MUSIR TO STAND AT COOLMORE AUSTRALIA

Click above to watch Andrew Bon interviewing Mike de Kock on Musir…
(Image and Footage : Tellytrack)

MUSIR
Redoute’s Choice (AUS) - Dizzy De Lago (AUS)

The stallion roster at Coolmore Australia will be boosted in 2012 by the addition South African champion and leading international performer Musir.

A stud fee will be announced at a later date for the six-time group stakes winner, who is the highest rated son of Redoute’s Choice to date, according to Timeform, which described him as “a well-made horse and a high-class performer with a good turn of foot.”

As a two-year-old, the Mike de Kock-trained colt stamped himself a top-level performer when romping to a 3½-length score in the 2009 Golden Horseshoe (Grade 1), South Africa’s premier contest for juveniles, at 1400 meters (6.96 furlongs). That dominant win saw him crowned champion two-year-old of South Africa and earned him a trip to the prestigious Dubai International Racing Carnival.

It was in Dubai as a three-year-old that Musir announced himself an international star, running up a hat trick of impressive wins that included the 2010 UAE Derby (Grade 2) and the UAE 2000 Guineas (Grade 3). He went on to claim wins in the 2011 International Topkapi Trophy (Grade 2) and 2012 Al Rashidiya (Grade 2).

Overall, Musir has eight wins from 16 career starts and earnings of $2,457,481. He has finished off the board only twice.

Musir was produced by stakes-placed winner Dizzy De Lago, by Encosta de Lago, and is from the family of Japanese champion, classic winner, and leading sire King Kamehameha as well as Grade 1 winner and sire The Deputy (Ire).

Extract from Thoroughbred Times

DEEP IMPACT SERVES NOTICE

World Ace (JPN) - The Kisaragi Sho (G3)
(Photo : Japan Racing Association)

THE KISARAGI SHO (Group 3)
Kyoto, Turf, 1800m
5 February 2012

The naming of racehorses is quite an involved process, because no two horses in the same country, are allowed the same name. It’s further complicated by the fact that the names of previous greats are reserved in perpetuity (including the greats from abroad), so that no horse can aspire to being a “Sea Cottage” again, for example.

It’s an arguable proposition that the most appropriately named horse in the world right now is Deep Impact, multiple Horse Of The Year in Japan, and now looking the likely stallion successor to his own great sire, Sunday Silence. There are parallels in what Deep Impact is doing in emulating his father in the European version of Galileo and Sadler’s Wells, yet it was a brave man who bet on either of Sadler’s Wells or Sunday Silence having anything remotely resembling themselves in any one of their sire sons.

Galileo has already surpassed the achievements at the same stage of Sadler’s Wells (and let’s not forget, Sadler’s Wells won a record 14 premierships in Europe), and while Deep Impact has a long furrow to plough yet before we can call him the “second coming”, he couldn’t have gotten off to a better start. The Champion Sire of Juveniles with his first crop in his native Japan, and threatening his barnmate King Kamehameha, with usurping his mantle at the head of their stallion log as his sophomores turn three, Deep Impact served notice again this weekend that his first runners were no fluke.

At Kyoto on Sunday, the first of the three-year-old classic trials, the Kisaragi Sho (G3) was a warning not only to his colleagues in Japan, but to the world at large, that Deep Impact has arrived, and he is here to stay. The race was “trifected” by his three sons, World Ace, Historical and Veiled Impact, the first two bred by Katsumi Yoshida’s Northern Farm, and the third by Teruya Yoshida’s Shadai Farm. In the case of the winner, World Ace, his victory by 2,5 lengths was a compliment to his breeding. He’s out of a mare called “Mandela”, and he ran like he knew it.

The other Group race on the card was another endorsement of Sunday Silence. First and third past the post were both grandsons, and reminded us again how lucky we are in our international friends. The best son of Sunday Silence of his generation in Japan, Admire Main is here courtesy of the Yoshida family.

A FORCE FOR RECKONING

Click above to watch the 2010 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe
(Image : Zimbio - Footage : Dubai Racing)

“WORKFORCE HEADING TO JAPAN”

I first met Teruya Yoshida, the present master of his family’s famous Shadai Farm, when we were fellow speakers at an Asian Racing Conference in India in 1995. As we embarked on our aeroplane, he asked me about several aspects of my speech relating to South Africa. In the course of the conversation, we got onto the topic. Starting with his father, of how Zenya had so influenced breeding affairs in Japan to the degree that it had become a world force. I probed him on the subject of what instigated their purchases of the mile and a half winners of the English Derby, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, which were fundamental elements in the Shadai stallion band. Teruya was quick to respond. For centuries, these races were the proving grounds for the great stallions of Europe, but since the advent of the likes of Sir Ivor and Nijinsky from America, the emphasis among European breeders was on speed. These “Derby” types, whose metier was a mile and a half, and which had served as the foundations of the breed for so long, became surplus to their requirements.

In other words, the Japanese simply stepped into the space so long occupied by the best breeders in Britain, Ireland and continental Europe. However, the Japanese needed as a result to re-write a race programme which would suit the progeny of these horses, and so they came to revere the 2400m plus event as the testing ground for the best horses in Japan. At a time when the third leg of the British Triple Crown, the St Leger (contested at 2800m or a mile and three quarters) had so lost its lustre that few horses which had completed the Guineas / Derby double, even bothered to subscribe for it, the Japanese developed a new and healthy respect for the winner of their St Leger, and even for those horses that excelled in their Group Ones at 3000m, such as the excellent Sunday Silence stallion, Manhattan Café. The key is class, and most good horses, whatever their stamina attributes, have the speed that goes with it. Witness Americain, last year’s winner of the Melbourne Cup, who despite being beaten in this year’s event, still posted the best speed figures in the race.

