NORTHERN GUEST : THE BLOOD OF AGES

Northern Guest (Inset - as a foal)
(Photos : Summerhill Stud Archives)

NORTHERN GUEST (USA)
Northern Dancer (CAN) - Sex Appeal (USA)

Mike Moon
Tab NewsNorthern Guest’s 10th Broodmare Sire of the Year title was an outstanding achievement of the past racing season. It’s a modern-day world record, eclipsing even the nine titles of legendary USA broodmare sire Mr Prospector.

Northern Guest never set hoof on a racecourse, yet he made a titanic contribution to the racing game in South Africa.

He was well named for his role in life, being from the Northern Hemisphere and taking up residence in the South. But he was much more than a visitor. He founded a thoroughbred dynasty and his name will live on for decades, thanks to a happy knack of fathering superb daughters who, in their turn, produced champion horses. Golden Apple, the dam of 2012 Vodacom Durban July winner Pomodoro, is a daughter of Northern Guest. The great international sprinter JJ The Jet Plane is out of Mystery Guest, another of his daughters.

Not that the colts were bad - they include Angus, Senor Santa and Spook And Diesel, to name a few.

It’s often said that the performance of a stallion makes or breaks a stud farm and there is no disputing Northern Guest was the making of Summerhill Stud in the KZN Midlands.

Summerhill claimed an eighth successive Champion Stud trophy at the Equus Awards ceremony earlier this month. In the same 2011-12 season Northern Guest won an unprecedented 10th Broodmare Sire of the Year title.

Summerhill boss Mick Goss makes no bones about who he and his team have to thank for their bounty.

“Look around you at Summerhill… and you won’t find a windowpane, a pebble in the tarmac or a piece of roof sheeting that Northern Guest didn’t contribute to,” writes Goss on his website.

If Northern Guest built a farm, he also contributed large building blocks to the edifice that is South African racing today. His influence is everywhere in the game, his blood flowing in many of its protagonists.

Goss brought one of the great thoroughbred pedigrees of the world to South Africa, being a son of Northern Dancer - the world’s greatest sire of the 20th century - out of the blue hen Sex Appeal.

Other aspects of Northern Guest’s beginnings were auspicious. He was bred by EP Taylor, the Canadian who bred Northern Dancer himself. Businessman Taylor was recruited by Winston Churchill to co-ordinate Britain’s World War II supplies from North America. After the war he crafted a multi-faceted corporate empire and notably built Carling Black Label into the most ubiquitous beer brand in the world. An avid racing man, Taylor reshaped the game in Canada, consolidating small tracks in Ontario into a profitable industry focused on fewer venues and better horses. He stood Northern Dancer in the USA and top mare Sex Appeal was sent to him three times. She produced Try My Best, European champion two-year-old, Northern Guest and El Gran Senor, the highest-rated horse in the world in this three-year-old year.

Northern Guest grabbed headlines early when his blue blood saw him become the first horse to be sold for $1-million. He was just five weeks old. Ireland’s Coolmore team bought him and sent him to legendary trainer Vincent O’Brien. But Northern Guest would never be tested in a race. On the Ballydoyle gallops one day he crashed into a fence and a wood splinter skewered his foot. The wound healed badly and he limped for the rest of his life.

In the early 1980s brothers Mick and Pat Goss were trying to make a go of Summerhill, a small stud near Mooi River. Mick had given up a thriving legal practice in Durban to pursue his obsession, while Pat was keeping his hand in as an accountant.

Deciding they needed a top-class foundation mare, the Goss brothers spotted a likely candidate on the UK’s Newmarket December 1982 sale called Maroon and belonging to Queen Elizabeth II. Heavily in debt, the brothers borrowed more money to meet the £30,000 estimated price and jetted off to England.

Having bought Maroon, Mick and Pat took a trip to their ancestral homeland of Ireland, where they ended up visiting Coolmore’s Longfields farm. Stud master Tommy Stack, a former champion jumps jockey and pilot of Red Rum in his third Grand National victory, paraded before them Hello Gorgeous, a promising sire at the time.

“Out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a horse being led past,” recalls Mick. “I turned and had a look, and he took my breath away! He had the look of eagles. Spectacular. Who the hell was this?” Stack replied: “Northern Guest. Not for sale.”

