DARLEY INVESTS IN ANIMAL KINGDOM

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed
(Darley America)

ANIMAL KINGDOM
Leroidesanimaux (Brz) - Dalcia (Ger)

Darley has acquired a 29% interest in Dubai World Cup and Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom, Arrowfield Stud and Team Valor International announced earlier this week.

As a result, Animal Kingdom will stand in the Northern Hemisphere at Darley’s Jonabell Farm in Lexington, Kentucky. The son of Leroidesanimaux will stand in the Southern Hemisphere at John Messara’s Arrowfield Stud in Australia.

“Animal Kingdom is outstanding,” said Darley’s COO Oliver Tait. “Not only is he immensely talented, he has shown a rare ability to excel on turf, synthetic, and dirt, and win at a range of distances up to the mile and a quarter of the Kentucky Derby and the Dubai World Cup. His win at Meydan last Saturday was all class.”

Added Arrowfield’s chairman John Messara, “We are delighted to partner with Darley in the ownership of Animal Kingdom and management of his future international stud career. We have always had a great working relationship with Darley and have the utmost respect for His Highness Sheikh Mohammed and the Darley management team. “With our unprecedented combined support, Animal Kingdom will have every opportunity to develop from a champion racehorse into a champion sire.”

Current plans call for Animal Kingdom to travel to England to race, with the Queen Anne Stakes or the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot as possible engagements.

Animal Kingdom’s majestic two-length victory in the March 30 Dubai World Cup over 2,000 meters was the first US-trained success in the race since it has been held on the synthetic Tapeta surface at Meydan. The win took his career earnings to $8.3 million.

Extract from Bloodhorse

NOT EXACTLY A TIPPING SHEET

Animal Kingdom’s owners John Messara of Arrowfield Stud and Barry Irwin of Team Valor International
with winning jockey Joel Rosario receiving the Dubai World Cup
(Photo : Sport360)

“That’s five from six, which sounds more like a Dale Steyn
bowling return than a regular Summerhill tipping sheet.”

Let me confess, these columns are not known for any particular science in predicting the outcome of a horse race. We’re far too sentimental to be good tipsters, but occasionally we get it right. In our ramblings in the lead up to the weekend, we went out on a limb and named a few fancies.

You might argue that Shea Shea was a certainty in the $1million Al Quoz Sprint (Gr.1) in Dubai, but there’s no such thing on a world stage, particularly in an international field where the talents of the protagonists are beyond comparison. Nor could you have anticipated that he’d smash a course record which just three weeks before, he’d made his own. The son of former Summerhill sire, National Emblem, deservedly heads for Royal Ascot’s King’s Stand Stakes (Gr.1), where the world might just be treated to one of the great sprinting contests of all-time. Black Caviar is 24 from 24 as matters stand, and while she’s earned her rating as the second best horse on the planet, her connections will be the first to acknowledge that she took down a tame field in England last year. It would take a brave man to suggest that Shea Shea has her measure, but Australia is no longer the breeding ground for the out-and-out blinding speed it used to be. Increasingly, the influence of shuttle stallions has blunted the profile of the aptitudes for which Australian thoroughbreds were once famous, and whatever the outcome, on the evidence of his exertions in Dubai, Shea Shea will be a worthy foe for one of the best sprinters the world has known.

In hindsight, a seven-for-seven record tells us that anyone betting against Soft Falling Rain in the Godolphin Mile on Saturday, needed a shrink. Yet in its 18 renewals, the $1million race has never been won by a three-year-old, and that tells you something. Besides, he was drawn on the rank outside and that’s where he remained well into the finishing stretch. Pressed four and five wide for the duration of the race, the colt galloped right to the line, and he takes an unblemished record to Royal Ascot as well. The Beck family have produced some crackers in their time at Highlands and Maine Chance, but this fellow might be the pinnacle of their endeavours.

There’s not much more we can say about Mike de Kock as a racehorse trainer. As one of the greatest exponents of the art the world has known, we’ve come to expect these things from him. But even then, you’d not have stretched your anticipation to two track records, and a cracking second from The Apache in the $5million Duty Free. There have been some remarkable performances by some remarkable horses over the Dubai turf in the past two decades, and yet here we are, with the fastest 1000 and 1600 metres ever. Add to that Golden Sword’s 2000 metre still-standing record, and you’d have to believe he gives them wings.

