his first Group 1 winner. With 11.4% stakes winners and 25% from the few elite mares he has encountered thus far, Zarak’s current yearlings are from mares with more stars among them than he had in his first four years combined. Then we have New Bay, whom breeders have really gone for in the past three seasons – plenty will be expected of his 2022 and 2023 crops. The next three years will certainly settle the matter as to which is the best stallion son of Dubawi.

There was always a very keen interest in Kingmambo right from the start of his life as he was the first produce of the brilliant Miesque, who needs little introduction, suffice to say that she won ten Group 1 races, including two renewals of the Breeders’ Cup Mile and Prix Jacques le Marois and earned Timeform ratings of 124, 131 and 133 for her exemplary work over three seasons on the racecourse. Kingmambo never approached the brilliance of his dam, but he had developed into a very high-class miler by the end of his three-year-old season, earning a Timeform mark of 125 after victories in the Group 1 St James’s Palace Stakes and a particularly strong renewal of the Group 1 Prix du Moulin.

From his Kentucky base of Lane’s End Farm, Kingmambo sired 85 stakes winners from 738 runners, which produces a fine strike-rate of 11.5%. Even more impressive is his tally of 58 stakes-winning colts and geldings which pushes his strike-rate up to 14.5% leaving his fillies on eight per cent. However, his fillies did include two 1,000 Guineas winners in Russian Rhythm and Virginia Waters, two French 1,000 Guineas winners in Bluemamba and Divine Proportions, who also won the French Oaks, Prix Marcel Boussac and Prix Morny, plus Oaks heroine Light Shift.

Classic winners were also the order of

the day among his colts, with 2,000 Guineas scorers King’s Best and Henrythenavigator leading the way from the Godolphin-owned St Leger-winning duo Rule Of Law and Enke, while Lemon Drop Kid numbered the Belmont Stakes among his five Grade 1 victories in America. Kingmambo has also had a profound impact in Japan. King Kamehameha, his Japanese-bred son out of the Last Tycoon mare Manfath and winner of the Group 1 Tokyo Yushun and Group 1 NHK Mile Cup as a three-yearold, has enshrined Kingmambo’s name in Japanese pedigrees.

As a broodmare sire, Kingmambo has made headlines through the brothers Baaeed (TF137) and Hukum (TF131). His general body of work is also excellent as his daughters are responsible for 169 stakes winners, 102 Group winners and 28 Group/Grade 1 winners worldwide, the most recent at the top level being Arlington Million hero Set Piece.

To put Kingmambo’s achievements in perspective, the northern hemisphere foaled runners from his daughters feature 6.3% stakes winners, which compares favourably to multiple champion broodmare sire Pivotal’s 6.2%. Has there ever been a sire with a runner as good as El Condor Pasa (TF136) and another produced by his daughters as good as Baaeed (TF137)?

“At the ripe old age of 18, Dark Angel is still on everyone’s radar”

Caulfield Files

Scat Daddy versatility driving European success

It isn’t just in the legal world where precedent is all important. Breeders also tend to faithfully follow precedent in the belief that what worked in the past will also influence the future. One association which certainly worked in the past was Galileo’s partnership with daughters of Danehill. As many as 334 of Galileo’s foals – more than ten per cent of his output –were produced by Danehill broodmares, the justification being that no fewer than 60 of them – a massive 18 per cent –became black-type winners.

It is hardly surprising, then, that breeders have been eager to entrust their broodmare daughters of Galileo to sons of Danehill, with 56 sons siring 553 foals from Galileo mares. This reverse cross has worked pretty well, thanks largely to Fastnet Rock, whose tally of 29 blacktype winners from 210 foals equates to an impressive 14 per cent, with Via Sistina, Qualify, Zhukova, Intricately and Pizza Bianca among the ten top-level winners.

Invincible Spirit, also a member of the Danzig male line, is another whose percentage of black-type winners out of Galileo mares stands in double figures, the most notable of them being his 2,000 Guineas winner Magna Grecia and his 2023 Al Quoz Sprint winner Danyah. So, again, it’s hardly surprising that sons of Invincible Spirit – 19 in all – have been a very popular option for Galileo’s daughters. Their collective total stands at 254 foals, with this year’s sensational three-year-old sprinter Shaquille being by Charm Spirit, while last year’s unbeaten Fillies’ Mile winner Commissioning heads a team of 89 foals of racing age by Kingman.

On the other hand, Galileo didn’t have many opportunities to sire foals from daughters of the American-based Scat Daddy, who died at the age of 11. The bare facts are that seven of Scat Daddy’s daughters produced a total of 13 foals to the stallion, of which only six have raced so far and only one has managed to win. That winner – Savethelastdance – didn’t shine until this year, finishing second in the Oaks before winning the Irish equivalent.

However, this comparative lack of precedent hasn’t stopped breeders, especially Coolmore and associates, from trusting many of their highly valuable Galileo broodmares to sons of Scat

Daddy. Numerically, this cross already ranks equal-third behind the tallies by sons of Danehill and Invincible Spirit, with nine sons of Scat Daddy being responsible for 194 foals, the equal of sons of Green Desert.

I touched on this topic in my piece on No Nay Never in the June issue, but enough has happened since then to justify an update. In the June article, I pointed out that No Nay Never already had 72 foals of racing age out of Galileo’s daughters. Since then two of the 72 have enjoyed black-type success, with one of them, Midnight Mile, adding a ten-furlong Listed success to her seven-furlong Group 3 victory at two.

In the circumstances it is going to be interesting to see how far the two-yearold Henry Adams is going to stay. His two wins from two starts, including the Tyros Stakes, have come over seven furlongs. His dam Jigsaw didn’t show enough ability to establish an optimum distance, but she raced at up to a mile and a half. Similarly, Midnight Mile’s dam Ruby Tuesday showed only modest ability, racing at up to two miles.

They are No Nay Never’s third and fourth black-type winners out of Galileo mares, their predecessors being Tango and the American-raced Amanzi Yimpilo, these two fillies winning Listed races over

six furlongs and an extended five furlongs at two. It is worth pointing out that Tango’s dam, Idle Chatter, was rated around 79 at her best in France, which saw her win two small races at around a mile and a half. As to Amanzi Yimpilo’s dam Honourably, she beat only one home in an 11-runner race on her only start.

In other words, No Nay Never owes his four black-type winners with dams by Galileo to mares who fell well short of stakes class. The same could be said of Bright Sapphire, dam of the 98-rated filly Nope, and Surprisingly, dam of the Group 2-placed filly Queen Olly. We can surely expect to see No Nay Never’s results with Galileo mares improve further, bearing in mind that his 2023 two-year-olds, like Henry Adams, were sired at €175,000, and his next three crops were sired at €125,000, €125,000 and €175,000. Surely, by now he will have been entrusted with some of Galileo’s higher achievers on the racecourse.

Back in June, I also pointed out that Caravaggio, another of Scat Daddy’s fastest sons, owed some of his better winners to Galileo mares, including Galleria Borghese, a Listed winner over a mile and a quarter, and The Grey Wizard, a Grade 2-placed winner at up to a mile and a half in the US. Caravaggio’s 44 foals out of Galileo mares also includes his ex-English son Maltese Falcon, winner of the Grade 3 La Jolla Handicap over 8 1⁄2 furlongs on turf at Del Mar in August.

I mentioned, too, that the first French crop by Seabhac, another of Scat Daddy’s Group-winning two-year-olds, had sired a promising filly in Rue Boissonade. She has since fulfilled her promise by landing the Prix de Malleret. Rue Boissonade is another with a dam by Galileo.

In assessing the achievements of Scat Daddy’s European-based sons with daughters of Galileo, it mustn’t be forgotten that many of Galileo’s most talented racemares were sent to the US or Japan in search of outcrosses. This policy arguably started with War Front, who, like Danehill, was a son of Danzig.

The Claiborne Farm resident was entrusted with the likes of Classic winners Misty For Me, Was and Marvellous, their fellow Group 1 winners Ballydoyle, Curvy, Found, Maybe, Photo Call, Tapestry, Together and Together Forever, the Group

COOLMORE

No Nay Never: thriving with Galileo mares

2 winners Elizabeth Browning, Secret Gesture, Up and Wedding Vow, as well as Group 3 winners Aloof, Coolmore, Faufiler, Magical Dream, Pretty Perfect, Say and Starstruck. They amounted to a truly formidable team. With quite a few of these mares paying repeat visits, the venture produced 119 foals, of which 11 –nine per cent – became black-type winners. As they included the Group 1 winners Roly Poly, U S Navy Flag and Fog Of War, plus Group 2 scorers Battleground and Masteroffoxhounds, the partnership had its moments but ultimately failed to maintain its momentum.

When the 2015 Triple Crown winner American Pharoah retired to Ashford Stud, the Coolmore team viewed him potentially as another successful outcross. Quite a few of the mares which had visited War Front moved on to American Pharoah, who justified the opportunity by siring the Group 1-winning Above The Curve, Group 2 winner Pista and the Graded-placed Listed winner Hudson Ridge. His three black-type winners represent nine per cent of his 34 foals and there should be more to come following the promising start made by American Pharoah in 2019 and 2020.

Justify held in high regard

I have always had the impression that the Coolmore team hold the 2018 Triple Crown winner Justify in higher regard and many of those highly-qualified Galileo mares have now moved on to him. No doubt this is partly because Justify is a son of Scat Daddy, a remarkably versatile stallion who left an indelible mark on European racing via the likes of No Nay Never, Caravaggio, Lady Aurelia, Skitter Scatter and Sioux Nation.

European sceptics questioning Justify’s credentials could point to the fact that he never raced on turf, but then neither did Scat Daddy. And what about the fact that Justify never raced at two? Such a concern was surely lessened by the fact that Justify’s male line featured an unbroken chain of Grade 1-winning two-year-olds in the form of Scat Daddy, Johannesburg, Hennessy, Storm Cat and Storm Bird.

The mere mention of Storm Cat also boosted the hope that the imposing Justify would prove a highly suitable mate for mares by the more refined Galileo. A select band of Storm Cat’s daughters had worked terrifically well with Galileo, with 28 of them producing 72 foals. As many as 16 of the 72 became black-type winners (22 per cent), and these statistics were made all the more impressive by the fact that the 16 featured the Classic winners

Gleneagles, Churchill, Misty For Me, Marvellous and Joan Of Arc. Four of these Classic winners are out of You’resothrilling, a smart sister to champion American stallion Giant’s Causeway. And Giant’s Causeway, of course, was the grandsire of Lope De Vega, who has been one of the most popular matches for Galileo mares in Europe. From 102 foals, Lope De Vega has sired nine black-type winners from Galileo’s daughters.

But how well is the huge commitment to Justify working out?