But the Goss brothers would not be denied. They secured him for £200,000 - money they did not have and had no further credit line for.

“I was worried, but my brother - the accountant, the conservative one - said, “Don’t worry, we’ll syndicate him on the plane home.”

The target group of South African breeders on the plane returning from the Newmarket sale didn’t bite. Despite the horse’s pedigree, they curiously didn’t see benefit.

The brothers were stuck with a R400,000 headache, the landed costs of an expensive stallion. In today’s money, it would be more than 10 times that amount.

The 12 weeks it took for exchange control permission bought time. They came up with Plan B, a black-tie dinner at Durban Country Club for all the moneyed people they knew. Tommy Stack volunteered to fly out to help secure the syndication - and delivered a compelling speech at the do. It worked. Northern Guest was over-subscribed; the deal was done.

But the solution brought its own problem. Many of the new owners were not established breeders or even racing people and bought Northern Guest many sub-standard mares. Nay-sayers began writing off the stallion and the farm. To save its investment Summerhill started buying shares whenever it could afford them and within two years had a 70% stake. But the prospects for the early crops were not good and negative perceptions for a stallion are a kiss of death. But few people reckoned on just how good Northern Guest was at his job.

He’d left behind two dozen foals in Ireland. He never stood there commercially, with Coolmore not wanting to compete with his brother Try My Best who had a stellar racing record to market. Northern Guest’s Irish offspring were the result of coverings for friends and employees, all with mares of little account. That Irish handful produced five stakes winners - at a world-class 20% strike rate.

The first South African crop was not earth-shattering, the star being the excellent Naval Guest, winner of the Champion Stakes. But the second crop was another story: Senor Santa, 15 wins and five Grade 1 titles; Northern Princess, nine wins including the November Handicap; Gentleman Jones, seven wins including the Administrator’s Handicap; Rip Curl, five wins, and Target Five, nine wins, saw their dad on his way to fame and glory.

Northern Guest secured three Champion Sire titles in the 1980s on the back of these and subsequent brilliant horses. There were also two Champion Two-Year-Old Sire gongs. When the first award was collected, a dying EP Taylor sent Mick a photograph of Northern Guest, taken on that day in 1977 when the foal went for a million.

Good horses kept coming - Gun Drift, Northern Flame, Unaware, Spook And Diesel, Levendi, Royal Thunder, Dangerous Donald and Dance Every Dance among them.

Travel North won the 1994 SA Derby, Imperious Sue the 1997 J&B Met and Angus the 2002 J&B Met.

Northern Guest’s legend was secured among racegoers with the famous match race on New Year’s Day 1989 between his daughter Northern Princess and his son Senor Santa. The Germiston contest followed a dispute over Senor Santa being eliminated from the 1600m November Handicap on the argument that he would not stay the distance. Great jockeyship from Michael Roberts saw Northern Princess narrowly prevail. A year later, Senor Santa won the FNB Stakes over the gruelling Turffontein 1600m.

Northern Guest was extremely fertile into his old age and was still successfully covering mares in his mid-20s.

Fatefully, both his illustrious full brothers, Try My Best and El Gran Senor, proved low on fertility.

Several big-money offers came from overseas for the champion but Summerhill was prevented from cashing in for various reasons - the farm profiting in stature rather than cash.

Mick recalls Northern Guest having a “wonderful, wonderful temperament, which became a hallmark of the tribe”.

Consistent quality was another stamp. The daughters were particularly striking, with notable femininity and fertility. Even smaller specimens had good carrying room as broodmares and all were caring mothers.

They produced Bold Ellinore, Emperor Napoleon, Icy Air, Art of War, Vangelis, Amphitheatre and hundreds more.

Mick is fond of telling the story of how Northern Guest, on his way from barn to paddock each day, would stop outside the stud office and survey the farm scenery. Management staff would adjourn their morning meeting to go out on to the balcony and pay homage to their great benefactor. “He’d never look at us, just gaze out at the paddocks. And we’d stand cap in hand.”

Mick believes the stallion gave the whole Mooi River district a boost. With scores of mares coming in to visit the champion, a number of boarding farms sprang up nearby, many of which have endured, providing much-needed employment.