You might have said there was no genius in picking Animal Kingdom for the $10million Dubai World Cup, and here we’d have to admit to some sentiment. He belongs to two old mates, Arrowfield’s John Messara and Team Valor’s Barry Irwin, so we might have tagged him anyway. We were on hand for his big day in America’s biggest horse race, the Kentucky Derby, though, and that and his “prep” for Dubai was enough for us. Remember too, that when we fingered him, he was only the fourth choice on the betting boards, shortening a bit when Monterosso defected at the last minute.

How many mares get two Group winners at the same race meeting? It’s happened before, but it’s not your everyday occurrence. While we were in Australia a fortnight back, Helsinge had the lofty distinction of having two Group One winners on the same weekend, though at different venues. Both are exceptional: Black Caviar is already a household name, and her younger brother, All Too Hard, is on his way to becoming one. He is already the best three-year-old in Australasia, and he might just be as good as they get anywhere in the world.

That shouldn’t detract though, from Bridget Oppenheimer’s spectacular achievement on Saturday. Not only was the winner of the Harry Oppenheimer Horse Chestnut Stakes (Gr.1) Slumdogmillionaire, appropriately bred at her nursery, Mauritzfontein, but so too, was the sublime victress of the SA Fillies Classic (Gr.1), Cherry On The Top and the gusty winner of the Jacaranda Handicap (Gr.3) Cherry On The Cake. The best measure of a great mare is one capable of getting good horses no matter her mates, and the Oaks-winning Carolina Cherry has done just that. This is a family affair: the Triple Crown aspirant who might just be the best South African-bred filly we’ve seen in decades, is a daughter of Mary Slack’s Tiger Ridge, while Cherry On The Cake is by the sadly deceased Strike Smartly, sire too, of Slumdogmillionaire. The family traces to Sir Mordaunt Milner’s great foundation producer, Miss Therese, dam of the Kannemeyer-trained Guineas winner, Man Of Property.

Revisit our column, Classics And Clues on Friday last, and you’ll find “Slumdog” and the “Cherry” in the mix as well. That’s five from six, which sounds more like a Dale Steyn bowling return than a regular Summerhill tipping sheet. Without in any way wanting to diminish your faith in our picking abilities, we have to confess that Tellina was our choice for the Colt’s Classic. Thank goodness we got that one wrong!

ANIMAL KINGDOM DOMINATES DUBAI WORLD CUP

Watch Animal Kingdom winning the Dubai World Cup (Group 1)
(Photo : Ahmed Jadallah - Footage : Dubai Racing Meydan)

$10,000,000 DUBAI WORLD CUP (Group 1)
Meydan, All Weather, 2000m
30 March 2013

Sometimes, things do go according to plan. A littlemore than a year ago, Arrowfield Stud and Team Valor International’s Animal Kingdom (Leroidesanimaux) was forced to abandon an assault on the Group 1 Dubai World Cup due to injury, at which time trainer Graham Motion thought Team Valor principle Barry Irwin was ‘crazy’ for suggesting they point their Grade 1 Kentucky Derby winner towards the 2013 Dubai World Cup. Crazy like a fox, as it turns out. The handsome chestnut got a textbook ride from Joel Rosario, took over from market rival Royal Delta (Empire Maker) travelling ominously well at the 400-metre pole and staved off a late bid from Red Cadeaux (GB) (Cadeaux Genereux) to become the first American-based winner of the Dubai World Cup since its transfer to Meydan in 2010.

