THE IMPORTANCE OF BROODMARE SIRES

Northern Guest
(Photo : Summerhill Stud)

“How important is the Broodmare Sire?”

SARAH WHITELAW - When first looking at a pedigree, particularly in a catalogue, I first look at the sire, then I look at the dam, and then I look at the female line, or at least the first two dams.

But how important is the broodmare sire? When looking at such modern day champions as Horse Chestnut and Dynasty (out of mares by Col Pickering and Commodore Blake respectively), it is easy to believe that the broodmare sire pays little part in the pedigree, as both the aforementioned horses are out of mares by failed stallions.

There were 25 winners of 32 G1 races run last year in South Africa. Of these 25 horses, eight were produced by daughters of champion sires. Genetically speaking, the broodmare sire will contribute 25% to the DNA makeup of the individual horse.

It is hard to see this when looking at a horse like the mighty Smarty Jones - by a good sire in Elusive Quality out of a 12 times stakes winner. Smarty Jones’s broodmare sire Smile was a disaster at stud - and it is hard to see quite what part he plays in the pedigree of one of the finest racehorses of the 21st century.

It is also surely more than a coincidence that often a champion racehorse, but poor sire, who covers good books of mares when first retiring to stud, can produce at least one G1 producing daughter. One such example is the mighty Dancing Brave, a stallion who was largely a disappointment, but whose daughters have done very well at stud.

Ironically enough, a horse to fall in the same category as Dancing Brave, is his old rival Shahrastani (who beat Dancing Brave somewhat fortuitously in the 1986 Epsom Derby). Shahrastani, who has spent his stud career in all of the USA, Japan and Ireland, was a very poor sire, but his daughters have produced such G1 winners as Alamshar (Irish Derby) and Caradak (Prix de la Foret).

It is also worth noting that sometimes ordinary stallions can leave their mark on the breed through their daughters. One of history’s greatest ever stallions, Danzig, is out of a mare by Admirals Voyage (himself a son of champion handicap male, Crafty Admiral). The latter sired just a handful of minor stakes winners during his time at stud - none of which won at the highest level. But through the deeds of Danzig and his legions of successful sons and daughters, Admirals Voyage’s name will survive in the modern day pedigree - outlasting sires who enjoyed more stud success!

Another ordinary sire whose name lingers in the modern day thoroughbred through a daughter is the Promised Land stallion, Understanding. Winner of the G3 Stuyvesant Handicap, Understanding sired just two stakes winners in a brief stud career - but one of those stakes winners was Wishing Well. She not only won the Gamely Handicap (today a G1 race), but at stud she produced US Horse of the Year and legendary Japanese sire, Sunday Silence.

Poker was a son of the top-class sire and broodmare sire Round Table. While he himself was an ordinary sire (his only champions coming in Norway and Puerto Rico), Poker’s daughters produced numerous champions including champion sire Seattle Slew. The latter twice topped the US broodmare sires list, and his daughters have produced a host of champions. Poker is also the maternal grandsire of US champion, Silver Charm, as well as the useful sire, Lomond (himself a champion sire in Italy). Through Seattle Slew alone, Poker is guaranteed to be around in pedigrees for decades.

In contrast, history has produced a number of truly exceptional broodmare sires. In North America, arguably the greatest broodmare sire of all was Sir Gallahad III. Sir Gallahad III led the US broodmare sires list on 12 occasions - and his daughters produced over 130 stakes winners (in an era where stallions covered 30 mares a season). Sir Gallahad III’s daughters produced champions Challedon and Gallorette as well as high-class stakes winners such as Mars Shield (Kentucky Oaks), Boswell (St Leger), Galatea (Epsom Oaks), Black Tarquin (St Leger), Aurelius (St Leger) and Nothirdchance (Acorn Stakes, dam of Hail To Reason).

Another truly phenomenal broodmare sire was Princequillo. A stout stayer, he dominated the US Broodmare Sires list in the 1960’s and 1970’s. He not only headed the list on eight occasions, but remarkably enough, his son Prince John and grandson Speak John (by Prince John) also became champion broodmare sires. Princequillo is best known as the broodmare sire of the US Triple Crown winner Secretariat (also a great broodmare sire), with his daughters also producing such luminaries as champion Mill Reef, leading sire and broodmare sire Kris S, G1 winners Squander and Sham, champion half brothers Fort Marcy and Key To The Mint, as well as champions Bold Lad and Successor.

In South Africa, the trend in recent times has been for champion sires to become champion broodmare sires. The broodmare sires list has recently been dominated by Northern Guest, who has been champion broodmare sire in this country nine times. He is certainly bred to be a champion broodmare sire with both his sire, Northern Dancer, and broodmare sire, Buckpasser, having topped the broodmare sires list on more than one occasion.

