Aclaim Turf Monthly November 2022

ACLAIM

A QUEENSLAND SHUTTLER

A claim represents a new direction for Aquis Farm in Queensland, being the first shuttle stallion that stud has brought to Australia. The stallion has gotten off to a great start in the UK where he topped the first season list in terms of the number of winners. History will tell us that success in the UK is no guarantee of success under local conditions, and in fact could even be a portend for poor performance. After all success with one broodmare population often means that a stallion is incompatible with another population. We can run a similar argument with any number of factors, and it usually is in different forms. We read how winning a certain race can be a factor in predicting success, but this line of argument certainly has little basis in fact. Certainly, better racehorses regularly win the best races, but any number of factors can impact on a field in a particular season. All of these

factors are marketing points and have little to do with anything apart from possible opportunity. If we really wanted to look at the most obvious factor of success in a first season stallion, it comes down simply to numbers. The bigger book a stallion covers, the bigger chance they are of getting good runners on the track. No one has ever said that thoroughbred racing and breeding is fair and the name, The Sport Of Kings, did not come about by accident. But this is a digression and gives us little hint at this stage as to the future of Aclaim who comes here with plenty of things to like.

Aclaim was a quality racehorse winning seven of his fifteen starts in the UK. He made his debut winning a 2yo maiden very late in the season; on 9 December 2015 to be exact over six furlongs on the all-weather track at Kempton. Obscurely he beat a horse called Enreaching who was to end up in the stable of John Size in Hong Kong where he won only one race. Returning as a 3yo in April, Aclaim was to win again over the same distance, this time at Newmarket. It was not until the end of the season though that Aclaim was to win his next race, the Listed Dubai Duty Free Cup Stakes over 7 furlongs at Newbury. This was followed by victory in the Group 2 Dubai 100 Challenge Stakes at Newmarket beating the filly Lumiere, a Darley bred daughter of Shamardal who had won the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes as a 2yo. As a 4yo, Aclaim was to only race in Group events. Again, he struck his best form later in the season and was taken to France in August to run second in the Prix Maurice de Gheest at Deauville over 1300m behind Brando by Pivotal. Returning to the UK five weeks later he won the Group 2 Alan Wood Plumbing And Heating Park Stakes over 7 furlongs at Doncaster beating Nathra and Home Of The Brave. Home Of The Brave was later brought to Australia by Darley and trained by Edward Cummings. He was to win the Aurie’s Star and Theo Marks locally to frank the form of Aclaim. Aclaim was to have his last start on 1 October 2017 when again taken to France to win the Group 1 Qatar Prix de la Foret over 7 furlongs at Chantilly.

Bred in partnership by the famed Queensland stud, Canning Downs, Aclaim is a son of the top stallion Acclamation who is perhaps best known as the sire of another top stallion in Dark Angel. Dark Angel is represented in Australia currently by Harry Angel who stands at Darley in the Hunter Valley. Acclamation who won the Group 2 Diadem Stakes on the track, is also the sire of Equiano and Harbour Watch who both briefly shuttled to Australia. He was also represented by Lidari who won the 2014 VRC Blamey Stakes, and Romantic Warrior who won the QEII Cup in Hong Kong. Acclamation is a son of Royal Applause by Waajib who in turn is by Try My Best. Try My Best is best known in Australia as the sire of Last Tycoon, and perhaps this has been an issue as to why the line has not established itself to date locally. We already see that breeders have access to this line which, when we look at the big picture of thoroughbred breeding, is always going to be a relatively minor line here. Try My Best is by Northern Dancer and we certainly see other more dominant lines of this stallion which does not appear to be likely to change into the foreseeable future. Another interesting factor in the pedigree of Acclamation is the presence of Ahonoora, a stallion who we have seen play an important part in the pedigrees of Tycoon Tracy, Cape Cross, Iffraaj and New Approach to name but a few.