There is absolutely no doubt that the Triple Crown winner has made an impressive start as a stallion, even allowing for the fact that the American Jockey Club credited him with 180 live foals in his first crop and another 174 in his second. There’s also an Australian first crop of around 60 foals.

In a highly competitive 2022 contest for first-crop sire honours in the US, Justify ranked a close third behind Bolt d’Oro and Good Magic. All three sired six black-type winners and both Justify and

his unbeaten record when he took the Superlative Stakes by more than six lengths from the subsequent Vintage Stakes winner Haatem. Then the French filly Ramatuelle followed up her victory in the Prix du Bois with another highly impressive display, winning easing up by four lengths in the Prix Robert Papin.

Justify therefore has a worldwide total of ten individual Group/Graded winners, including his two Australian juveniles. Interestingly, these ten all have a different broodmare sire, in much the same way that Scat Daddy enjoyed success with a wide variety of broodmare sires.

Sure enough, Galileo ranks alongside Raven’s Pass and Pivotal as one of three European-raced stallions on the list, as his daughter Together Forever is the dam of City Of Troy. Together Forever herself won the Fillies’ Mile in 2014, whereas her sister Forever Together won the Oaks in 2018. This pair also had a Group 1-winning half-brother in Lord Shanakill, so there’s every reason to hope that City Of Troy will also graduate to Group 1 company.

Good Magic were responsible for four Graded stakes winners.

By mid-August this year, Justify also ranked third among the second-crop sires by earnings, but he decisively topped the table in order of Graded/Group winners, with a total of five. His tally of seven blacktype winners was also the highest and he shared top place with Bolt d’Oro with a total of 16 black-type horses. For good measure, Justify also ended the 2022/2023 Australian season as an easy winner of the first-crop sires’ title, with three black-type winners among his 21 runners, including Group 2 winner Learning To Fly.

Thanks to the victories of Arabian Lion in the Woody Stephens Stakes and Aspen Grove in the Belmont Oaks Invitational Stakes, Justify has now sired Group/Grade 1 winners on dirt and turf. Just as importantly, he confirmed his ability to follow in Scat Daddy’s footsteps by siring leading European two-year-olds, thanks to a notable double one weekend in mid-July. Firstly, City Of Troy maintained

Even so, the Coolmore team must be wishing that Galileo’s daughters featured more prominently on the list of Justify’s first 24 stakes performers. Two others make the list, with Misty For Me’s sister Ballydoyle – winner of the Prix Marcel Boussac – dam of the Group 3-placed Red Riding Hood, while Churchill’s sister Clemmie – winner of the Cheveley Park Stakes – is dam of Unless, winner of a Listed race at the Curragh on her tenth appearance. I should add that City Of Troy’s older brother Bertinelli has yet to earn black type but he is undoubtedly very useful, as he showed in winning the London Gold Cup Heritage Handicap.

Justify’s statistics with Galileo mares stand at 60 foals of racing age. Of these 60, 20 had raced at the time of writing and seven had won. Of course, there is every reason to expect these statistics to improve when the pairing has more runners, including several which will have raced by the time this appears in print.

What worries me somewhat, though, is that those unraced animals include quite a few three-year-olds, including those out of Bye Bye Baby (a Group 3 winner who sold for $3.1 million in 2021), Flattering (a Group 3-winning sister to Classic winner Love) and Together (a Group 1 winner).

In the long run, though, it will matter little how many duds there are from this cross, provided there are more like City Of Troy. And there could well be more like him among Aidan O’Brien’s Justify two-year-olds, which also include youngsters out of the multiple Group 1 winners Alice Springs and Winter.

“Many of those highly-qualified Galileo mares have moved on to Justify”

Yearling sales to training: how can nutrition help?

Words: Laura Steley

The transition from the yearling sales to beginning ridden education and entering training is arguably one of the most stressful life events a racehorse will go through. Up to this point, a thoroughbred yearling has led a relatively easy life, being turned away in a herd since weaning, with sales preparation usually beginning around two or three months before the intended sale.

Nutritionally, the needs of the yearling are going to change drastically over a very short space of time. Anything we can do to better support this is going to benefit the individual in the long run, and ultimately help produce the much desired strong and sound two-year-old racehorse.

The topic of feeding yearlings during sales preparation is somewhat subjective. The desired body condition will be dependent on various factors, such as the individual’s conformation, foaling date, pedigree and current buyer preference. The ultimate goal during this period is to provide the yearling with the necessary nutrients for healthy growth and development, without providing such an excess of calories that the yearling becomes too heavy, coupled with an unnatural growth rate.

The amount of concentrate feed the yearling is receiving will often double or triple during the prep period, increasing from one scoop to two or three scoops per day. It is not uncommon for yearlings to be fed extreme quantities of grain (starch) and fats in order to sustain a calorific excess and acquire that much-aspired shiny coat!

Generally speaking, a yearling destined for the sales will almost certainly have been receiving surplus calories in order to achieve the athletic, mature-like, conditioned body type typically desired at all major thoroughbred auctions globally. If the required nutritional changes post auction are not managed sensitively, it could have a significant effect on a yearling’s overall health and future performance.

As soon as the hammer goes down in the sales ring, the yearling

will be propelled into their next stage of life and career. Within the day they will usually travel to the location in which they will begin their ridden education and fitness regime. Thoroughbreds are creatures of habit, so any change of location, handlers, environment, management, feed (the list goes on) will impact on them both psychologically and physically. Anything which can be implemented to help ease this transition will benefit not only the yearling but also the riders and handlers trusted with starting the breaking process, as well as reducing the risk of injury.

Due to the nature of the sales, it will be commonplace for the new owners/ keepers of the yearling to have no knowledge of the horse’s previous feed regime or rations. As we are all aware, it is of the utmost importance to introduce feed changes slowly over time, and this rule should be applied even more stringently in this scenario. Good quality forage will always be the backbone of horses’ nutritional health, fed at a minimum of 1-1.5% body weight per day, and this should be the first port of call.

If the yearling is to be turned away for a period before ridden education begins, good quality forage alongside either a youngstock balancer or small amount of concentrate feed should

be adequate for meeting the growing yearling’s needs. As they will have been on a high-calorie diet previously, close attention should be paid to body condition during rest time. Once the yearling is ready to begin the next step to becoming a racehorse – learning how to carry a rider – their nutritional needs will require adjusting. This process is not only demanding on a physical level but also mentally, both of which can be supported via a correctly balanced feeding programme.

Although thoroughbred yearlings are thought to have reached approximately 90% of their adult height, they still have a substantial amount of physical development ahead of them. Due to this, a yearling will still require high amounts of energy, protein, amino acids and minerals – most importantly calcium, phosphorus, copper and zinc – in order to allow optimum growth. It is common at this time for yearlings to suddenly be confined to a stable for many more hours per day than during sales prep, and this has been proven to cause bone demineralisation (loss of minerals from the bone) and therefore a decrease in bone strength and an increased risk of developmental orthopaedic diseases (DOD).

The thoroughbred skeleton responds to loading (exercise) by laying down or adding bone (bone mineralisation),

Yearlings often receive surplus calories before their appearance in the sales ring

+ Equine Health Update

which is why turnout is so very important in the early life stages and if it can be maintained to some degree throughout the breaking and fitness regime, it will certainly be of long-term benefit. Particular care must be taken during this period to ensure that the yearling is receiving adequate minerals to assist bone development, and exercise or loading must be increased gradually to allow bone mineralisation to ‘catch up’. Any concentrate feeds produced specifically for youngstock and/or young racehorses should have the correct vitamin to mineral ratios –supplementation can be risky, as they need to be balanced correctly, and toxicity can occur if too much is fed or nutrient absorption is inhibited.

Ensuring protein requirements are met is also a vital component in helping to achieve the desired development and soundness of the yearling. The most noteworthy amino acid for yearlings is Lysine, which is supplied in its most optimum form via soy. Lysine is heavily involved with muscle growth and repair. Polly Bonnor, Director of Thoroughbred Nutrition at Saracen, advises: “It is important to remember the stage of development these young horses are at and their continued need for the provision of quality protein (especially lysine) in the diet, combined with an increased requirement for antioxidants as they enter the stress of the physically more demanding work and a change of environment. The diet should be providing adequate, if not additional, vitamin E, selenium and ideally vitamin C.”

Due to the higher energy requirements, particularly once the individual becomes a two-year-old and they are being prepared to race, a high calorie feed will be required.

It is important to note that a low starch, high fat feed is significantly more beneficial for many reasons. The horse’s digestive system is much more efficient at breaking down fat than starch, and you will often need to feed a higher quantity of grains (corns or oats) to achieve the same calorie intake compared to fat (oil or rice bran). Feeding large amounts daily increases the risk of equine gastric ulcer syndrome (EGUS), particularly when coupled with limited forage and/or turnout. High starch intake can also cause diarrhoea, colic, EGUS, laminitis, and behavioural issues such as excitable behaviour.

As touched on previously, good quality forage is always essential, and although it will not solely provide

enough energy, protein, vitamins and minerals for a yearling or two-year-old in work, it should still be at the forefront of your nutritional regime. By ensuring access to high quality, readily digestible fibre in the diet, it will help to reduce the need for large portions of hard feed to maintain condition and also help keep excitable behaviour under control whilst ensuring a sufficient amount of chewing. The best and most readily available forms of fibre are Alfalfa and soaked beet pulp.

One of the main concerns when breeding racehorses is the threat of developmental orthopaedic disease (DOD), or growth disturbances resulting from abnormal bone development, such as physitis and osteochondritis dissecans (OCD). The

MUSCLE PREP

Readily available amino acids to support muscle development in combination with vitamin E for challenged immune systems, and B-vitamins to support appetite and form.

A different nutritional regime is required once young horses start to carry riders

BILL SELWYN

For optimum skeletal development & conformation in foals and young horses

Strong bones are vital for the success and longevity of a horse’s career. 76% of skeletal development will take place during the fnal 3 months of foetal development and during the frst 8 months of the foal’s growth. Calphormin is essential during this window to optimise bone conformation in the foal and to replenish the depleted stores in the mare.

Reduce the risk of stress fractures by supplementing with Calphormin

Improves bone development & conformation

Supplements broodmare’s essential reserves

Shown to reduce OCD & DOD

Assists in the repair of fractures

Supports sound & robust athletic horses

Used by the top studs around the world

Recommended by veterinarians

Proven results

Feed to:

Weanlings, yearlings, & 2year olds

Broodmares in the last trimester

Equine Health Update

causes of DOD are multi-factorial, with management, genetics and nutrition being up there as three of the main sources.

Mineral deficiencies and excesses can be equally detrimental to bone strength, growth and repair. A recent study by Kentucky Equine Research looked into the effect of routine use of Omeprazole (the only approved drug for treating gastric ulcers) on nutrient absorption and the findings were very interesting. The study showed that the use of Omeprazole did not inhibit the absorption of any nutrients apart from calcium – by up to 20%.