Joel Rosario, much-maligned when he guided Animal Kingdom to a runner-up effort behind Point Of Entry (Dynaformer) in the Grade 1 Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap on 9 February, atoned for what Irwin deemed a ‘bonehead’ ride with one that was beyond any sort of reproach Saturday. “I knew we had a chance,” the Dominican explained. “I’ve never been here before. This is my first time. I watched a lot of races. I had an idea where I needed to go from. I listened to my trainer and to my horse. He’s a very good horse. He did it. He’s very quick. It seemed like a long way home in the stretch.” Irwin, who said that Animal Kingdom was fitter for this than any other race in his career, was taken by the performance. “That was shocking,” he exclaimed. “I thought he could win but I didn’t think he could win like that. He proved that not only is he a top horse, but that he is one of the top horses in the world.”

Before Team Valor consolidated all its runners with Graham Motion, Animal Kingdom raced for the Wayne Catalano barn, finishing runner-up to subsequent MGSW Willcox Inn (Harlan’s Holiday) on his Arlington debut before graduating over the Keeneland Poly in October 2010. He turned in a promising run in his first start for this barn over the Gulfstream turf the following March and was an impressive winner of the Grade 3 Spiral Stakes back on a synthetic track before belying odds of 20-1 in the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby. He couldn’t quite catch loose-on-the-lead Shackleford (Forestry) when the Derby fourth turned the tables in the Grade 1 Preakness Stakes, and a nightmarish break in the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes effectively cost Animal Kingdom any shot - he checked in sixth.

A slab fracture diagnosed in late June marked the end of his 3-year-old campaign, and connections regrouped with an eye on the 2013 Dubai World Cup. Part one of that plan came together nicely when Animal Kingdom raced away to a Gulfstream turf allowance victory, but the colt suffered another fracture in the same leg and was shelved eight months.

Much to the surprise of many, it was announced that Animal Kingdom was to make his return in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile, a Graham Motion initiative also labeled at first blush by Irwin as ‘crazy,’ but a troubled runner-up effort to Horse of the Year Wise Dan (Wiseman’s Ferry) confirmed he was back with a vengeance.

In the days leading up to the Breeders’ Cup, Arrowfield Stud’s John Messara paid a visit to the barn to inspect Animal Kingdom, and several weeks later, Irwin announced that he and his partners had decided to sell a majority interest to Arrowfield to take up stud duties for the 2013 Southern Hemisphere breeding season.

Motion and Irwin labled the Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap as a stepping stone to the Dubai World Cup, and Rosario’s mid-race roll of the dice failed to pay dividends and the result was a disappointing, if useful, runner-up effort.

With the raceday scratching of defending race champion Monterosso (GB) (Dubawi), Animal Kingdom moved down into the 11 hole and left there running, but so did a few of the others to his inside, and he was four deep out of the stretch for the first time as Royal Delta (Empire Maker) was committed to a front-running try by jockey Mike Smith. Though nothing along the lines of the last-to-first move used by Victoire Pisa (Jpn) (Neo Universe) to win the 2011 Dubai World Cup, Rosario allowed Animal Kingdom to slide up outside of Group 1 Maktoum Challenge Race 3 hero Hunter’s Light (Ire) (Dubawi) and Side Glance (GB) (Passing Glance) around the first turn to target Royal Delta from second.

The two time Eclipse Award winner went along at a decent clip, covering the opening half-mile in a relatively quick :50 flat over the holding surface, but Rosario had Animal Kingdom in perfect striking position and looked to have Royal Delta at his mercy. He pushed the button exiting the final turn and in a flash, Royal Delta was gone and Animal Kingdom soon had a winning break on the field. He crossed into the final 200 meters under a full head of steam, and it was only Red Cadeaux who made any late noise. Planteur (Ire) (Danehill Dancer), recently acquired by Sheikh Joann bin Hamad Al Thani, dove home late to snag third for the second year in a row, earning back a cool $1million of his owner’s investment.

So jubilant were the connections of Red Cadeaux - after all, he did take home second prize of $2million - that track camera crews mistook trainer Ed Dunlop for the winner. “If you’re not in the race you have no chance,” said owner Ronald Arculli, former executive of the Hong Kong Jockey Club. “We debated between the Group 1 Sheema Classic and the Dubai World Cup but how often do you have the chance to run a horse in this race? I keep saying to Ed Dunlop, don’t underestimate this horse.”

