CHANGING OF THE GUARD

Dubawi
(Photo : Darley) 

“…MUSIC IN THE AIR FOR DARLEY”

Visitors to this site will recall our story titled “The Balance of Power : Tipping the Scales”, which commented on the continental shift in stallion power from the United States to Europe. These things happen in all spheres of economic activity, and had a precedent when the American dollar was at its zenith during and in the decades following the Second World War. The purchasing power of the currency enabled American breeders to claim the jewels of European racing as their future stallion prospects, so the movement back to Europe is only a matter of history repeating itself, but in the opposite direction.

Within Europe itself, (and in this context, we speak of the broader European zone, including the United Kingdom and Ireland) there is a new play underway, with three chief protagonists in the ring. Traditional rivals Coolmore and Darley have fought a twenty year battle for stallion supremacy in that domain, and it has to be said, just about every round thus far has gone Coolmore’s way, best evidenced by the 14 Champion Sire’s titles that fell to Sadler’s Wells. The only horses to dethrone him at any point during his reign, Caerleon and the great Danehill, were both Coolmore-based themselves. The little real opposition from across the Irish Sea during the Sadler’s Wells era, came in the form of Cheveley Park’s Pivotal and Juddmonte’s Rainbow Quest, so the anticipation has revolved around how the modern day cards would stack up.

In the new scheme of things, there’ve been three distinct groups of emerging sires, a couple for each of the old “enemies”, and a couple again for Juddmonte. Coolmore have relied largely on the production of the great lines they’ve leaned so heavily upon in this time, so their ranks are filled with the exceptional likes of Galileo and Montjeu (both by Sadler’s Wells), and Danehill Dancer (Danehill,) among those already established, while you’d have to believe their hopes for the future are pinned on the magnificent racehorses, Dylan Thomas and Duke Of Marmalade (both Danehill).

Juddmonte have an outstanding pair in Oasis Dream (Green Desert) and Dansili (Danehill) and will be trusting that Dansili’s two younger brothers, Cacique and Champs Elysses, will emulate their brother.

At last though, there appears to be music in the air for a Darley operation which thus far has come up short on quality stallions, the standouts here being the quite remarkable Dubawi (by Dubai Millennium,) and ironically, because Coolmore have his sire on their roster in the United States, Shamardal (by Giant’s Causeway). The outcomes of the 2010 racing season suggest Dubawi could be a world-beater, though infatuation is easy when in a single weekend, a young stallion turns up three Group winners in a single day, as Dubawi did last weekend. On Saturday, the progeny of this massive prospect occupied the winner’s enclosure three times within the space of an hour and a half, and added a runner-up effort (unsurprisingly, to a son of Shamardal,) in another.

Dubawi’s stock already includes the top Three Year Old miler of this year, Makfi, winner of both the English 2000 Guineas and the Prix Jacques le Marois, and there are eleven others whose names henceforth will be cited in bold Black type in sales catalogues around the world.

Back in the United States, Darley also hold a significant hand, with Street Cry arguably the antidote to Coolmore’s Giant’s Causeway, among established stallions, but it’s among the younger horses that Darley arguably clench the stronger fist. Besides the promising Bernardini (by A.P. Indy), who already has a Group winner and a couple of Grade One performers to his first crop credit), they also have the class performers, Street Sense, Hard Spun, Any Given Saturday, and Street Boss, whose progeny still have to make their first racecourse appearances.

There is talk in the marketplace that Coolmore are winding down their United States operation, based at Ashford Stud. But then there’s always been conjecture about Coolmore, and what they’re doing. Those who’ve been around a while will recall that two decades ago, there was talk that the Anglo Irish Bank were going to recall their debt, and shut them down. Those who wished it were, as usually mainly competitors, but they hadn’t reckoned on the resolve of the Irish, either the bankers or the breeders. We’d be surprised if the sun was setting on Coolmore’s American operations. It may be so though, that they need to beef it up in order to remain competitive, as they cannot rely on Giant’s Causeway alone to keep the show afloat. Darley by comparison, have invested heavily in new prospects, and they’re well placed to dominate that market alongside Lane’s End, going forward.

Dubawi’s three Group winners on the weekend were :

Horse	Race	Distance	Age
ASTROPHYSICAL JET	Dubai Airport World Trophy (Gr.3)	5f	3 Years Old
PRINCE BISHOP	Prix Du Prince D’Orange (Gr.3)	1 Mile	3 Years Old
MAJESTIC DUBAWI	Firth Of Clyde (Gr.3)	6 f	2 Years Old

LEADING 2009 NORTHERN HEMISPHERE BROODMARE SIRES

Kingmambo
(Photo : Thoroughbred Times)

LEADING BROODMARE SIRES OF
2009 NORTHERN HEMISPHERE GRADE/GROUP1 WINNERS

Stallion	Sire	Winners
KINGMAMBO	Mr Prospector	5
RAINBOW QUEST	Blushing Groom	4
SADLER’S WELLS	Northern Dancer	4
SEEKING THE GOLD	Mr Prospector	4
KRIS	Sharpen Up	3
MR PROSPECTOR	Raise A Native	3
STORM BIRD	Northern Dancer	3