Bonnor explains: “The level of calcium and the source of calcium are also important at this point in time. In the early stages of adapting to fitness, additional calcium is required.”

Overfeeding, leading to a rapid and unnatural growth rate, as often seen during sales prep, will increase the yearling’s risk of DOD. Not only this, it has been proven that obese yearlings go on to perform substantially less well on the racecourse, concluding

that there really is no logical reason that youngstock presented for sale in this manner should be desirable. There has also been a link between high insulin and inadequate cartilage development; this can be controlled by feeding small amounts of starch

can be significantly reduced.

In conclusion, a yearling’s nutritional requirements will change drastically from point of sale to beginning their education with a trainer or at a pre-training yard. There are many risks associated to this stressful and somewhat rapid period of transition in a young thoroughbred’s life, and the combination of careful management through all avenues is crucial.

per feed as well as adding chromium, which has been found to increase glucose metabolism and in turn reduces insulin and cortisol levels. Of course, genetically predisposed individuals will always carry more of a risk, but with the correct nutrition and management this

Always provide turnout where possible and allow time between changes from living out to being predominantly stabled. Implement exercise changes gradually, carefully analyse the horse’s movement and reduce their fitness regime if any issues arise. Nutritionally speaking, the take home message is clear – always feed high quality forage (in as high a quantity as possible) alongside a formulated concentrate feed specific for young thoroughbreds in training, from a reputable feed company, most of which will have fully qualified nutritionists on hand to help and advise horse owners.

“A yearling requires high amounts of energy, proteins and minerals”

Success From the Inside Out

“SUCCEED is a fantastic product that has helped my horses maintain condition throughout the season. The results speak for themselves.”

Jane Chapple-Hyam, Trainer

SUCCEED ofers a natural approach to the ongoing management of digestive health in athletic horses. Optimal digestion contributes to better appetite, nutrition, body condition, willingness, and overall ability to perform. When horses are comfortable and healthy inside, they are focused and able to perform to full potential on the outside. Get your horses at their best with SUCCEED.

CONTACT SANDRA HUGHES at +353 (0) 873781739

For information, product trial eligibility, and how to buy. succeed-equine.co.uk/race

Winning the 2022 Royal Ascot Duke of Cambridge Stakes

SAFFRON BEACH

OATAALIN

by Highclere Castle

Horse Feeds Ltd.

OATAALIN mix is designed to give your horse the best performance, energy and shine.

WHY USE OATAALIN?

OATAALIN mix is designed to give horses the best of whole natural foods in three key grains: the digestibility and energy of Oats, the Calcium & Vitamins and buffer to acidity in Alfalfa.

Linseed aids skin & coat condition and is antiinammatory with slow release energy.

KEY INGREDIENTS:

• Superior Rolled Oats from Highclere Estate

• Pelletised Alfalfa

• Micronised Linseed

“At Highclere we have been feeding OATAALIN to our thoroughbreds. Highly palatable, its excellent qualities are reected in the shine of their coats, their energy levels and their relaxed attitudes.”

Pelletised Alfalfa

Yellow Lion. (3YO colt). (Owner: Lord Carnarvon), winning at Salisbury, 10th August 2023. The Highclere Castle Gin Handicap over 1 mile (Jockey: A Voikhansky).

Richard Hannon Jr., Pink Lily’s trainer, commented:

“Pink Lily when she came in she looked great, she has managed to put on all that weight over the winter and looks better than ever. She is a month further ahead than most of mine in her coat and I am looking forward to running her. Very happy with her indeed!”

Pink Lily (3YO) winning at Bath on 17th May 2023 in The Starsportsbet.co.uk Handicap over 1m 2F. (Owner: Lord Carnarvon. Jockey: A Voikhansky)

Save the date! ROA Horseracing Awards set for December 7

The ROA Horseracing Awards returns for its 41st year, celebrating the standout performers of the 2022/23 National Hunt season and the current Flat campaign. Taking place on Thursday, December 7, the star-studded event will once again be held at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London.

The glittering evening starts with a drinks reception, followed by a three-course dinner with wine, before the Awards ceremony itself. The event will finish with dancing to the everpopular Chance Band. Don’t miss out on racing’s big night out!

In 2022, Baaeed scooped the Horse of the Year award after a fine season which included victories in the Juddmonte International and Qatar Sussex Stakes, whilst Alpinista’s emotional Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe victory secured the Owner of the Year title for Kirsten Rausing.

With some fantastic performances at Cheltenham and Aintree from the likes of Constitution Hill and Galopin Des Champs, and standout triumphs on the Flat from Hukum, Paddington and Mostahdaf, it is sure to be a close contest for the top awards again this year. Voting will commence at the beginning of November for all ROA and

Angus Gold (left) was on hand to collect Horse of the Year Baaeed’s top miler trophy in 2022

Racegoers Club members.

Tickets are available online at roa.co.uk/awards23 and cost £235pp (including VAT) or £2,250 for a table of

ten (including VAT).

Sponsorship opportunities are also available. Please contact Ruth Diver for more information on rdiver@roa.co.uk.

Excellent response to thoroughbred census

After just a month of the census being live, Hartpury University and the BHA’s Horse Welfare Board have received over 2,500 replies to the first ever thoroughbred census.

All owners of former racehorses are being asked to complete the census, which will help build an improved data bank on former racehorses and the lives they go on to lead, improving traceability and aiding Retraining of Racehorses in better supporting owners.

Hartpury would normally expect 300-400 responses from the UK national horse population after a month, so the response from a much smaller group of owners has been excellent and would represent

approximately 7.5% of the number of ex-racehorses estimated to be in Britain. The team are hoping for 12,500 responses by the close of the census at the end of the year.

The census will request information on each horse’s equine passport number, microchip number, age, current residence, second career and more, to provide a robust view of the current retired racehorse population.

The 2023 thoroughbred census can be completed online at https://bit. ly/3JTytNy

In order to be eligible to complete the census, the horse can be:

• A former racehorse who has been registered with a licensed British

trainer

• Horses bred for racing in Britain but never raced

• Horses that have moved abroad and are no longer racing

• Horses actively point-to-pointing

• Broodmares

All horses that are intended to go into – or back into – training are excluded from the census.

If you have sold a racehorse into private ownership or gifted your racehorse upon their retirement, please also encourage the relevant people to complete the census.

Responses close on December 31, 2023 with full results reported during the first quarter of 2024.

DAN ABRAHAM

Our contact details:

Members can enjoy an exclusive discounted hospitality package at British racing’s end-of-year spectacular

Special offer for British Champions Day at Ascot

British Champions Day has now established itself in the racing calendar as the Flat season’s fantastic finale, with four Group 1 races taking place over the richest afternoon in the racing calendar.

With £4 million in prize-money up for grabs, and six world-class races, the Saturday, October 21 raceday is not to be missed by any racing fan. We are pleased to be able to link up with

Ascot racecourse to offer members a 15% discount on The Furlong Club package.

Set in an exclusive marquee with a decked terrace and uninterrupted views of the finishing straight, the facility provides a wonderful vantage point to watch the action and is just a short stroll from the paddock and winner’s enclosure.

The package includes Winning

Post Enclosure badge, glass of champagne on arrival, four-course lunch, complimentary bar, afternoon tea, racecard and racing newspaper and car parking label. Guests will be seated on a reserved shared table for the day, with groups of 8-12 enjoying a private table.

Members can claim a 15% discount on the advertised price, bringing the total for members and their guests to £367 pp (inclusive of VAT).

Bookings can be made by contacting the sales team on either hospitality@ascot.com and 0344 346 3000.

Tote World Pool continues to shine brightly

So far this year, 13 of the 18 World Pool days scheduled to take place in British and Irish racing, which started with the QIPCO 2,000 Guineas and runs through to QIPCO British Champions Day, have generated a total turnover of over £346 million.

With 28 Totes around the globe now working together to create these huge betting pools, which are hosted by the Hong Kong Jockey Club, World Pool is further internationalising the sport and shining a global spotlight on participating racecourses while generating significant new betting revenue and increased media rights for British and Irish racing. World Pool is now a key part of the future sustainable funding of the sport.

At the same time, it is creating outstanding value for Tote customers betting on racing. If you placed a £10 bet with the Tote on all winners across the 17 World Pool days in 2022, it would have generated £2,333 more

than placing those bets at Industry SP.

The value World Pool creates for pool betting customers has continued in 2023, with customers 15% (or £195 to a £1 bet) better off backing winners with the Tote. Tote Win has beaten the Industry Starting Price 71% of the time (and matched on the other occasions) on World Pool days, while the Exacta and Trifecta has beaten the Forecast and Tricast 73% and 84% of the time respectively.

In addition to creating a new revenue stream for participating racecourses, racing staff are benefiting from the World Pool’s Moment of the Day initiative, which has committed £100,000 in prizes for stables throughout the season. The most recent winners are:

• QIPCO King George Diamond Day, July 22: Eloise O’Hart, groom of Random Harvest for winning the Group 3 Longines Valiant Stakes with Saffie Osborne.

• Qatar Goodwood Festival, August

1: Raj Rasiah, groom of Quickthorn for winning the Group 1 Al Shaqab Goodwood Cup from the front.

• Qatar Goodwood Festival, August

2: Madan Singh, groom of Big Evs, winner of the Group 3 JaegerLecoultre Molecomb Stakes.

• Qatar Goodwood Festival, August

3: Maddison Wright, groom of Novus, for winning the Buccellati Handicap after running at Goodwood on Tuesday.

BILL SELWYN

Madan Singh with Big Evs at Goodwood

BILL SELWYN

ROA Forum

BHA expands pre-race checks

The BHA has increased the number of fixtures that will feature enhanced pre-race checks and trot-ups. As well as festival meetings, this will now including smaller fixtures. The remaining schedule is as follows, with pre-race checks to take place at:

1. Wolverhampton on Friday, September 1

2. Doncaster’s St Leger Festival on Thursday, September 14 - Sunday, September 17

3. Chester on Saturday, September 30

4. Bath on Monday, October 2

5. Kempton on Wednesday, October 18

All runners in all races at these fixtures will receive:

- A cardiac assessment using a stethoscope

- A trot up over approximately 25 metres, with the horse asked to trot up and back in a straight line on a firm surface

- An examination of the limbs by palpation

the risk of avoidable injury.

Appoint the ROA VAT Solution as your VAT Agent in three simple steps:

• Email vat@roa.co.uk your VAT registration number.

• Authorise ROA VAT Solution as your VAT Agent.

• Send us your VAT invoices and we will take care of the rest.

Why choose us?

• Dedicated, owner-focused VAT team.

• Competitive and transparent fee structure.

• Bespoke, secure document storage for each VAT registration.

There is no charge to switch over to the ROA VAT Solution, and authorisation can be completed in as little as five minutes.