Northern Guest died at Summerhill in 2002 at the age of 25.

“He was the stallion of a lifetime,” reflects Mick. “Every breeder is looking for the next outstanding sire, but perhaps us more so now that we’ve seen the top of the mountain.”

Extract from Tab Online

DEATH OF GRAND SLAM

Grand Slam (USA)
(Photo : Coolmore)

GRAND SLAM (USA)
Gone West (USA) - Bright Candles (USA)
1995 - 2012

Grand Slam (Gone West - Bright Candles by El Gran Senor) died Saturday at Ashford Stud in Kentucky due to heart failure, according to a statement issued by Coolmore. He was 17.

Trained by D. Wayne Lukas and owned by Robert and Christina Baker, William Mack and David Cornstein, the son of fellow Lukas-trained MGSW and MGISP Bright Candles kicked off his juvenile campaign with a track-record setting 11-length romp going 5 1/2 furlongs at Belmont Park in July. Later that fall, the bay added victories in the GI Champagne Stakes and GI Futurity Stakes before failing to finish in a problem-laiden running of the GI Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

At three, he added a score in the GII Peter Pan Stakes, finished second in the GII Swaps Stakes and GII Jerome Handicap and was also third in the GI Haskell Invitaional Handicap. The Overbrook Farm-bred rounded out his sophomore campaign, and his career, with a runner-up finish in the 1998 GI Breeders’ Cup.

At stud, Grand Slam sired 2003 GI Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner Cajun Beat, Canadian turf champion Grand Adventure and 2008 GI King’s Bishop Stakes winner Visionaire (now a resident Stallion at Summerhill). He is also responsible for multiple graded stakes winners Limehouse and Strong Hope, in addition to Millionreasonswhy, the winner of last season’s GII Matron Stakes who is a contender for the GI Kentucky Oaks.

Ashford Stud manager Dermot Ryan said, “Grand Slam was a pleasure to have here and he was very popular with breeders, as he sired nearly 800 winners and had progeny earnings of over $64 million. It’s a sad day for the staff here who worked with him and for all the partners who were involved with the horse and who have always been fantastic to deal with.”

Extract from Thoroughbreddailynews

TIMEFORM : IT'S TOUGHER THESE DAYS

Frankel
(Image : Lizampairee/Timeform)

“Frankel is the fourth best horse
since the inception of Timeform”

There was a bit of speculation in the international media, on the publication of the unbeaten miler, Frankel’s Timeform rating, following his commanding triumph in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes (Gr1) at Ascot. While there are inevitably adjustments to their ratings (usually slightly down) at the year-end, officially, Frankel is rated the fourth best horse since the fabled Phil Bull, first opened his rating agency for business in Halifax 41 years ago. We posted an article in the immediate aftermath of the race, and we quoted the likes of Frankie Dettori, Henry Cecil and Michael Roberts on their estimation that Frankel might be the best horse they’ve known. At 143lbs, Frankel stands a full 8lbs clear of his nearest contemporary, the Australian filly, Black Caviar, who is presently unbeaten on 15 from 15. Only Henry Cecil is qualified to speak about Brigadier Gerard (by that we mean he’s “senior” enough), and even he may have been a little on the light side to talk about Tudor Minstrel. All of them knew Mill Reef, as well as that great miler El Gran Senor, (the brother to our own Northern Guest, a legend of his own kind).

For what it’s worth, these are the ratings :

ALL-TIME GREATS
Sea Bird II	145
Brigadier Gerard	144
Tudor Minstrel	144
Frankel	143
Mill Reef	141
Dancing Brave	140
Dubai Millenium	140
Harbinger	140
Sea The Stars	140
Shergar	140
Vaguely Noble	140
Generous	139
El Gran Senor	138

CONTEMPORARY RUNNERS
Black Caviar	135
Canford Cliffs	133
Cirrus Des Aigles	133
Dream Ahead	133
Excelebration	133
Danedream	132
Rewilding	132
So You Think	131
Strong Suit	131
Deacon Blues	130
Rocket Man	130
Sepoy	130

What is evident from our own casual observations, is that Phil Bull was a generous man, and was prone to be a little more liberal in his assessment of horses in the early days. This would’ve impacted positively on the ratings of Tudor Minstrel, Brigadier Gerard and Mill Reef, whilst what is an apparently more stringent approach these days, will have had a slightly negative weighting on the treatment of Frankel. The other thing is, as with all other sporting codes, modern day competition and heightened training techniques across a broader spectrum of conditioners, makes it more difficult for a horse to stand out these days, and so what was an apparently outstanding performer twenty or thirty years ago, might not have been quite the same stand-out in today’s milieu.