So how relevant is the broodmare sire? Clearly it helps to have a successful sire/broodmare sire as a maternal grandsire of a horse, but it is also clear that it is not the sole defining success factor.

Extract from www.sportingpost.co.za

IGUGU : JACK RAMSAY'S DURBAN JULY TIP

Igugu - Vodacom Durban July Favourite
(Photo : JC Photos / Summerhill Stud)

VODACOM DURBAN JULY
2 July 2011

Jack Ramsay, a doyen of racing journalism in South Africa through much of the 20^th century, will be watching his 69^th Durban July on Saturday and fancies the favourite, Summerhill Ready to Run Graduate, Igugu, very strongly.

Ramsay, a.k.a. JR to his fellow racing scribes, will turn 90 about a week after the Vodacom sponsored event and racing has been in his blood for his whole life.

He said, “Next to Dynasty, (the 2003 winner) Igugu has the best characteristic to win the July. I think she is something special. She has a magnificent stride and just wants to win. She has that ‘come and get me’ presence about her. I felt as confident before Dynasty’s win. People tried to find fault with him even though, like Igugu, he had done everything. What did they want him and what do they want her to do - sit up and sing?!”

Ramsay views The Apache and Run For It as Igugu’s main dangers. He said, “Seldom does a bad horse win the Dingaans and The Apache won it very easily. Then, considering he had come back from a long break, his win in the Daily News 2000 was excellent. Run for It’s J&B Met run (third place) was very good. He has done nothing wrong and I think he is only now coming to his peak.”

Regarding the pace, Ramsay said, “I don’t think the pace will affect Igugu. She has the speed to be up there and has the stamina to stay all day. She also has a very good jockey, Anthony Delpech.”

Ramsay said that two July’s stood out as his most memorable, “Sea Cottage’s dead-heat with Jollify in 1967 and when Mowgli (bred, raised and raced from what is now Summerhill) beat Radlington in 1952 were the best.” He was working for the Rand Daily Mail in 1952 and The Mercury in 1967 and tipped both of these great horses to win.

Extract from The Mercury

For more information please visit :
www.summerhill.co.za

ANTHONY DELPECH : A Star in Racing's Firmament

Anthony Delpech and Mick Goss
(Photo : Hartford House)

There are not many of us who understand what it takes to be a world-class race jockey. If you’ve ever been onboard a horse pitching along at something of a gallop, even at a modest 40kms an hour, imagine yourself catapulting in the breeze at 70kms. If you can’t imagine that, try a motor car on a grass strip and you’ll see what it takes.

Make no mistake, to be at the top of your game as a rider in the racing world, you need to be as good as the best Olympic athletes, just as fit, and perhaps a little quicker witted. I think back to my polo days, when there were just eight horses on an immense pitch, and the traffic problems you encountered there and you quickly come to realise that in a 20 horse field travelling at full tilt, decisions are made in nanoseconds, and the ability to anticipate, to take initiatives and to seize the moment, is what separates the best from the field.

One man who’s had an almost uncanny association with the best horses from Summerhill, is Anthony Delpech, who with his wife Candice and his three children, was a guest at Hartford House over the Election Day holiday. Anthony’s association with this farm goes back to his days as an apprentice with “Uncle Joe” Joseph, one-time resident trainer to the Ellis family of Hartford. A little later in his career, Anthony Delpech teamed up with one of our earliest group winners, Home Guard, who we bred and raised at Summerhill for one of racing’s most celebrated owners, Lou Bernstein, and as the first horse to grace the silks of Robert and Robin Muir, now among the nations pre-eminent owners. This fellow not only won what was then known as the Smirnoff, the virtual two-year-old championship of its day, but he went on to earn National Championship honours, and he was quickly followed in a four year span by Spook n Diesel and Imperial Despatch. Three juvenile champion colts in four years.

Remarkably, as we don’t tend to keep too many colts in our ownership, principally because they’re part of our trading stock, of the few we’ve raced for our own account, Anthony has been successful at major level on three of them. Starting with Bianconi, a Christmas day foal who was advanced enough to become the first horse to ever beat the great Dynasty in the Golden Horseshoe (Gr.1), and in the process becoming one of only two horses to finish in front of that racing legend. He raced for Ronnie and Bev Napier along with the farm and is one of the legends of Summerhill Stud.

