IZZI HE ON TOP?

Click above to watch Izzi Top winning the Pretty Polly Stakes (Gr1)…
(Image : Irish Times - Footage : At The Races UK)

IZZI TOP
“A daughter of Pivotal from
the immediate family of Mullins Bay”

Greig Muir has been the head stallion man at Summerhill for just over a quarter of a century. He got there because he’s an exceptional horseman and stallion handler. Through his hands have passed some of the nation’s leading sires over the generations, and he knows what he is talking about.

We mention all of this in the context of the outcome of the Pretty Polly Stakes (Gr.1) at The Curragh on Sunday, which was taken by Izzi Top, a daughter of Pivotal from the immediate family of Mullins Bay. She’s not the only top class performer from this family in the past year, as the winner of last month’s German 2000 Guineas, Caspar Netscher, is out of a sister to Mullins Bay.

Getting back to Greig Muir, he will hear nothing about Mullins Bay other than that he is “the next big horse”, and he’s quick to back up his claims by quoting Alec Laird, Charles Laird, Gavin van Zyl and Tyrone Zackey. In fact, he says he “loves this horse so much, he’d drink his bathwater”. Now that’s believing!

The European Bloodstock News provided a short commentary on Izzi Top’s first Gr.1 success in overpowering another classy four-year-old filly, Sapphire and giving trainer John Gosden a second win in the race in the last four years following Dar Re Mi  for Andrew Lloyd Webber in 2009. Izzi Top’s dam Zee Zee Top finished third in this race before going on to win the Gr.1 Prix de l’Opera and the Longchamp race is on the agenda for Izzi Top, with the trainer also mentioning the Breeder’s Cup as a possibility. From a branch of one of the most successful recent families in the stud book, Izzi Top is a half sister to the four times eight-to-ten furlong winner Rock N Roll Ransom and is a grand-daughter of the Gr.1 Irish Oaks winner, Colorspin. Besides Zee Zee Top, she has also produced the top-class Group One winners and sires, Opera House and Kayf Tara (both by Sadler’s Wells) and is the granddam of the Group One Moyglare Stud Stakes winner, Necklace. Third dam Reprocolor also produced Group One winner Cezanne and Group Two winner Bela Colora (dam of 121 Timeform-rated Mullins Bay (by Machiavellian). This is also the family of last year’s dual Group 2 winning juvenile and this season’s Classic winner, Caspar Netscher.

John Gosden, who trains Izzi Top, does so from his Clairehaven Stables, which is where Pretty Polly herself was trained.

Click here to read more about
Mullins Bay

BANKING ON DUTCH ART

Dutch Art
(Photo : Cheveley Park Stud)

“His runners are making a meal of things…”

Investors in renaissance art are aware of the fortunes some have made in their pursuits of the works of the Dutch masters, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh, Caspar Netscher and Floris van Dijck. Their works are priceless, and we know of at least one friend who made a personal fortune through her inheritance of Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers”, so much so that in her lifetime at least, there was no longer a need to get up with the sparrows in the morning to attend a day job like the rest of us.

No doubt, the connections of the most precocious English two-year-old of the 2006 season, were hopeful that this miracle might be repeated for them when they named him Dutch Art, whose appeal to Blanford Bloodstock’s Tom Goff was such that he put his hands on him for 16,000 guineas at the Doncaster Yearling sale. The son of Medicean was a very smart juvenile, and included among his victories the stallion-making Middle Park Stakes (Gr1), contested since 1866 at October’s Champion Stakes meeting at Newmarket. As a three-year-old, he claimed the Greenham Stakes (Gr3) on his way to a third in the English Guineas, and looked like the real deal.

Retired with a Timeform rating of 124 to Cheveley Park Stud, home of his own sire, Medicean, Dutch Art has his first runners at the races this year, and to say that he is making a meal of things is an understatement. He already has 21 individual juvenile winners, including the aptly-named, Caspar Netscher (Gimcrack Stakes, Gr2), and several other Stakes performers. He’s not only a shoe-in for the title of Champion Freshman Sire, (from some formidable opposition, mind you, including the similarly named Excellent Art, who stands at Coolmore), but he could well turn out Europe’s overall champion sire of juveniles.