To switch over or find out more about the services that we offer, contact our dedicated VAT team on vat@roa.co.uk, or please call 01183 385 685 to speak with Davina or Glen.

These are standard methods of pre-race checks which have been used in Flat and jump racing for many years and will always be performed by BHA veterinary officers in the racecourse stable area.

The aim is to help ensure that all horses are lining up in the best possible health following their journey to the racecourse, providing an additional layer of protection and further reducing

Diary dates

September 8 – Racing Welfare Haydock Park raceday

9 to 17 – National Racehorse Week 10 – ARC Malton Open Day 16 – Shared Ownership Day at Musselburgh

23 and 24 – Sir Henry Cecil Newmarket Open Weekend 28 – ROA and Racegoers Club National Stud visit

October 21 – Tote World Pool Day at British Champions Day 21 – Hospitality available at British Champions Day 25 – ROA and Racegoers Club

The process has worked well so far and has been helped by trainers getting in touch with the BHA in advance of raceday to notify veterinary oficers about any horses that might be described as ‘poor movers’ or having an ‘asymmetrical gait’.

The easiest and quickest way for trainers to do this is by emailing vetreports@britishhorseracing.com

By contacting the BHA in advance, it enables a discussion on the individual circumstances with veterinary surgeons and consideration of any additional information to support a horse’s suitability to race.

National Stud visit 27 and 28 – Shared ownership days at Cheltenham

November 23 – RCA Showcase, Aintree Racecourse 24 – Horseracing Industry Conference at York 24 and 25 – Shared Ownership Days at Ascot

December 1 – Racing Welfare Northern Racing Awards, Newcastle

2 – Racing Welfare Epsom Racing Award, Epsom

7 – ROA Awards, London

Runners will be subject to pre-race checks and trot-ups at Doncaster’s St Leger meeting BILL SELWYN

Switching couldn’t be easier with ROA VAT Solution

Goodwood is highest-profile curtailment payment yet

The inclement weather at Goodwood this year really did test the ‘Glorious’ moniker to its limits, not least on the Saturday of the meeting, which was abandoned with three races to go. Over the course of the week the track endured 31.6mm of rain, and after the Stewards’ Cup an inspection took place on the round course, with officials forced to abandon.

In the three races that were lost, 31 horses qualified for a payment of £100 under the ROA Raceday Curtailment Scheme.

The following week, Brighton lost six races due to fog enveloping the course. The first race was run in fog and with a flip start due to the stalls handlers being stuck in traffic, and with the conditions not clearing, this was the only race run on the day. The Raceday Curtailment Scheme kicked into action with this premature end to the meeting, with 27 horses qualifying for the £100 payment.

The scheme pays out to any members who own at least 51% of a horse that had been due to run at a meeting that is abandoned after at least the first race has taken place. It has been set up in collaboration with Weatherbys Hamilton, insurance brokers for the ROA’s Third Party Liability Insurance Scheme, and aims to reduce the financial blow to an owner who is left disappointed that their horse is unable to race but still has incurred transport costs, both for the horse and, often, themselves.

Members do not need to apply for this scheme. As long as the affected owner’s ROA membership is up to date, the payment will be made automatically.

BILL SELWYN

The weather proved a challenge at Goodwood

ROA Forum

CHELTENHAM 100

Cheltenham will be celebrating the 100th Cheltenham Gold Cup next March, and to commemorate this we continue to look at the owners who have been lucky enough to experience the ultimate thrill of Gold Cup triumph. We have moved on to the 1960s, where one horse dominated the horseracing world and became the benchmark for future Gold Cup winners.

Anne, Duchess of Westminster (1913-2003)

Anne, Duchess of Westminster was described once as “every trainer’s dream owner”. Known as Nancy, she had grown up in Ireland, the daughter of a Brigadier-General in the Indian Army, and had spent World War Two acting as a personnel driver for six years.

On her return to Ireland, she met the considerably older Hugh Grosvenor, the second Duke of Westminster. Nicknamed Bend’Or after his grandfather’s Derby winner, he was instantly smitten by Nancy. So smitten, in fact, that England’s richest man promptly brought the property next door to her parents’ house and installed the young Nancy to help her with the flowers.

She became his fourth wife in 1947, marrying at Chester Registry Office to keep the press away. They spent most of their time at Eaton Hall in Cheshire, eschewing London life. Both were avid fans of fishing and horseracing, with the Duke preferring a quieter life in his later years.

They attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in June 1953, but just a month later the Duke died, leaving death duties of £19 million, the biggest of its kind at that time, necessitating a new department to be created at the Inland Revenue to deal with the estate.

Nancy retired to a lodge on the Eaton Hall estate and in 1958 persuaded Tom Dreaper to train her first horse. Sentina won the National Hunt Chase that year, carrying her yellow and black colours – a derivation of the yellow with gold tassel silks of Eaton Stud – the black band in remembrance of her late husband.

In 1960 she spotted an unbroken

three-year-old at Ballsbridge Sales and purchased the bay gelding for 1,150 guineas. She named him after a mountain near her estate in Sutherland. Arkle was to go on to become a legend.

‘Himself’ won on his first visit to Cheltenham – in the 1963 Broadway Chase (now Brown Advisory) – by 20 lengths, with Mill House taking the honours in the Cheltenham Gold Cup that year. The two horses’ careers were inextricably linked, with Arkle winning their first head-to-head at Cheltenham, storming up the hill to win by five lengths in the 1964 race. He increased his margin of superiority the next year to 25 lengths.

In the 1966 renewal, he was the shortest-priced favourite in history to win the Gold Cup, starting at odds of 1-10. He won by 30 lengths, hard held, despite a mistake early in the race where he ploughed through the 11th fence, allegedly looking at his adoring fans in the stands.

Arkle had a strange quirk in that he

crossed his forelegs when jumping a fence. His owner did not let him take his chance in the Grand National – in fact, she never saw him jump the last fence, saying: “I don’t look up until it’s over. One can grow awfully fond of a horse, you know”. They had a great relationship, with stories that Arkle recognised his owner’s voice and car, banging on the stable door upon hearing them and demanding his favoured sugar cubes and mints.

The public also grew very fond of Arkle, with fan mail addressed simply to ‘Arkle, Ireland’ finding its way to him. He was retired after breaking his pedal bone in the 1966 King George, and suffering from increased stiffness and pain, was put down in May 1970.

The famous yellow and black silks went on to further success and secured a fourth Gold Cup when Ten Up won the 1975 renewal, while Last Suspect captured the 1985 Grand National. But the owner’s name will always be synonymous with the greatest – Arkle.

Anne, Duchess of Westminster leads in Arkle after his win in the 1965 Gold Cup

THE RACEGOERS CLUB COLUMN

Tony Wells looks at the racing scene

As I write this, we are in the midst of the summer racing festivals. Memories of a hot and sunny Royal Ascot seem a long time ago as we recover from a not very glorious Goodwood, with the final three races on the South Downs being washed away.

It got me thinking about my favourite summer racing festival. For years, it was a no-brainer. If anyone asked me, my immediate response would be Royal Ascot, particularly the opening day. But in recent years, I’ve grown to love Newmarket’s July meeting. It’s more relaxed than Ascot and not as fussy as Goodwood. The weather can usually be relied upon, but even on a wet day, as it was on the Friday this year, it was still a most enjoyable day at the races.

The people who attend the July meeting are proper racing fans. Each time I went into the grandstand before a race and squeezed in at the end of a row, I immediately struck up a conversation with a fellow knowledgeable racing fan. The rain was incessant on the day and I was expecting the pre-parade ring to be almost deserted as I made my way there before the Falmouth. To my surprise, it was heaving. Again, a positive sign that genuine racing fans will not be deterred by the elements.

I always like to follow the form from the July meeting, as the best horse invariably wins. The performances on the track didn’t disappoint, with two magnificent displays on the Saturday from City Of Troy and Shaquille. The former, trained by Aidan O’Brien, looks like a superstar in the making, whereas Julie Camacho’s sprinter did everything wrong again, yet produced a remarkable performance to lay claim to the champion sprinter title.

The problem with Newmarket’s July course and Goodwood is they are not designed for bad weather. When it rains heavily, there are not many places to seek shelter. Therefore I was very fortunate on Sussex Stakes day to be invited by Mike Bossom, fellow Racegoers Club member and Goodwood annual member. The members’ lounge at Goodwood is first class and probably the nicest annual

members’ facility I’ve experienced.

The wall behind the bar in the members’ lounge displays a list of every Sussex Stakes winner, including the jockey and trainer. As Mike and I waited to be served, I asked Mike about the first Sussex Stakes winner he remembered seeing. While he scanned the list of illustrious names and pondered, I said Kris was mine in 1979. But the race that I can recall vividly was Kings Lake in 1981. It was the third time Kings Lake and To-Agori-Mou had clashed, with the score one apiece. Each time they met, it was always a close finish between the English and Irish Guineas winners. In that year’s Sussex, Pat Eddery got the better of Greville Starkey with Kings Lake prevailing by a neck.

As I studied the list of winners, I noticed a few errors. Frankie is listed as F Dettori for his first four winners and only becomes L Dettori for his 2019 win on Too Darn Hot. More confusing though is the jockey on the 1987 winner. B Starkey is credited with riding Soviet Star. Seeing as G Starkey is shown correctly on the 1985 winner Rousillon, it

is somewhat confusing how the mistake was made. I can only assume the signwriter wasn’t a racing fan.

When this year’s impressive winner, Paddington, is added to the list, let’s hope the signwriter is a racing fan and we don’t end up with Brian Moore on the roll of honour!

On the subject of jockeys, the controversial whip bans are continuing to be a hot topic. In my opinion, the punishments do not fit the crime. I, along with many others, was disappointed to be prevented from seeing Frankie Dettori in action at the Eclipse and July meetings. If the changes were made to encourage new racing fans to attend, then removing the most saleable asset from two of the biggest meetings must be seen as an own goal.

The rules have been tweaked and it’s still a work in progress. I believe we’re now on the fifth amendment. The consensus of opinion is that the bans are too severe, so the sooner the powers that be come up with another amendment that reduces the length of the bans, the better.

City Of Troy: produced a superb performance on the July course BILL SELWYN

Bid to Give: bespoke his and hers experience in London

The latest Bid to Give auction item – exclusive to ROA members in partnership with Racing Welfare – is a luxury bespoke his and hers experience, offered by McCann Bespoke London and Jane Taylor London, worth more

than £2,750. The prize also includes a fabulous hosted three-course lunch and hospitality at the exclusive membersonly Turf Club, which overlooks the Mall with fine food and an unforgettable experience guaranteed.