These debates are, of course, part of the delight of the game, and for as long as we draw breath, there’ll be betting among the horsemen of old and those of the new era, as to who was king of the roost. In America, they still argue, many years after the passing of both of them, about the relative merits of Secretariat and Man o’ War, and in South Africa, the betting is still open on Sea Cottage, Hawaii, Colorado King, Mowgli and Horse Chestnut. Our point about standing out is best illustrated in the fact that, of the South African contingent, there are more from the past than there are from the present.

SADLER'S WELLS DIES AGE 30

Sadler’s Wells wins the 1984 Coral Eclipse Stakes at Sandown Park
(Photo : PA Archive)

SADLER’S WELLS
(Northern Dancer - Fairy Bridge) 

Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer - Fairy Bridge, by Bold Reason), a perennial champion stallion and prodigious sire of sires in Europe, died Tuesday afternoon of natural causes at Coolmore, where he had resided since entering stud in 1985. He was 30 years old.

Coolmore manager Christy Grassick said, “He was undoubtedly the best sire Europe has ever seen, and through his sons Galileo, Montjeu, High Chaparral and Yeats, along with grandsons Hurricane Run and Rip Van Winkle, he has left a wonderful legacy at Coolmore, and his influence looks set to continue for many years to come. We all feel privileged to have been involved with such a special horse.”

Sadler’s Wells captured both of his starts at two, including the G2 Beresford Stakes, but was overshadowed by the brilliance of stablemate and fellow Northern Dancer scion El Gran Senor (brother to Summerhill’s multiple champion sire Northern Guest), who ended 1983 as the champion 2-year-old in England and Ireland. At three, Sadler’s Wells won the G2 Derrinstown Stud Derby Trial Stakes before earning Classic glory in the G1 Irish 2000 Guineas. He followed with a runner-up finish in the G1 Prix du Jockey Club, splitting future top sires Darshaan (GB) and Rainbow Quest.

The blaze-faced bay established himself as one of the toughest members of his generation thereafter, winning the G1 Coral-Eclipse Stakes and G1 Irish Champion Stakes, as well as finishing second in the G1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes. Northern Dancer, represented by dual Classic winner El Gran Senor (2000 Guineas and Irish Derby) as well as Epsom Derby hero Secreto in addition to Sadler’s Wells, set record earnings figures in Britain and Ireland in 1984, becoming the first stallion to pass the GBP1-million mark (the previous best was GBP559,999).

“He was a hell of a good racehorse,” former jockey Pat Eddery told PA Sport. “I won the Eclipse and the Irish Champion on him, and also finished second in the King George. He was a very tough horse with a great pedigree. He probably was the best sire of them all.”

Rated at 132 by Timeform, Sadler’s Wells entered stud in 1985 at Coolmore as one of the most desirable stallion prospects in years, with El Gran Senor and Secreto heading across the Atlantic, and his 3/4-brother Nureyev (Northern Dancer - Special) departing France for Kentucky after one breeding season. Expectations were understandably high for Sadler’s Wells with his initial Ir125,000gns stud fee, but the robust bay managed to exceed even the highest hopes. The tone for his stud career was set when a pair of colts from his first crop - Prince of Dance (GB) and Scenic (Ire) - deadheated for victory in the 1988 G1 Dewhurst Stakes. They were joined by Old Vic (GB), who doubled up in the G1 Prix du Jockey-Club and G1 Irish Derby; and In the Wings (GB), who captured the 1990 G1 Breeders’ Cup Turf.

These early successes kept breeders clamoring for his services, and Sadler’s Wells continued to deliver while covering big books of well-bred mares. The services of his Classic-winning sons Galileo (Ire) and Montjeu (Ire) are in high demand. Another son, El Prado (Ire), led the U.S. sire list in 2002, and is responsible for MGISW Medaglia d’Oro, who has gotten off to a tremendous start at stud.