Extract from Thoroughbred Daily News

REDOUTE'S CHOICE NOTCHES UP 100TH STAKES WINNER

Redoute’s Choice
(Photo : Aga Khan Studs)

REDOUTE’S CHOICE
Danehill (USA) - Shanthas Choice (AUS)

Elite Australian sire Redoute’s Choice, who is standing the Northern Hemisphere season for the first time this year in France, reached his 100th individual stakes winner on 23 February when She’s Clean won the Triscay Stakes (Listed) at Warwick Farm in Sydney.

Australia’s leading sire in 2006 and 2010, Redoute’s Choice is based at John Messara’s Arrowfield Stud in Austalia. The 16-year-old son of Danehill began a new career as a shuttler to Europe this season and recently began serving his first mares at the Aga Khan’s Haras de Bonneval in France, where he stands for a €70,000 fee.

“This is a wonderful milestone to celebrate, but the future for Redoute’s Choice is even more exciting as he enters a new phase of his career, standing his first season in Europe,” Messara said.

Redoute’s Choice joins sire Danehill and father-son pair Sir Tristram and Zabeel as the only stallions to sire 100 or more worldwide stakes winners from Australasian-conceived foals.

The milestone marks a lifetime sire record of 11.4% stakes winners from starters. Redoute’s Choice has 21 Group 1 winners, including Australian champions Miss Finland, Fashions Afield, and Samantha Miss, New Zealand champion King’s Rose, and South African champion Musir, and 10 classic winners. His sire record also includes stakes winners in the United Kingdom, Germany, Dubai, Turkey, Hong Kong, and Japan, all of whom were conceived in Australasia.

Redoute’s Choice began his stud career at Arrowfield in the Segenhoe Valley in the Upper Hunter Valley of New South Wales and was Australia’s leading first-crop sire in 2004 and leading juvenile sire in 2005 and 2006.

Overall, Redoute’s Choice has progeny earnings of more than $89million. His offspring are in high demand at auction as evidenced by a yearling sale average of more than $440,000.

Redoute’s Choice has already established himself as a sire of sires, with Stratum and Snitzel the sires of Group 1 winners and ranking as Champion Sires. Four other sons have sired Group 1 winners, including Not a Single Doubt, whose undefeated 2-year-old daughter Miracles of Life won the $1million Blue Diamond Stakes (Group 1) on 23 February at Caulfield. Additionally, Redoute’s Choice has been effective as a broodmare sire as his daughters have produced 16 stakes winners.

He currently ranks fourth on Australia’s general sire list by progeny earnings, with $5,562,745. And three sons - Snitzel, Stratum and Not a Single Double rank in the top 15.

Redoute’s Choice won eight of 10 career starts, including the four Group 1 races in Australia - the 1999 Blue Diamond, Manikato, Caulfield Guineas and 2000 C.F. Orr Stakes - and amassed a lifetime bankroll of $995,264. He is out of the Canny Lad mare Shantha’s Choice and is a full brother to Group 1 winner Platinum Scissors and a half brother to Group 1 winner Manhattan Rain and Group 3 winner Sliding Cube.

She’s Clean won her sixth race from 14 career starts with the Triscay Stakes victory. She was produced by the stakes-placed End Sweep mare Feather Duster, a half sister to Japanese Champion Kinshasa no Kiseki, and is from the family of French Group 1 winner and important sire Groom Dancer, French Group 1 winner Plumania, and French classic winner Falco.

Extract from BloodHorse

ANIMAL KINGDOM TO STAND AT ARROWFIELD STUD

Click above to watch Animal Kingdom winning the 2011 Kentucky Derby (G1)
(Image and Footage : Kentucky Derby)

“A Kingdom for a Horse”

I have only ever attended two Kentucky Derbies. It is part of the essential education of any budding horseman, and it is one of the fundamental reasons why Kentucky has become the racehorse breeding capital of the world. I “debuted” at what was arguably the greatest Derby of all time, the epic clash between Affirmed and Alydar, and as it happened, it was the opening stanza in what was the most memorable Triple Crown in history. That was 1978, and it took me 33 years to return, courtesy of an invitation from Team Valor’s Barry Irwin. It was prophetic (the invitation, I mean). A highly-charged 165,000 people thronged the Louisville course, part celebration of the horse, and as the chords of “Starspangled Banner” and “My Old Kentucky Home” resonated across that great plain, you knew the nation was also celebrating the vengeance of 9/11 with the death of Osama bin Laden a day or two before.