From a Summerhill perspective, the news is encouraging. Like our own Kahal and Darley’s American-based Street Cry, Medicean is another successful son of Machiavellian (also sire of Summerhill resident, Mullins Bay), and just arrived at the farm, is another equally well-performed son of Medicean, Bankable, a much-loved racehorse among the South African public for his exploits at the Dubai Racing Carnival over the past couple of years. Bankable proved his mettle against world champion Raven’s Pass, as well as Eagle Mountain and Passage Of Time in England, and while the rush for services to Bankable is probably due more to local fans appreciation of what we knew of him in Dubai, the news of Dutch Art’s early success is bound to rub off on his bookings. We don’t know Dutch Art in the flesh, but he’d have to be a helluva horse to match the physical attributes of our man, who weighed in at a hefty 560kgs in training with Herman Brown Jnr.

GIMCRACK A BOOST FOR MULLINS BAY

Mullins Bay
(Photo : Greig Muir)

MULLINS BAY
Machiavellian - Bella Colora

Last week’s victory by Caspar Netscher (Dutch Art) in the Gr.2 Gimcrack Stakes at York came as a welcome boost to Summerhill Stud’s young stallion Mullins Bay.

Bella Cantata (Singspiel), the dam of the Gimcrack winner, is an unraced half-sister to the son of Machiavellian, whose first foals have just turned two.

Tracing to Meon Valley’s famous broodmare Reprocolor (Jimmy Reppin) through her Gr.2 winning daughter Bella Colora (Bellypha), Mullins Bay is also a half-brother to Prince Of Wales Stakes hero Stagecraft (Sadler’s Wells).

Successful in both the Gr.3 Strensall Stakes and the Listed John Smith’s Magnet Cup at York, Mullins Bay placed in a number of prominent races, notably when beaten a short head in the Gr.2 Darley Stakes at Newmarket.

He was held in high regard by master trainer Mike de Kock, under whose tutelage Mullins Bay finished third in the 2007 Godolphin Mile at the Dubai World Cup meeting.

Extract for European Bloostock News

DUTCH ART STRIKES FOR MEDICEAN

Click above to watch Caspar Netscher winning the Gimcrack Stakes (Gr2)
(Image : Sporting Life - Footage : Dubai Racing)

CASPAR NETSCHER
Gimcrack Stakes (Group 2)

The old saying that “timing is everything”, was as appropriate as ever with the outcome of this weekend’s time-honoured Gimcrack Stakes (Gr2) at York. The storied juvenile epic has an honour roll as long as your two outstretched arms, and shares top billing at the York Ebor meeting with races of the ilk of the Juddmonte International (Gr1), the Nunthorpe (Gr1) and the Yorkshire Oaks (Gr1), and has thrown up any number of legendary stallions in its 165 year history. The event is named after Gimcrack, a phenomenal racehorse in the 18^th century, who won twenty-seven times in a career of thirty-six races. The Gimcrack Stakes was established in 1846, and the owner of the winning horse is traditionally invited to give a speech at the annual Gimcrack dinner.

Our own interest in this year’s outcome, is heightened by the arrival at Summerhill of one of Medicean’s best performed racing sons, Bankable, whose first book is already crammed with mares of distinguished history. Just a few pounds separated Bankable from the Timeform rating of his paternal half brother, Dutch Art, now ensconced with his own sire, at England’s pre-eminent thoroughbred nursery, the Cheveley Park Stud on Duchess Drive, a few miles from racing’s headquarters, Newmarket. Sire of the Gimcrack winner, Caspar Netscher (out of a half sister to Summerhill resident, Mullins Bay), Dutch Art looks the natural successor to a long line of distinguished stallions at Cheveley Park, as he already has some 19 individual juvenile winners from his first crop, and occupies a box alongside the best and most consistent sire of this decade in the British Isles, Pivotal. These two were preceded by Pivotal’s father, Polar Falcon, as well as the outstanding sire of juveniles, Music Boy (himself a Gimcrack winner), whose memory is enshrined in a spectacular life-size bronze, just outside the farm’s office.

For Summerhill then, the Gimcrack result was a double celebration, the one in the form of a son of Medicean, the other in the female line of the winner. For the record, the Gimcrack’s Honour’s Board carries the names of Mill Reef, Rock Of Gibraltar, Royal Applause, Amadeus Wolf, Turtle Island, Chaucer, Black Tarquin, Palestine, Petingo, Nebbiolo, Crocket, and the Triple Crown hero, Bahram.