That the strategy worked, is evident in the many fine Japanese horses which grace the racetracks of the world today, and which are undoubtedly, by any measure, world-class.

No surprise then, that the highest rated horse in Europe last year, the runaway hero of the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, Harbinger, was bought by Shadai when his career came to a sad and abrupt end after the King George. And now we have the news that the English Derby and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe ace, Workforce, is the next excellent horse to leave British shores for Japan. Yoshida commented “the sire line of Kingmambo is enjoying success in Japan, as seen in the favourable results by King Kamehameha. The maternal line of King’s Best is also very good (that of Galileo and Sea The Stars). His performance as a racehorse was extraordinary. Not only the record breaking victory in the Derby, but also the fact that he drew clear of his field, these were keys in deciding the purchase”.

That the moment Teruya and I alighted the aircraft in India has turned out to be fortuitous, is evident in the relationship we have forged with his brother, Katsumi and his Northern Farm. The only son in Africa of Japan’s greatest-ever stallion, Sunday Silence, (great by the standards of any country anywhere), Admire Main is here courtesy of that meeting.

WHAT DO THESE FAMOUS SIRES HAVE IN COMMON?

Click above to watch Visionaire.
(Image and Footage : Team Valor)

Medaglia d’Oro, Leroidesanimaux,
Hat Trick and King Kamehameha?

They all came via
Team Valor.

SO DID GRADE ONE HERO,
VISIONAIRE.

Enquiries :
Linda Norval 27 (0) 33 263 1081
or email linda@summerhill.co.za
www.summerhill.co.za

JRHA SELECT SALE OPENS WITH RECORD HIGHS

Lot 51 Deep Impact - Air Groove consigned by Katsumi Yoshida (inset)
(Image : TDN / Japan Racing Association)

“SHOOT TO THE MOON”

Summerhill’s connection with the Yoshida family in Japan is well publicised in the presence on the farm’s Stallion Roster of the highly performed racehorse, Admire Main.

Yesterday, it was Japan’s turn to announce it’s economic revival at the JRHA’s Yearling Sale.

In the few minutes it took for a statuesque filly to take several graceful pirouettes around the Northern Horse Park sale ring Monday, the Japanese bloodstock industry burst back into life. The daughter of Horses of the Year Deep Impact (Jpn) (Sunday Silence) and Air Groove (Jpn) (Tony Bin {Ire}) had been groomed for this moment virtually since she had been born at Katsumi Yoshida’s Northern Farm. She did not disappoint, bringing a Japanese yearling record bid of ¥360 million ($4,390,244) from prominent agent Nobutaka Tada’s Globe Equine Management Co. Ltd. at the opening session of the Japan Racing Horse Association’s select sale of yearlings and foals.

Perhaps the best news for the JRHA is that the filly was not alone in the spotlight. A half-brother to 2007 Horse of the Year Admire Moon (Jpn) (End Sweep) by current leading sire King Kamehameha (Jpn) (Kingmambo) also smashed the previous record yearling price of ¥250 million set in 2007 when he went to Takaya Shimakawa for ¥260 million (US$3,170,731).

With the two top-priced yearlings adding turbo power, the overall sale results zoomed upward to a Japanese yearling session record gross of ¥4,726,000,000, a remarkable increase of 49.6% from 2010’s languid session total of ¥3,157,100,000. The clearance rate improved from 80.8% in 2010 to 84.5%, with 197 yearlings sold from 233 offered.

The average price of ¥23,990,000 leaped up by 31.5% from last year’s average of ¥18,249,133, all the more significant since the overall JRHA sale results had declined for four consecutive years. The vibrant trade was expected to make national news as a sign that Japanese confidence is returning after the earthquake and tsunami disaster in March.

“I was expecting the sale figures to be down, so it was a very happy mistake,” said Yoshida, who bred and consigned the two toppers. “This market is very healthy and that is good for the horse industry.”

As Japanese sales continue to shift toward yearling and 2-year-olds and away from the traditional concentration on foals, the quality of the yearlings on offer, both in pedigree and conformation, “was much better than before,” Yoshida observed.

Sticking with his decision to sell the filly out of Air Groove, the 1996 Yushun Himba (Japanese Oaks) winner who missed catching European champion male Pilsudski (Ire) (Polish Precedent) by a neck in the 1997 Japan Cup, proved difficult.

“I didn’t want to sell her; I wanted to keep her,” confided Yoshida.

Even though he well knew the quality of the filly, who is a three-quarter sister to 2004 champion older mare Admire Groove (Jpn) (Sunday Silence) and a half-sister to a pair of Group 2 winners, the price she demanded in a market that strongly prefers colts was a surprise.

“I never expected so much in this economy,” said Yoshida’s son, Shunsuke, general manager of the huge Northern Farm operation and their international roving ambasador. He added, “When she was born, we decided we wanted her to be a star at the sale. Physically, she is very nice. She is the 10th foal out of Air Groove, but she is bigger than the others. Her brothers and sisters had strong temperaments, but she is very relaxed and has a good mind.”

“I liked everything about her: her eyes, elegance, beauty, movement - she had everything,” declared Tada, who also praised the filly’s composure. “She can pose; she can see the cameras and she knows how to behave. She’s like a supermodel.”

Extract from Thoroughbred Daily News