McCann Bespoke London offers a premier service, providing as part of this prize a personalised consultation with one of their experienced tailors in London, creating a unique hand cut and finished luxury two-piece suit for the

Glorious Goodwood thrills for Plews

ROA member Patrick Plews was the winning bidder for our inaugural auction lot, a Glorious Goodwood experience like no other. Attending the Saturday of the festival, Patrick and his three guests were treated to hospitality in the Charlton Hunt restaurant and a tour with Roger Hart, which included meeting Frankie Dettori, before enjoying dinner and an overnight stay at The Goodwood Hotel. The following day included

Luxury tailoring is provided by McCann Bespoke London and Jane Taylor London

Patrick Plews (left) enjoyed the Goodwood hospitality and meeting top jockey Frankie Dettori (right)

winning bidder to take away. McCann Bespoke will help you create a suit that is unique to you, from the fabric selection to the design and fit, typically valued at around £2,000.

The second part of this exclusive prize is a Jane Taylor London bespoke experience. The prize includes up to £500 towards the winning bidder’s chosen piece of headwear, a 45-minute consultation with Jane Taylor herself, and the choice of a piece from the diffusion range (up to £600). The winning bidder is more than welcome to bring a swatch of her dress fabric/ dress if she has a dress she would like to pair with the hat.

During the consultation, Jane will help the client design a hat specifically to suit the individual’s face shape and skin tone. The hat can be made in a variety of different colourways and will then be shipped to anywhere in the UK.

Bidding for this truly unique his and hers treat runs from September 1-18, with every penny raised supporting Racing Welfare’s work for racing’s people. Head to www.bidtogive.co.uk to place your bid today.

playing a round on Goodwood’s award-winning golf course.

Patrick said of the experience: “Even though the weather did not play ball it did not dampen our enjoyment at Goodwood. From the moment we were met at The Goodwood Hotel by umbrellawielding staff, to the end of the day’s golf on Sunday, we had a terrific time.

“The facility in The Charlton Hunt restaurant is excellent, Roger Hart even managed to give out a couple of winners. It was lovely to meet [Racing Welfare Chief Executive] Dawn Goodfellow and learn a bit more about Racing Welfare and the good work they do. We are delighted that our bid has gone to such a good cause within the industry we all love.

“Frankie was good enough to give up his time for us at what will be his last, and I am sure his wettest, Glorious Goodwood.

“The Goodwood Hotel experience was splendid and the whole Goodwood team should be commended for putting up such a special prize. We couldn’t help but feel privileged all weekend.”

Racing Welfare case study: Debbie’s story

Debbie – an Annual Badgeholder Manager at York racecourse – came to Racing Welfare for physiotherapy following a complex fracture to her lower leg. She explains how the charity’s support extended far beyond funding her physiotherapy, and the positive impact this had on her overall wellbeing.

Debbie has spent the majority of her career in the horseracing industry, riding out for a couple of local trainers before joining York racecourse’s ticketing team over 19 years ago. She describes the racecourse as “one big family” where everyone looks out for each other. That close knit working community is what led to Debbie being signposted to Racing Welfare when an accident out of work left her with a significant injury.

Debbie recalls being approached by York racecourse’s Chief Executive, William Derby, the day after the accident when she had turned up to work: “William suggested I contact Racing Welfare, he recognised that I needed some support – not just physio, but mentally I needed some support as well. He realised that I needed to talk it out with someone.”

Debbie followed William’s advice and was put in touch with her local welfare officer, who arranged ongoing physiotherapy at Malton’s Jack

Berry House. She also benefitted from emotional support from the charity during a tough and drawnout recovery process. Debbie says: “It goes beyond courses of physiotherapy, it’s so beneficial speaking to somebody who doesn’t really know you… having somebody to listen and reassure you that how you’re feeling is all right.”

Initially, Debbie hadn’t realised that support was available to everyone working in the horseracing industry, including those in administrative roles like her. She said: “I was conscious that I didn’t want to take anybody’s space. But after speaking with William and Racing Welfare about it I realised how important it is for every person in racing, no matter what their role, to be fit and well – how we all play an important part in staging a raceday.

“I haven’t had a day off sick with [my injury] and that is because of the support of Racing Welfare.

“Without Racing Welfare, without their support and guidance, I really don’t know where I’d be. It’s not just physically, with my mental health they’ve helped me. Nothing has ever been too much trouble. It’s comforting to know they’re there.”

To find out more about how Racing Welfare supports racing’s people, visit racingwelfare.co.uk.

Jack Berry House in Malton is a superb resource for racing’s workforce

MAGICAL MOMENTS

Omar Jackson hit the bullseye at Goodwood with his talented filly Novus

Galway and Goodwood festival weeks can often see horses run more than once, frequently with fruitful results, and last month’s action on the South Downs proved ultimately glorious for ROA member Omar Jackson.

Novus, his three-year-old daughter of Dandy Man, finished a good but frustrating second on the opening day of the meeting, but the filly and Tom Queally returned just 48 hours later for another bite of the cherry and this time, drawn better and on softer ground, got the job done by the same threequarters-of-a-length margin she had been denied by first time round.

The occasion ranks as one of the early highlights of Jackson’s time as a racehorse owner, but it should not be the last as he only turned 32 in the summer, while ambition and competitiveness have always driven both his professional and sporting lives.

“I’ve loved horses since I was young, and always had a passion for them,” says Jackson. “I’m a racing driver, for Ferrari in the GT series, so I have a passion for racing, and horseracing is a competitive sport that is about precision and margins, so similar to motorsport in that regard.

“I’ve an affinity for those kinds of things. I’ve got three cats, two dogs and two horses in Dubai, where I’ve lived for the last 11 years. I ride myself and I like animals.”

But while horses have been a longstanding part of his life, owning racehorses is a relatively new pursuit.

Jackson explains: “Even though I ride horses, I’d never thought about owning a racehorse until a business partner of mine put the idea in my head by asking if I’d ever thought about it. That was in early 2021. If you do have a passion for horses, once you get your first racehorse it becomes quite addictive.

“This business partner has a couple of friends who knew a couple of trainers, Gary Moore and one in the north. I live in Dubai but am from west London, so it made sense to go for a stable in the south.

“I arranged a meeting with Gary and

Novus, seen here winning at Goodwood under Tom Queally, has proved a star performer for owner Omar Jackson (inset)

his wife, Jayne, and went to the stables to visit them in the summer of 2021. They’re just lovely people, and that’s

“Gary treats me very well. I told him about my ambition when it came to horseracing, and where it clicked between the two of us was that he very much shared that ambition. He has the same goals for himself.

“Obviously Gary was a jump jockey and most of his horses are jumpers, but he hasn’t quite got to where he wants to on the Flat. More of his recommendations would be as a trainer of jumpers rather than on the Flat, but I’m not interested in that at all. I just want sprinters, speed.”

what drew me into the sport. They have a very family-oriented set-up and I really like that.

While he has bred arguably the best Flat jockey on the circuit, son Ryan, Moore has yet to train a winner on the Flat above Group 3 level, with Karinga Bay’s triumphs in that grade coming all of 20 years ago, and Dutch Masterpiece

“Novus has surpassed all expectations. She has been magnificent”

being his most recent in 2013. Maybe the partnership with Jackson will see that long gap bridged.

“I’ve got three horses with him,” says Jackson. “I wanted to buy them as yearlings, so we went to the sales. We bought Novus at one auction and OJ Lifestyle at another. They were in 2021 and then last year I bought another colt, Give It To Me OJ, who hasn’t made his debut yet.

“Well, I actually had no idea Gary had bought him for me; he called me up and said, ‘Omar, I’ve got to tell you something, I hope you’re not annoyed, I’ve bought you a third horse, he was too good to turn down’. I was like, ‘No worries!’

“Novus was by far the cheapest and the one we expected least from,

so she has surpassed all expectations with three wins and two second places from nine races. She prefers soft or heavy ground, so also ran well to be sixth of 29 at Royal Ascot on good to firm. She’s just all heart and has been magnificent.”

Novus also ran on Coral-Eclipse day at Sandown between appearances at the summer shindigs of Ascot and Goodwood, again acquitting herself well to be second, and her success at Glorious Goodwood saw her mark rise 6lb to 92.

“I come over as often as I can to see the horses run,” continues Jackson, a partner at Berkeley Assets and an entrepreneur with his own business interests in private equity and his own brand, OJ Lifestyle.

“Novus seems to love Goodwood. She’s done a grand job there this year with two wins and a second from three runs. We’ll try to get some black type with her.

“In terms of magical moments so far, there are two that stand out. One was Novus’s last win at Goodwood, where she got shut out during the race, the door was closed and she had no room to manoeuvre, yet she still had enough heart to fight back and go on to win. That was awesome to watch.

“The other moment was OJ Lifestyle’s second run last year, when he was 125-1 at Newbury but caused a shock by beating the odds-on favourite by a nose. It was the first time I’d been racing as an owner, and OJ Lifestyle went and did that, so that was a truly memorable day.”

On the best or more frustrating aspects of owning racehorses, he says: “The pros for me are the journey, watching the horse grow, develop, go through training, improve their handicap mark and race in higher grades for better prize-money. I’ve had offers for both horses, and also love it because, among your peers, friends and family, not many people own winning racehorses and so you can get people interested who otherwise wouldn’t be interested in racing. I really like that aspect.

“As for cons, I’m passionate about racing, competitive, I like to win. When Novus ran at Glorious Goodwood, a couple of days before her win, she was joint-favourite and should have won. She had a bad draw, a lazy start and when she finished second we were really annoyed. If you’re competitive and eager to get the right result, it can be frustrating to watch.

“The difference from being in a racing car is there is nothing you can do about it. As a racing driver I’m used to being able to do something about it. In this sort of situation, I can do nothing.”

Whether Novus, OJ Lifestyle or Give It To Me OJ will ever be comparable to a Ferrari remains to be seen, but their owner is nonetheless enjoying the ride with this different kind of horsepower.

BILL SELWYN

Owners – we need your votes!

The RCA annual Showcase Seminar & Awards are due to take place on Thursday, November 23 and for the very first time will feature the RCA/ ROA Racehorse Owners’ Racecourse of the Year award. This award winner is decided upon entirely by you, the owner.

You will be asked to vote on your

TRACK TALK

Daniel Cooper appointed Clerk at Haydock Park

The Jockey Club has appointed Daniel Cooper as Head of Racing and Clerk of the Course at Haydock Park from March next year, replacing the retiring Kirkland Tellwright.

Cooper is currently Clerk of the Course at both Exeter and Wincanton. He joined The Jockey Club in 2013 after completing the British Horseracing Authority’s Graduate Development Programme and has been Clerk of the Course at the west country tracks since 2019.

He first became a fully accredited Clerk having been appointed as the Jockey Club’s trainee Clerk of the Course in 2017. Prior to that he worked as an event manager for the Jockey Club’s London Region, incorporating Epsom Downs, Sandown Park and Kempton Park.

racecourse of the year based on three factors – raceday experience for owners with a runner, raceday experience for owners without a runner, and racing experience.  These factors aim to identify the racecourse that really does cater for owners at every level – from owners’ and trainers’ facilities and winning

connections’ experiences, through the Racecourse Badge Scheme for Owners offering, to the prize-money available and the quality of the racing surface.