At a later stage, Anthony Delpech teamed up with two horses we were unable to sell, the first Amphitheatre the only horse to have attended two Ready To Run sales (as a two and three year old) and not to attract a single bid. His upset price was a meagre R30000, yet nobody wanted this “plain brown job”, mercifully, and he was retained to race for the farm, where he distinguished himself in Group One company from 1600m to 3000m earning 33 cheques in 34 starts and R1,5million, at a time when we needed the cash, to put it plainly. The partners in Amphitheatre were the fellows who co-bred him with us, old Summerhill stalwarts Roger Zeeman and Rodney Thorpe.

Anthony’s latest association with a Summerhill horse who’d proven difficult to place at the sales, was just a year ago with Imbongi. He too, was passed out of the ring unwanted at the Ready To Run, and we parted with a half of him at a subsequent time to Mr and Mrs Napier, Michael Fleischer and Owen Leibbrandt. Remarkable how Ronnie Napier seems to pick up on our best “Ready To Runners” whenever there’s possible potential staring at us.

Imbongi of course, ran in this past weekend’s Hong Kong Champions Mile (Gr.1) and in Anthony’s view, he was in with a live chance. Of course, he may have been biased, but we couldn’t help thinking that this may have been Imbongi’s moment. As it turned out, Imbongi ran a cracker of a race finishing sixth in a classy field, beaten by just 1,75 lengths.

NATIONAL YEARLING SALES 2008 : Strong catalogue promises big results

The 2008 Emperors Palace National Yearling Sale is around the corner and there is every chance that last year’s record-breaking results can be bettered this year.

Jehan Malherbe of Form Bloodstock, who sits on the TBA’s selection panel, commented: “One has to keep the prevailing economic climate in mind, but this is an exceptionally strong catalogue, the best I’ve seen for the National Sale. Jet Master, for example, has come of age as a stallion. There are 60 of his progeny on this sale, complimenting the foals of other established champions like Fort Wood, Western Winter and Jallad.

“This year also sees the entry into the market of stallions like Dynasty and Victory Moon. With a sprinkling of international pedigrees added via imported yearlings, and barring the lights going out, I foresee a great sale!’’

Bloodstock SA Sales Manager Caroline Simpson agreed with Malherbe and said: “We expect to once again improve on our 2007 sale turnover at which the aggregate of R162,9 million was our best ever.’’

The Sale starts at 18.30 on Friday, 4 April, with the Select Session, at which Lots 1-90 will come under the hammer.

This will be followed at 11am on Sunday, 6 April, by the auctioning off of Lots 91-350. Lots 351 to 600 will be sold on from 11am on Monday, 7 April.

Catalogues will be posted off at the end of February and from March will be available at BSA’s headquarters, Gosforth Park Sales Complex. The full catalogue is however already available for downloading on www.tba.co.za

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT

Jan Naudé, BSA’s Chief Executive: 083 627 7917 or jan@tba.co.za

or Caroline Simpson, Sales Manager: 082 55 26 525 or caroline@tba.co.za

Latest arrivals : 11 August 2010

2 August

 Filly  by DYNASTY ex SADLER’S BELLE. Sadler’s Belle is the unraced half sister to the Gr 1 millionaire SHAH’s STAR.  As owner Herbert Smith (Equine Admin) commented in The Sporting Post “This is the first Dynasty foal born in South Africa. Sadler’s Belle is a Brashee mare which makes this filly inbred to the great Sadler’s wells 3x3. She is a well made, athletic filly and is a very well balanced individual. The future looks very exciting.”

5 August:

Filly by MUHTAFAL ex CLAIM TO FAME. This filly is a 3/4 relation to the very good listed winner [and Gr 3 placed] NONDWENI; this is also the family of IMPERIAL DESPATCH - ARCSA Champion 2yo colt.

6 August:

Colt by LABEEB ex FOREST EDGE. Forest Edge was the winner of 4 races.

8 August: 

Filly by REQUIEM ex SHIRLEY SINGER (first foal). Shirely Singer was a 2-time winner. She is out of the listed place getter NORTHEN SINGER (own sister to TRAVEL NORTH and WORLD TRAVELLER) and is a half sister to RHAPSODY IN RED who won 6 races including the Gr 3 Henry Eatwell Memorial Handicap (4th in the Gr 1 SA Fillies Sprint).

Colt by REQUIEM ex PROUD AND TRUE. Proud and True is the daughter of the listed place getter PROUD TURN. She is a half sister to the Gr 1 winner PROUD PILGRIM. This is also the family of THE EDEN PROJECT, BOLD PERSIAN, BOLAND PRIDE and KASHAN.

Colt by ALBARAHIN ex RAINBOW LADY. Rainbow Lady was a winner at 3. She is out of the Gr 1 placed RAIN SHOWER and is a half sister to 8 winners.