“It’s the end of an era,” Robert Sangster’s son Ben told PA Sport. “It is the most phenomenal record for any horse to be champion sire 14 times - a record that is likely to remain unequalled. His legacy will live on through his sons and daughters and their sons and daughters.”

Extract from Thoroughbred Daily News

WILDCAT HEIR : RISE OF THE BLUE COLLAR WORKER

Click above to watch Wildcat Heir on show at Journeyman Stud
(Image and Footage : Journeyman Stud)

“2010 SOPHOMORE SIRE PHENOMENON”

We’ve all witnessed the effects of restlessness among the people on the streets of Tunisia and Egypt in the past few weeks, and the impact of a common uprising. In the thoroughbred context, we’ve also witnessed an uprising of a different kind among a couple of stallions you might’ve termed “blue collar” in their pedigree origins. Indeed, two of the very best we’ve known, Foveros and Jet Master, came from what you would call typically plebeian backgrounds. When Foveros arrived in South Africa in the late 80’s, there was only one Black type horse in the first four generations of his pedigree, and that was him. Besides, his father Averof, had failed in England, was banished from Australia, and didn’t do much better in South Africa.

It’s well known that Jet Master’s grandmother and great grandmother resided at Summerhill, and he too, was short of Black type in his female line. His great grandmother Let’s Laugh, was the only one in the first four generations carrying such a status, and it was “small” black type for that matter, courtesy of her second place in the Allan Robertson Fillies Championship (Gr.1).

Yet these two have risen to become as good at their jobs as stallions as anything we’ve known in local breeding history, which gives the lie somewhat to those who’ve always maintained that an aristocratic background is the only key to breeding success.

Foveros of course, was the arch competitor to our own Northern Guest, as regally bred an animal as you could wish for, being by the immortal Northern Dancer and an own brother to two champions in Try My Best and El Gran Senor. This reality once prompted us in a philosophical moment, to ask the great trainer, Terrance Millard, what he understood to be a good pedigree. After fifty years in the game, his conclusion was that a “good pedigree belongs to a good horse”.

In a weekend commentary on the North American and European third crop stallions, one of the most formidable in modern history, the world’s top authority on the subject, Bill Oppenheim, devoted some attention to another “blue collar” star in the constellation, Wildcat Heir. Like our own “hot” young stallion, Var, (another blue collar job), he’s a son of Forest Wildcat and he hit the deck running with an incredible 39 first crop juvenile winners.

Said Oppenheim, “The 2010 sophomore sire phenomenon Wildcat Heir… had an amazing 30 three-year-old ABC Runners in his first crop, nine more than Giant’s Causeway and Distorted Humor.

Nobody else was even close. It’s one thing to be a leading freshman sire, but to sire 30 horses in a crop that each earn $50,000 or more in a season, that takes some doing. Very impressive.”

Wildcat Heir’s prominence on Oppenheim’s APEX rankings is mirrored on Thoroughbred Daily News’ Third-Crop Cumulative Earnings Sire List, where the 11-year-old sits third, behind the Europeans Shamardal (Giant’s Causeway) and Dubawi (Dubai Millennium), and ahead of the rest of his North American competition. Wildcat Heir had cumulative progeny earnings of $6,077,836 as of yesterday morning, about $385,000 in front of fourth placed Afleet Alex (Northern Afleet). Roman Ruler (Fusaichi Pegasus) rounded out the top five.

Wildcat Heir’s 106 individual winners (from 206 named foals) is just off Dubawi’s leading figure of 108 winners (from 210 named foals). He ranks fourth by black-type winners (10) and fifth by black-type horses (17).

The only knock against the up-and-comer is that his numbers are a bit soft when it comes to graded races.

Only one of his 10 black-type winners has won a graded stakes, last year’s G3 Old Hat Stakes heroine Richiegirlgonewild, and none of his four graded horses has placed in a Grade 1.

Then again, we are talking about a sire who began his career for a modest $8,000 fee and currently stands for $10,000, so how critical can one be about the lack of graded horses, particularly when he’s getting such consistent quality, borne out by his APEX figures.

Extracts from Thoroughbred Daily News