Voting opened on August 28 and closes on September 10 – please visit bit.ly/ROAShowcaseRCA to make your opinion count.

position at the place where it all began. Nowhere else can boast Newmarket’s history and heritage.

“I cannot wait to return to the UK and start learning from the team before we look ahead to an exciting 2024 racing season.”

Newbury says goodbye to Thick and Ottesen

Julian Thick will step down from his position as Chief Executive of Newbury racecourse in the new year. He will remain in the post whilst the search for his successor is undertaken.

Dominic Burke, Chairman of Newbury, said: “On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank Julian for his contribution to the company over the last ten years.

Andrew Morris takes the reins at Newmarket

The Jockey Club has announced that Andrew Morris has been appointed the new Head of Racing at Newmarket Racecourses. He will succeed Michael Prosser, who steps down from the role after 23 years at the end of the current season.

Previously Clerk of the Course for Warwick and Huntingdon racecourses, he joined Chester Race Company in 2012. Most recently he has spent time in Australia and was Racing Manager at Moonee Valley Race Club.

Morris said: “Having begun my career in racing with The Jockey Club almost 20 years ago, I am thrilled to be returning to the business as Head of Racing at Newmarket Racecourses.

“Newmarket truly is the ‘Home of Horseracing’. Having worked across the globe, it feels very special to be coming back to occupy a senior

“Since joining as Chief Executive in 2013, Julian has led the company with real purpose and helped the racecourse navigate the considerable challenges of the racecourse infrastructure redevelopment and Covid. The racecourse is in good financial health and we wish Julian well in the future.”

Also stepping down in September is Clerk of the Course Keith Ottesen, who is taking up a new role in Saudi Arabia. George Hill, who is currently Clerk of the Course at Lingfield Park, will be taking the reins at the Berkshire track.

The track will be switching its live broadcast platform from its current home on Racing TV to Sky Sports Racing in a new five-year deal starting in January. This adds the Dubai Duty Free Spring Trials, the Group 1 Al Shaqab Lockinge, Ladbrokes Winter Carnival and Grade 1 Challow Hurdle to the Sky Sports portfolio.

Andrew Morris: new role at Newmarket

Daniel Cooper: moves to Haydock

TBA Forum

The special section for TBA members

Jeff Smith triumphs at Flat Awards

Over 160 guests attended this year’s TBA Flat Breeders’ Awards Evening, sponsored by the Jockey Club, where the big winner was Jeff Smith, who received the Andrew Devonshire Bronze.

Owner of Littleton Stud and associated with the likes of Lochsong, Persian Punch, Dashing Blade, Arabian Queen and more recently Alcohol Free, Smith was recognised for his long-term commitment and success. He said: “I think if I take any credit at all, it would be because we campaigned them, we weren’t fussed about being beaten… and I think people latched on to it.”

Taking place in the grounds of Chippenham Park near Newmarket on July 12, a total of 14 awards were presented during the evening ceremony, which was hosted by Gina Bryce.

Kevin Needham was this year’s recipient of the Dominion Bronze, awarded for outstanding contribution and commitment from someone who has worked in the industry. Needham was a vital figure in the industry’s post Brexit and Covid-19 pandemic response whose efforts to support the industry have included countless hours of representation, consultation and guidance.

An extremely strong number of applications were received for this year’s Stud Employee of the Year Award, sponsored by New England Stud. The judging panel named Bev Woodley (Chasemore Farm) as this year’s winner in acknowledgement of her attention to detail for the mares and foals within her care, commitment to continual learning and her willingness to mentor new team members on foaling. She not only picked up the award but also a £2,000 cheque.

The remaining five finalists – Bo HicksLittle, Jemma Girling, Oleh Ihnatenko, Ray Eyre and Tom Turner – each received £250 in acknowledgement of their achievements.

Andrew and Jane Black’s Chasemore Farm also picked up the TBA Silver Salver (Special Merit Award) for their results in 2022, which included Group 1 success with Lezoo. The Industry Merit Award was presented to Oliver St Lawrence for his services to charitable causes over the past year.

For the second year in a row, Kirsten Rausing was awarded with the TBA Silver Rose Bowl, which is awarded for TBA Flat Breeder of the Year. The 2022 season was a special and successful season, which included the memorable Prix de l’Arc de

Triomphe victory for homebred Alpinista. Another repeat recipient was Aghareed, who was crowned Broodmare of the Year. Shadwell picked up the Barton Stud-sponsored HJ Joel Silver Salver.

The Langham Cup, awarded to the small breeder of the year, was presented to Gary Robinson of Strawberry Fields Stud. The operation, which is based just outside Newmarket, was responsible for breeding last year’s Derby hero Desert Crown.

The Filly of Merit Award went to Commissioning and His Highness Shaikh Isa Bin Salman Al Khalifa was on hand to receive his prize. Havana Grey was awarded the Tattersalls Silver Salver for Leading First Season Sire, whilst Nathaniel was the recipient of the EBF Stallion Special Merit Award.

The three other statistical-based trophies were awarded to Godolphin. The Queen’s Silver Cup was given for being Leading British-based Flat Breeder by earnings, whilst Dubawi’s achievements resulted in the BBA Silver Cigar Box (earnings) and the Barleythorpe Stud Silver Cup (individual Flat winners) went to the Dalham Hall-based operation.

Awards photos by Adam Smyth

The winners at the Flat Breeders' Awards Evening in July

Jeff Smith (right) receives the Andrew Devonshire Bronze from TBA Chairman Julian Richmond-Watson

Darley's Dawn Laidlaw and Barney Webb receive the BBA Silver Cigar Box and Barleythorpe Stud Silver Cup from Nevin Truesdale

Matt Prior presents Whitsbury duo Ed Harper and Phil Haworth with their awards

David Porter collects the EBF Stallion Special Merit Award from Cheryl Caves

Chris Kennard, James Broughton, Carol Palfreyman and Debbie Davey with the HJ Joel Silver Salver after Shadwell's Aghareed was crowned Broodmare of the Year

Bev Woodley receives the Stud Employee of the Year Award from Peter Stanley

Jane and Andrew Black receive the TBA Silver Salver from Anita Wigan

Andrew Beery and Richard King collect the Silver Rose Bowl from James Crowhurst (right)

Gary Robinson (left) is presented with the Langham Cup by Philip Newton

Darley's Reg Redmond (left) collects the Queen's Silver Cup from Colin Bryce

Kevin Needham receives the Dominion Bronze from Julian Richmond-Watson

Kate Sigsworth presents the Industry Merit Award to Oliver St Lawrence

TBA Board seeks new members

This year the TBA is seeking to appoint two elected members to the TBA Board for a fouryear term of office, to represent the range of breeding interests within the membership.

Four candidates have been duly nominated to stand for election for the

TOM BLAIN

Career

two seats available on the TBA Board. The candidates and their individual profiles are detailed below.

Voting papers were sent out to members at the beginning of August and voting for candidates closes on Friday, September 29 at 5pm (BST). Should you have any questions or

Barton Stud is one of the largest commercial boarding farms in the country. Still at a young age, I consider myself to be in touch with all current issues, both locally and globally, and am totally committed to the continued development of the industry.

Following time at Blandford Bloodstock Ltd and Cheveley Park Stud, I have been exposed to all aspects of the breeding industry and am acutely aware of the problems facing it. I am dedicated and well placed to confront these problems head on.

Breeding/racing Interests

I am passionate about the breeding of top-quality racehorses. As a business, Barton Stud breeds and consigns a large number of high-class thoroughbreds each year. I am keen to help make sure that the focus remains on breeding quality

DAVID BROCKLEHURST

Career

I worked in the City as a chartered surveyor and insurer and am experienced in boardroom conduct in a regulatory environment.

Breeding/racing intersts

I was brought up on a family farm in Cheshire breeding NH horses and have run Charlock Stud in Northamptonshire for the past 25

EFTBA AGM

On the eve of the July Festival in Newmarket, the European Federation of Thoroughbred Breeders’ Associations (EFTBA) held its AGM. New representatives Magdalene DonimirskaWodzicka (Poland), Frank Dorff (Germany), Jose Hormaeche (Spain), Philip Lybeck (Finland), Henrik Villadsen (Denmark) and Pierric Rouxel (France) were welcomed to their first meeting.

Amongst the topics discussed were thoroughbred movement, vaccinations, wind surgery and inbreeding, industry co-operation and a carbon calculator tool project.

require further information about the election please do not hesitate to contact the TBA office.

The two successful candidates will be announced at the TBA’s AGM, due to be held at the Jockey Club Rooms on Friday, October 6, commencing at 6.30pm.

stock, and, like many I am concerned about over-production and determined to aid in finding solutions.

I am extremely conscious of the current obsessive focus on breeding faster, earlier horses and wish to promote change and explore ways of making breeding classic distance horses more commercially viable. Although my career has predominantly been centered around Flat racing, I also love National Hunt racing and follow it avidly.

Profile

During my time as Managing Director, I have overseen significant growth at Barton Stud. A hands-on approach and attention to detail has meant that the stud boards horses of all values, from small owner-breeders to some of the biggest breeding operations in Europe.

This position has given me a broad ranging insight into the weaknesses within the industry at all levels. The current, very real, employment issues also require huge focus. Being relatively young myself, I am always keen to help those wishing to start a career in the industry and recognise the importance of helping them in these early stages.

years with my wife, breeding our own stock as well as having boarders and consigning yearlings and foals at the sales. After leaving school, I worked for Toby Balding and for Charlie Millbank in Chantilly and rode in point-to-points.

Profile

I aim to improve the lot of all breeders. My initiatives would include:

• Introduction of standard Risk Assessment templates to ensure uniform best practice at studs to prevent injury.

• Action to ensure breeders are included within the ELM scheme to compensate for the loss of RPA payments.

TBA BOARD NOMINEE PROFILES

• Lobbying government on issues such as restoring the Tripartite Agreement, which allowed the free movement of racehorses between the UK, Ireland and France, and working visas for overseas employees to alleviate acute staffing shortages.

• Updating standard Nomination Agreements to provide

JAN HOPPER Career

As an agricultural scientist, I worked as an animal nutritionist for a major animal feed manufacturer. I was then in charge of marketing their horse food range before moving into corporate planning. After retraining, I became a teacher and until very recently a private tutor. During this time, I also stood on the ROA Council.

Breeding/racing interests

Racing came first. Starting with the very smallest of shares, I eventually owned a Flat filly who retired and became my first broodmare. I now have four mares, three of whom are descended from that original mare. I have owned mostly homebred Flat racehorses for about 40 years, luckily with a number of notable successes. I have kept horses at home, but the mares now are largely boarding.