I used the word “prophetic” advisedly, as Animal Kingdom cruised home that day in the colours of our hosts to a dramatic two and three-quarter length victory over the accomplished Shackleton, to mark the summit in the many chapters of Team Valor’s history. For some years, they’ve topped the racing partnership charts of the world, yet here was one Team Valor not only owned, but they bred him, as well.

John Messara’s Arrowfield Stud in Australia has acquired a majority interest in the breeding rights to the 2011 Kentucky Derby hero and Champion 3-Year-Old Male, who will begin his stud career next September and likely shuttle to the Northern Hemisphere beginning in 2014.

The deal is subject to Animal Kingdom passing importation protocols, which involve blood work that should be finalized in the next few days.

The 20 Team Valor International partners that have reached racing’s pinnacle with the home-bred colt will maintain a significant interest in his stud career. The recent runner-up to Wise Dan in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile, Animal Kingdom is slated for the Grade 1 Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap on 9 February as a prep for the $10-million Dubai World Cup (G1) on 31 March.

After the World Cup, the son of Leroidesanimaux out of Dalicia (by Acatenango) will be flown from Dubai to England and considered for an additional start, possibly at Royal Ascot in June.

John Messara says, “Animal Kingdom excites us as a rare kind of athlete with a truly international pedigree who is able to express his class on a range of surfaces. He is already rated among the world’s elite turf milers and has the potential to become a global superstar in 2013.”

Heavens know what they paid for him. In recent times, horses like Exceed and Excel and Sebring have fetched in excess of $30million Down Under, and while Animal Kingdom will have come at something of a discount to that number in these subdued times, he will nonetheless represent a very tidy sum. Big prices for racehorses are not a revolutionary thing, though; you might recall that, according to one William Shakespeare, King Richard III made an outrageous bid at Bosworth Field in 1485, when he offered his kingdom for a horse. Fortunately, the auctioneer missed the wave of his catalogue, otherwise England may have belonged to someone else these days and there’d have been no Diamond Jubilee for Queen Elizabeth in 2012.

Team Valor CEO Barry Irwin fielded a regular stream of offers for Animal Kingdom’s stud career ever since the Kentucky Derby, in which he prevailed by 2¾ lengths as the first horse to conquer America’s great classic in his first start on dirt. He stands to be the only Derby-winning stallion prospect to race as a 5-year-old since Silver Charm, who scored in the 1997 Run for the Roses.

“Originally it was our intention to race Animal Kingdom for the entire 2013 season,” Irwin said. “However, the prospect of getting the support of John Messara’s Arrowfield Stud in the Southern Hemisphere was so meaningful, that I advised my partners to sublimate their fun and take the deal. It is critically important to get a history-making stallion master behind a new prospect and in John Messara we have that. He has developed two of the world’s most successful sires in Danehill and his son, Redoute’s Choice. No way I was going to pass up this opportunity.”

Robin Bruss of South Africa’s Northfields Bloodstock brokered the deal, just as he’d done a decade ago in bringing the Chilean champion, Hussonet, to Arrowfield.

Team Valor will form broodmare partnerships to breed to Animal Kingdom, with the plan of selling and racing his offspring around the globe.

Trained admirably by Graham Motion, Animal Kingdom is a Graded stakes winner on dirt and synthetic racetracks, and he nearly beat a Horse of the Year candidate in the Breeders’ Cup Mile on turf off a 259-day layoff, overcoming trouble to finish in front of the elite Europeans Excelebration and Moonlight Cloud.

Animal Kingdom also finished second in the 2011 Preakness Stakes. He has finished first or second in 8 of his 9 career starts, the lone exception coming in the Belmont Stakes when he was sandwiched after the break and nearly went down, leading to 8 months on the sidelines with an injury. He has earned $2,327,500.

Extracts from Team Valor International