Aclaim is out of the stakes placed Aris, a daughter of the Australian bred stallion Danroad. The son of Danehill won two stakes races as a 2yo in NZ and stood for much of his career in that country. He is perhaps best noted at present as the damsire of Verry Elleegant. Danroad was out of Strawberry Girl by the great Strawberry Road. Aris is out of Cumbres by Kahyasi who produced the champion Irish 2yo filly Again by Danehill Dancer. Most notable though is the third dam of Aclamation who is Floripedes by Top Ville, the producer of the champion colt, Montjeu who was one of the best racehorses Europe has ever seen. His list of achievements includes 11 wins with six of those at Group 1 level. He won an Arc de Triomphe, the French and Irish Derbies and was crowned Champion 3YO colt in Europe, France and Ireland in 1999, and in the same year headed the International 3yo and 4yo and older Classifications and Champion Older Male in Ireland, France and GB. He went on to a wonderful career at stud and we see his progeny include the likes of Authorised, Camelot, Green Moon, Tavistock and Hurricane Run. Montjeu in particular is seen as a noted source of stamina, despite Aclaim being successful at shorter journeys. In fact, his sire Acclamation is largely known for his sprinters despite some of his progeny, especially those who have raced in Australia, having been able to extend a little further. Interestingly the two sons of Acclamation that have stood in Australia to date in Equiano and Harbour Watch have carried significant stamina lines in their pedigrees suggesting that Aclaim may have something very different to offer local breeders.

The elephant in the room is always going to be the quality of British sprinters compared to our local stars. Historically it is the overseas staying types that have had the greatest success locally. Nature Strip only this season proved the quality of our local sprinters while Verry Elleegant, through no fault of her own, took some of the gloss off our local staying ranks. Statistically speaking, the overseas sprinters are going to have much greater competition, and this is going to no doubt be an issue with Aclaim. Even if we look at the other two Aquis Park stallions at stud this season, we see that Jonker and Glenfiddich offer a similar profile in terms of speed. An advantage that Aclaim will have is the backing of Canning Downs and their history of producing quality runners. However they do not have large numbers of mares like they did back in their days of standing stallions, so it looks like it will be a matter of quality over quantity which is never necessarily a bad strategy, although one that faces more challenges. Given that the stallion will face some stiff competition, what is it that will make him prevail in Australia if anything?

Unlike our other Freshman sires this year, we have some statistics and runners to look at. Whether these will translate to Australian, and in fact Queensland success is another thing. We cannot forget that Queensland racing is a little different to the other States and that many local stallions do not get recognition in other jurisdictions. This is not a new phenomenon and we can go back to Smokey Eyes, Sequalo, Lion Hunter and Spirit Of Boom to see this pattern repeated. The advantage of the Aquis Park operation is that they regularly race their horses interstate, although many of these are not yet by their local stallions. Prizemoney in Queensland is below the southern capitals making it more difficult to dominate Sires Tables. We only have to look at the difference in the Magic Millions offerings at their January and March sales to see this disparity. Let us however remain optimistic that Aclaim will be able to get his youngsters into the top stables interstate to level the playing field. This difference in racing is especially important when we look at

the progeny of Aclaim at this stage of his career. His first progeny hit the track only in 2020 and he has already sired over 50 individual winners at a rate of around 50% winners to runners which is outstanding at this stage of any stallion’s career. Of these, I can find at least 25 that have earnings of less than £10,773 suggesting that these are not winning at the major tracks. It is perhaps very important when we look at this in light of the earlier comments about Queensland stallions. Aclaim has certainly though proven he can produce runners who compete at the top level. He has produced Cachet out of a Teofilo mare who has won over £500,000 and this year she won the Group 3 Nell Gwyn Stakes and Group 1 1000 Guineas at Newmarket. Aclaim has also produced the very good filly Royal Aclaim who won her first three starts and was recently placed in the Group 3 Prix du Petit Couvert at Longchamp interestingly over 5 furlongs. She is out of a mare by Soviet Star which we should note carefully. Aclaim has also had five stakes placed runners in Jacinda out of a mare by Manduro, Chelsea Gardens out of a mare by Cape Cross, Lassca out of a mare by High Chaparral, Woman of Ciprea out of a mare by Dynaformer, and Beautiful Black out of a mare by Sea The Stars. Interestingly we would see that the damsires of these best progeny to date would likely be considered more of stamina lines than the predominant speed lines that are prevalent in Australia, and even more so in Queensland.