WILL KINSEY Career

Currently run Peel Bloodstock & Stud, a business I set up and started from scratch at my family home at Peel Hall in Cheshire, which was a former arable and dairy farm. We breed predominantly National Hunt horses with a small number of Flat ones too. We also pinhook, foal and board as well as consign for the major sales. I am also the co-founder of ThoroughBid, racing’s online auction house, and a former amateur jockey and former trainer from 2012 to 2017. I have also contributed to the TBA over many years as a member of the National Hunt Committee and more recently the Veterinary Committee.

Breeding/racing interests

We would have anywhere between 30-40 broodmares on the farm with many being for outside owners as well as the ones

Royal winners

The TBA would like to extend its thanks to Ascot Chairman Sir Francis Brooke and the executive for once again inviting the winning breeders from this year’s Royal Ascot to its annual lunch. Celebrating breeders from around the globe, the lunch was held on the Friday of the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes weekend.

mare owners with greater protection against stallions being shipped out before their progeny have run.

• Greater e-communication with and feedback from the TBA membership.

• Developing a future strategy to ensure the TBA maintains and increases its relevance to its members.

Profile

I hope that my experience as a small breeder and owner with a background in education and agricultural science would allow me to play an active role in the TBA. I am particularly keen to:

• Help in the continuing development of education and training for the stud sector. In particular, TB-Ed, the TBA's online education platform, which I believe adds an important dimension to the training on offer and is a valuable resource.

• Support the work to improve the precarious profitability of racehorse breeding, particularly for the small commercial farms and owner-breeders.

• Encourage the celebration of the breeding sector, both in the media and on the racecourse. Royal Ascot’s Breeders Day is a fantastic initiative, allowing the achievement of breeders of winners at the Royal Meeting to be congratulated. I would like to see more racecourses finding ways to involve breeders in the raceday and to recognise their success.

we own ourselves and in partnership. We also run a few racing syndicates primarily to race the fillies. Notable graduates from Peel would be Impervious, Bags Groove and French Dynamite, and I am co-owner of the Grade 1-winning mare Stormy Ireland who is now retired to stud. I currently have horses in training with Martin Keighley, Ben Pauling, Jonjo O’Neill, Ian Williams, Nicky Henderson and Willie Mullins. I have a huge passion for both the racing and breeding industry.

Profile

I would like to:

• Help develop a better connection between the breeder and the end users – owners, trainers and racecourses. Without the breeders there would be no racing.

• Educate people on the entire process from the breeding shed to the finishing line.

• Promote what enjoyment there is to be had from breeding to a much wider audience. I think there is a huge opportunity to showcase the benefits of broodmare ownership to racehorse owners and in particular syndicates.

July makes for Festival atmosphere

British-born duo Paddington and Feed The Flame (Kingman) in the Eclipse Stakes and Grand Prix de Paris respectively.

The David and Yvonne Blunt homebred Poptronic scored her biggest victory to date in the Lancashire Oaks. It was a successful month for her sire Nathathiel, also sire of Glasgow Stakes winner Chesspiece

Brian Haggas’s Hamish gained a fourth Group 3 win when grinding out victory in the Silver Cup Stakes at York, while the same day, the Bewitchment Partnership-bred Nymphadora took the City Walls Stakes. Later in the month, but also on the Knavesmire, Alflaila made a successful seasonal return in the York Stakes.

Ylang Ylang is one of the most promising juveniles seen so far this season and the daughter of Frankel, who was bred by Newsells Park Stud and Merry Fox Stud, followed up a maiden win with victory in the Silver Flash Stakes.

Taking a step out from racing against one’s own age proved no barrier to success for Shaquille in the July Cup. Once again, the son of Charm Spirit was slowly away. However, the Martin Hughes-bred bay made a mid-race move and was in front just after halfway. Once encountering the rising ground, he established his dominance to bring his record to seven wins from eight starts.

The day before and the Blue Diamond Stud-bred Nashwa (Frankel) put behind her a couple of below-par efforts to take the Falmouth Stakes in commanding fashion. Dropping back to a mile, she was given a patient ride by Hollie Doyle and once given the go ahead soon sprinted clear for a third top-level success.

On the opening day of Newmarket’s July meeting there was a quartet of wins for British-breds. Shadwell’s Israr (Muhaarar) proved strongest in the Princess of Wales’s Stakes, whilst the Wardley Bloodstock-bred Jasour became a first Group 2 winner for Havana Grey when landing the July Stakes in good style. The Highclere and Floors Stud-bred Castle Way showed the sharpest turn of foot to take the Bahrain Trophy. The four-timer was completed by Juddmonte homebred Nostrum (Kingman), who was making his seasonal debut, in the Henry Cecil Stakes.

Nostrum was one of five Group/ stakes wins for Juddmonte. Westover (Frankel) doubled his Group 1 tally with a win in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud, before running a gallant second in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot three weeks later. In America, Whitebeam took out the Diana Stakes at Saratoga.

In Ireland, Zarinsk netted the Brownstown Stakes at Fairyhouse in the middle of the month before gaining a maiden Group 2 win in the Minstrel Stakes under two weeks later at Leopardstown. Originally not entered, she only contested that race due to its rearrangement with its previous fixture having been abandoned.

Another to double up in July was Commanche Falls. The son of Lethal Force was a Listed winner at the Curragh on Irish Derby weekend. Three weeks later and he won the Hackwood Stakes at Newbury. He was bred by Redgate Bloodstock and Peter Bottowley Bloodstock.

The first Group 1 of the summer in Deauville, the Prix Jean Prat, went the way of the Cheveley Park Stud-bred Good Guess, a grandson of Classic heroine Russian Rhythm. The Thompson family's operation also witnessed homebred Audience (Iffraaj) win the Criterion Stakes.

There were Group 1 victories for

Elite Status won the National Stakes in May before being defeated at Royal Ascot, but he rebounded in the Prix de Cabourg. He was one of two stakes winners bred by Whitsbury Manor Stud, the other being the Listed winner Holguin, another son of Havana Grey.

Godolphin landed a treble courtesy of Star Of Mystery (Empress Fillies’ Stakes), Yibir (Marathon) and Al Nayyir (Prix du Carrousel), the latter pair being by Dubawi.

On the Curragh, Mashhoor, a son of Kingman bred by Grenville Bloodstock Ltd, captured the International Stakes. The following weekend and the Gary and Lesley Middlebrook-bred Equality (Equiano) won the Coral Charge at Sandown Park.

A maiden winner very late last year in Britain, Anisette easily recorded a first Graded win in the San Clemente Stakes at Del Mar. Also Stateside, the Ben Sangster and Freynestown Studbred Transient took the Powder Break Stakes at Gulfstream Park by a cosy two lengths, and the Charming Thought mare Amy C, bred by David Curran, won the Daisycutter Stakes.

There were Listed successes for the Kingman gelding Mr Moliere (Ecurie de Meautry and Petra Bloodstock) in the Prix de Saint-Patrick, the Dubawi gelding Kemari (Fittocks Stud) in the Fred Archer Stakes and the Sheikh Mohammed Obaid homebred Novakai in the Aphrodite Fillies’ Stakes.

Results up to and including July 31. Produced in association with GBRI.

Shaquille proved too good for his elders in the July Cup under Rossa Ryan BILL SELWYN

Stud Farming Course – save the date

The TBA’s Annual Stud Farming Course takes place from December 12-14 at the British Racing School. The course will cover a wide range of stud management topics encompassing care of the broodmare and foal from mating plans and conception, through foaling to the yearling stage, and includes bio-security and infectious diseases, nutrition and grassland management, management

of congenital and acquired growth defects and sales preparation and procedures.

Also included are visits to a stud farm and veterinary practice, a course dinner on the first night and a behindthe-scenes tour of the British Racing School.

The course fee is £438 (incl. VAT) for TBA members and includes the course dinner on the first night,

Book your places for final regional day visits of 2023

The penultimate regional day will take place in Scotland on September 28 with a visit to Lucinda Russell’s Arlary House Stables, which will be followed by a visit to Perth racecourse.

Before racing, members will be given the chance to catch up on all the latest industry news and discuss some of the key points raised at both the bloodstock conference and the worm workshop.

On October 19, the final regional

day will take place in the southwest. A morning visit to the stable of 14-times champion jumps trainer Paul Nicholls will be followed by lunch and then a trip to Doug and Lucy Procter’s Glanvilles Stud.

Places are limited and will be offered to TBA members in the first instance. To book your place visit the events page of the TBA website or for further information contact Alix Jones in the office at alix.jones@ thetba.co.uk.

lunches and refreshments. A discount is available for group bookings of four or more delegates sent on the course by employers. The TBA offers a bursary scheme for individuals who require support for educational courses or CPD activities, and the course is CPD accredited by the BHA. The nonmember price is £564 (incl. VAT).

To book a place visit the events page on the TBA website.

TBA AGM

The Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association Annual General Meeting will take place on Friday, October 6 at 6.30pm at the Jockey Club Rooms in Newmarket. The AGM will cover the official matters of business in accordance with the Articles of Association and announce the two successful candidates who will join the TBA Board for a four-year term of office. Further details of the AGM can be found in the member section on the TBA website. To confirm your place at the AGM, visit the events section of the website.

The popular course is taking place on December 12-14 at the British Racing School

Household Cavalry hosts memorable regional day

The Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment played host to the TBA’s latest regional day in July, when more than 30 members were treated to a behind-the-scenes tour of its Hyde Park Barracks.

The Household Cavalry consists of the two most senior regiments of the British Army: The Life Guards and The Blues & Royals. It is divided into the Household Cavalry Regiment and Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment, with its Hyde Park Barracks located in Knightsbridge, London.

Members were hosted by LSgt Jacob Lockwood, who provided a fascinating insight into the lives of the horses and personnel of the regiment, starting with watching an inspection of the King’s Life Guard before they headed out to Horse Guards Parade for the Changing of the Guard. Moving inside, the visit then included a fascinating talk by members of the Household Cavalry, including a walk through the saddlers’ room, where military saddlers hold responsibility for maintaining all ceremonial uniforms for soldiers and horses.

From there members were treated to a visit to the Full Dress Room, which housed the ceremonial dress uniforms for officers and other ranks of the Mounted Regiment. Surrounded by the uniform and dress so commonly seen on ceremonial occasions so synonymous with the regiment, the group was treated to stories from the

King’s coronation and were able to hold and handle items of ceremonial dress.

The stables which house the horses when not on ceremonial duty was next on the itinerary, followed by the forge and the regiment’s tack room, before heading back outside to watch the returning of the King’s Guard from their ceremonial duties at midday. The conclusion of the tour saw members

spend time talking to cavalry personnel recently returned from King’s Guard duties.