The opportunities for the stallion to cover mares by stallions that have seemingly proven successful in the Northern Hemisphere appears to be quite limited but on face value they certainly look to be the type that will be best suited. Again, we are not sure if these would be suited to Australia but given that we are familiar with many of the broodmare sires of his successful progeny, there is a strong likelihood that many could adapt to local conditions. The bigger question is whether these sprinting types that Aclaim has produced to date will be the precocious 2yo’s that the Australian market values so highly. But let us start with the proven lines in the UK, and the most obvious would be High Chaparral and his sons So You Think and Dundeel. Both stallions represent something of an outcross to the pedigree of Aclaim and would appeal as potential matches. Competition for this type of mare though is high in the market, and while Canning Downs will potentially have some of these types in their band, it is going to be hard to source large numbers from the Queensland broodmare population. Teofilo is another who would be highly sought after, and the pedigree features a sex-balanced cross of Danehill. This perhaps is a feature more highly valued in Europe than Australia as we see multiple same sex crosses of that stallion having success here. Sea The Stars is a son of Cape Cross and that stallion stood in NZ for some years. Again it will be difficult to source many of these types of mares for the stallion, but Cape Cross is a son of Green Desert by Danzig out of Park Appeal by Ahonoora so perhaps this opens up other more numerous possibilities which we will look at shortly. The presence of Ahonoora is an interesting aside to the Cape Cross story. A stallion who stood in Queensland called Red Element would likely have some very interesting daughters for Aclaim, although perhaps the service fee might dissuade many of their owners. Red Element was a son of Tracey’s Element who was by Last Tycoon by Try My Best out of the Princess Tracey by Ahonoora. Animal Kingdom is another stallion who carried Ahonoora prominently as is Spill The Beans, a stallion who stood at Aquis Farm and is likely to be well represented in the local broodmare population. Another interesting stallion is Power who moved to Queensland from NZ in 2018.

Green Desert is an influence that is now having significant success locally largely through the deeds of I Am Invincible. There appear plenty of strengths through this stallion, and the presence of strong colonial lines is one of the most apparent. No doubt it will be a strategy that comes with some risk. Perhaps the fact that the stallion is based in Queensland will overcome some of these, with the most obvious being the lack of stamina. Distance racing is almost non-existent in Queensland, with all but a handful of races outside of South East Queensland being run past a mile. Many country areas have dirt tracks and there is a market for sound sprinting types that can train on as older horses. This could see Aclaim well positioned for future success in these regional areas. Sadly, the horses in country Queensland are often cast offs from the city, so Aclaim would have to have his share of good runners in the major centres to get this opportunity. Stallions like Sequalo and Lion Hunter certainly had large numbers of winners and there was a significant number of these in the country regions.

No doubt the success of Aclaim in Australia will depend on his success with mares carrying Danehill in their pedigree. While Queensland has had its fair share of Danehill line stallions over the years, Lion Hunter was the one who made the biggest mark. As we see Danehill through the rather unusual son in Danroad, it perhaps opens up a lot more options than had he been found through a more dominant influence. It is always best to err on the side of caution, and I would recommend looking for Danehill to appear at least through grandsons rather than through daughters of his sons. That still leaves the way open for a host of mares including many of the Danehill line stallions that have stood in Queensland over the years including Rothesay, Jet Spur, Holy Roman Emperor, Golden Archer, Ferocity and Excites just to name a few. The biggest word of caution with the stallion remains with the likely need to introduce stamina lines into the pedigrees of his progeny, and his long-term commercial success may well depend on this.

Aclaim represents an amazing part of history with Canning Downs returning, albeit indirectly, to the role of providing stallions for Queensland breeders. If Aclaim can match some of the Barnes’ past success that we have documented in our pages, then the sky will be the limit for this exciting prospect. It has also been some time since we have seen the shuttle stallions landing in Queensland and together these factors could see a new appreciation for Queensland bred horses from our Southern counterparts.

Aclaim has relatively little inbreeding (4.69%) especially for a stallion prospect. Simply put, the more ancestors in a inbreeding and his pedigree represents an interesting and well-balanced mix. We see multiple lines of Northern Dancer siring the champion, Sassafras. Sheshoon is out of the mare Noorani who also produced the top racehorse and sire