A short walk down Sloane Street to Motcomb Street preceded lunch at the Fine Cheese Company. Following a feed and discussion on the morning's visit, attendees made the hop across the street to the Osborne Studio Gallery. Specialising in contemporary art with an emphasis on horseracing, owner Geoffrey Hughes was a welcome and hospitable host, who ran through how the gallery was established, before members viewed the variety of art works and sculptures.

The Household Cavalry provided a fantastic regional day for members

Members get a close up view of the tack room

Life is

sweeter

with GBB fllies

Buy GBB fllies at this month’s sales.  Why wouldn’t you?

Don’t miss out!

Be sure to register your 2023 flly foals for Stage 1 of GBB by Saturday 30th September 2023.

Breeder of the Month

Words Howard Wright

BREEDER OF THE MONTH (July 2023) Blue Diamond Stud

Nashwa, whose success in the Group 1 Tattersalls Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket has earned Blue Diamond Stud the nomination as the TBA Breeder of the Month for July, is living proof that two into one does go.

Her dam, Princess Loulou, was among the bloodstock retained by Kuwaiti businessman Imad Alsagar in 2018, when he dissolved the partnership with fellow countryman Saleh Al Homaizi that had brought Classic success in successive years with Araafa (Irish 2,000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes) and Authorized (Derby and Juddmonte International).

The partners had begun Blue Diamond Stud in Newmarket in 2010 and achieved notable success with the homebred 2017 Irish Champion Stakes winner Decorated Knight, whose dam Pearling cost 2.4 million guineas for Alsagar to retain at Tattersalls the following December. Princess Loulou, originally bought as a yearling for 310,000gns seven years earlier, also followed her back to Blue Diamond.

The decision to retain Princess Loulou proved prescient, for the Frankel foal she was carrying at the time was Nashwa, winner of the Prix de Diane and Nassau Stakes in 2022 and arguably even better when beating Remarquee by five lengths for her third Group 1 victory.

While enhancing her own standing, Nashwa’s continuing success will do no harm to the sales prospects of her Dubawi yearling half-brother when he goes to Tattersalls next month. “Everyone who has seen him says he should make a good amount of money, if the market is anything like last year,” says Blue Diamond Chief Executive Ted Voute.

Sponsored

by Manufacturer of

“Mr Alsagar has said he wanted to do this over a number of years, so that he’ll have made a good profit and been able to upgrade some of the other mares by sending three to Frankel and two to Dubawi rather than one to each.”

Voute adds: “The idea will be to buy cleverly. We got lucky with Zotilla, whom Mr Alsagar identified and bought at Arqana in December 2019 for €75,000 and who has ended up as a Classic-producing mare, being the dam of last year’s French 1,000 Guineas winner Mangoustine.

In an introduction to the stud’s website, Alsagar – described as “very hands-on and knowledgeable” by those working most closely with him – writes about Blue Diamond’s vision, noting: “Today’s broodmare band, overseen by Andrew Rawlin at Blue Diamond South, is a representation of years of careful cultivation. Meanwhile at Blue Diamond North, we have another expert team headed by Gerry Meehan to oversee our yearling division. Last year marked our first season selling commercially and we were delighted with the results, headed by a 625,000gns son of Dubawi.”

Expanding on the stud’s overall breeding and racing policy, Voute explains: “We want to showcase the stud and what it can do by trying to sell the ones that will be most profitable, with a view to investing in the top stallions and upgrading the mares that way.

“It isn’t a traditional policy of keeping the fillies and selling the colts, but Mr Alsagar doesn’t want to keep on paying and paying without a return. So, for instance, if the Dubawi colt makes two or three times his stud fee, that would account for two or three nominations to Dubawi or Frankel next year.

“We had Pearling when I joined, then along came Princess Loulou and Nashwa. Sadly, Pearling died this year, but Zotilla came up with her Classic winner, and we have bought a couple of fillies in America – Free Look, who ran fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf last year, for $550,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Horses in Training Sale in July, and she’s gone to trainer Brad Cox to see if we can upgrade her to full black-type status before she comes into the broodmare band, and a Blame mare called Abscond, a Grade 1 winner as a two-year-old, whom we bought last year and is in foal to Not This Time before she comes over to go to Frankel.

“If we can be clever in buying mares and invest in different families, then we can send as many as we’re allowed to the top stallions in the UK, which at the moment are Dubawi and Frankel.”

Princess Loulou, whose Decorated Knight two-year-old Mesmering is heading to join Nashwa at the Gosdens’ yard, will have no representatives this year or next, but “she’ll start afresh next year,” according to Voute, who adds: “As for Nashwa, Mr Alsagar is taking one step at a time, but she will definitely come back to Blue Diamond in time.”

BILL SELWYN

Imad Alsagar (centre) with homebred Nashwa, Hollie Doyle and Samir El-Masri

The Finish Line with George Baker

George Baker’s riding career was at its peak when he suffered a life-changing fall on the ice at St Moritz in February 2017. Despite the weight issues inevitably associated with jockeys of his height, he had amassed close to 1,400 winners, including six centuries. A coveted first Classic win on Harbour Law in the St Leger the previous autumn had been swiftly followed by another Group 1 success in the Prix du Cadran on Quest For More, and there was much to look forward to. Life changed in an instant for Baker and his young family, and it was soon apparent that he would never ride again. However, with huge support from his family and friends, as well as from the Jockeys Education & Training Scheme (JETS) and many others within the racing industry, he has reinvented himself in a variety of fulfilling new roles.

Interview: Graham Dench

Winning the St Leger on Harbour Law the September before my accident was massive for me –it also gave me a wonderful platform for getting media work after I was forced to retire. I’d have loved to have more big-race success, but not many jockeys get to ride an English Classic winner and retiring would have been much harder mentally without having done it. A lot of people were shocked when Harbour Law won, but I’d ridden him all year and it was very much a plan from Laura and Ian Mongan and the owners, and they nailed it.

My weight was always an issue as a rider, but if I hadn’t had the accident I’d have kept going as long as I could because I loved the life. My last full year had been my best and I was in a really good place, with an agreement to ride Bjorn Nielsen’s horses, whichever yard they were in. Stradivarius had just turned three and I could potentially have been his regular rider, although I couldn’t have done the weight when he won the Goodwood Cup.

Since I retired from race-riding my main work has been as a jockey coach, and that’s helped me in so many regards. When I first started, Jamie Osborne let me help out his daughter Saffie, so that’s how I learned my trade. I was a self-employed coach until the opportunity came along to become an employed regional manager a couple of

years ago. Then earlier this year I applied for the head of coaching role, which was previously shared by Richard Perham and Kevin Darley, and I started at the beginning of July. JETS played a big part in helping me get my level 2 and level 3 jockey coaching qualifications, and they were extremely helpful in getting me my employed role in the coaching programme.

My broadcasting work with Racing TV coexists brilliantly with my coaching, as I just love watching racing. I first announced my retirement on the ‘Get In’ show on Sky Sports Racing, and then did ‘Luck On Sunday’ on the other channel. I’ve been with Racing TV ever since then really. It was difficult watching racing to begin with as I was thinking, ‘I should have ridden that’, but I soon found myself enjoying it from a different viewpoint.

I help out Ed Walker on a part-time basis – that’s another enjoyable part of my racing life. I watch work a couple of times a week and I also help with race planning, and in discussions about how a race might be run. I was riding for him before the accident, when he was in Newmarket, and then when he had to move yards because his lease had run out myself and Simon Marsh put him in touch with Bjorn, who owns the Lambourn stables where he is now. Ed has been great to me and is one of my best mates.

Looking back, I’ve been so lucky from a personal perspective. Obviously, I’ve got a wonderful family, and I received the best possible care in hospital, but the support from the Injured Jockeys’ Fund has been massive and I’m very honoured to be a trustee for them now. It’s a wonderful charity to be involved with. I do nearly all my coaching from Oaksey House, so it’s like a second home now. I’ll never get on a horse again, but I’m mustard on the Equicizer!

The whip has been a major bone of contention in my coaching role, but my take on it is that whether you think the rules are right or wrong, it’s had a very positive effect. It looks so much better and if you stick to the numbers you can’t go wrong. I agree that Jim Crowley’s ride on Hukum didn’t look bad, but one thing that the jockeys were adamant about was that they wanted things black and white, with no discretion on numbers and so on. Interestingly, Sean Bowen was regularly getting banned before the rules were changed, but he’s worked his socks off to comply with the numbers and just look at him now. He’s completely rebuilt his action and hasn’t had a ban since.

I didn’t use a sauna in my last five years as I found it easier to maintain a constant weight by doing any sweating I needed at home in the bath. That way I’d be prepped for racing before setting off, knowing that I’d done the weight, rather than get my head fried while stuck in traffic worrying I wouldn’t have enough time in the racecourse sauna. That said, I believe there should be an option to use a racecourse sauna. However, that option should be closely monitored to avoid bad practice.

Last winter I went up to 13 stone. I wasn’t in great shape, so I gave myself a kick up the backside. I’d gone down to just over eight and a half stone while I was in hospital, which had prompted Gary Moore to joke that I’d obviously been taking the proverbial through all those years when I’d complained about my weight struggles. I’ve been on a get fit, good food diet since then, and I’m now around 11 stone, which I think is a healthy weight. Tennis helped me get back on my feet, but my movement isn’t good enough still. I’m golfing regularly though. I was okay at it before the accident and rebuilding my game has been the toughest part of the recovery! Thankfully, I’m at last starting to get back to where I was.

George Baker steers Harbour Law to Classic glory in the 2016 St Leger

GEORGE SELWYN

WE’VE GOT YOU COVERED

We know racehorses can be unpredictable. Our Third Party Liability Insurance is here to give you peace of mind. Covering horses in training, going into training, thoroughbred broodmares and homebred youngstock as owners are currently vulnerable to claims even when their horse is in someone else’s possession*.

STOPPED IN YOUR TRACKS?

Scan QR code to fnd out more

The ROA Raceday Curtailment Scheme will provide a payment of £100 to any members who own at least 51% of a horse that had been due to run at a meeting that is abandoned after at least the frst race has taken place*.

The biggest names in the FIRST-CROP SIRES business

Shamardal’s undefeated Champion juvenile. He ran the fastest Middle Park ever – Oasis Dream is a previous record-holder – and is by the sire of top freshman Blue Point.

Horse of the Year, juvenile record breaker and the best by Dubawi. Dominant, relentless front-runner with the panache of his grandsire Dubai Millennium. His best win? Slamming Enable in the Eclipse.

EARTHLIGHT GH A IY YATH PINATUBO

Horse of the Year at two with a sire’s pedigree: by Shamardal from the family of Kodiac and Invincible Spirit. Timeform rated him 134 at two – the same as The Tetrarch, rated the best juvenile of the last century.

First yearlings at the sales now