CORRECT AS AT 14 NOVEMBER 2009

A TRIBUTE TO RAHY AND BLUSHING GROOM

Rahy
(Photo : Three Chimneys Farm)

Please click photo to enlarge

“THIS GROOM’S GOT NO REASON TO BLUSH”

There was a time when we had our own son of Blushing Groom, one-time hero of the Princess of Wales Stakes (Gr.2), Desert Team, who still holds the record for the fastest twelve furlongs in British racing history. When you think that the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the Epsom Derby, are both run over that distance, it says something for Desert Team’s talent, even if it was only ever realised once in his lifetime. While he turned out something of an inconsistency as a stallion, he did have his moments in the likes of Gold Cup ace, Cereus, the St.Leger victor, Stud Master, and the Acacia Handicap heroine, Dot Dot Dash, (dam of one of Muhtafal’s better current performers, El Padrino).

While Blushing Groom left behind several other top level stallions, including the best British classic sire of the last couple of decades, Rainbow Quest, it’s arguable that he had no more effective son in the United States than Rahy, who like Desert Team, was a Group Two winner, as well as being the property of the late Sheikh Maktoum. His recent retirement prompted a tribute from the celebrated commentator, Andrew Caulfield :

Any breeder who remembers the 1980s and 1990s will appreciate that stallions don’t come much better than Blushing Groom - a French champion who became one of the jewels in Gainesway’s crown after impressing John Gaines with his exceptional action.

“The thing that impressed me the most was his way of going,” Gaines once said. “He had a beautiful flowing, rhythmical action. It was marvellous to see.”

Blushing Groom’s action was just one of the impressive things about him, but unfortunately, this phenomenal sire didn’t enjoy the best of health. He first underwent surgery to remove a cancerous testicle at the age of 14 in 1988, sired his last small crop at 16 and was dead at 18, in 1992. It is a measure of Blushing Groom’s tremendous efficacy that his 47 live foals of 1989 included six group winners, headed by the sensational Arazi, and that the excellent fillies Sky Beauty and Gold Splash were among his 29 live foals of 1990.

There were even three stakes winners among the 10 foals which made up his final crop.

Altogether Blushing Groom left only 512 named foals, of which 18 percent became stakes winners and roughly 11 percent became group/graded winners, in the process crediting him with a stunning Average Earnings Index of around 4.00. He could even claim to have 4.7 percent Group 1/Grade 1 winners to his credit, and how many stallions manage to sire five percent graded winners of any level?

But, with none of his Group 1/Grade 1-winning sons being younger than 20, we are approaching the end of an era. We were reminded of this early in July, with the announcement that Rahy - arguably his last major stallion son - has been pensioned at the age of 24 because of declining fertility.

Although Rahy didn’t rank among Blushing Groom’s Group 1 winners, he was an excellent performer at his best and he was also very well-connected, too – as might be guessed from the $2,000,000 he cost Gainsborough Stud Management at the 1986 Keeneland Selected Yearling Sale.

With a background like this, Rahy represented an interesting prospect at his opening fee of $15,000 when he retired to Three Chimneys in 1990 – provided breeders were prepared to take a chance on a stallion standing only 15.1 hands. He wasted little time in proving his worth, with Miss Ra He Ra winning the GIII Bashford Manor Stakes and Mariah’s Storm the GII Arlington-Washington Lassie Stakes in 1993. Mariah’s Storm, of course, went on to become the dam of Giant’s Causeway, who increased his total of Grade I winners from his first five Northern Hemisphere crops to an impressive 13 when Internallyflawless won the Del Mar Oaks last Saturday.

GEORGE WASHINGTON leaves a flawless legacy

George Washington The first and perhaps only filly foal by the late great George Washington (Danehill) was born just before midnight on Monday at the Irish National Stud. Her dam, Flawlessly (Rainbow Quest), belongs to Stefano and Loreto Luciani. The bay filly foal weighed in at 60 kilos and is reported to bear a striking similarity to ‘Gorgeous George’. George Washington won four Gr.1 races at two and three. The Champion European Two-Year-Old of 2005, he went on to triumph in the 2,000 Guineas and Queen Elizabeth II Stakes the following season. After a brief spell at stud at Coolmore, he returned to training last summer but his life was tragically cut short when he suffered a fatal injury in the Gr.1 Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Click here to watch the 2006 2,000 Guineas. 

Click here to watch the 2006 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.

 Click here to watch the 2007 Breeder’s Cup Classic.

Extract from TDN 06.02.08

Grant Pritchard-Gordon: Juddmonte's Roving Ambassador

Grant Pritchard-GordonThere are many racing and breeding enthusiasts around the world who recall the columns once carried by one of the great industry magazines, Pacemaker, under the heading Badger’s Travels. These columns were penned by Grant Pritchard-Gordon, who served as the International Racing and Breeding Manager to Prince Khalid Abdullah’s Juddmonte Farms for a period of 17 years from 1982 to 1997.

Among his many other achievements during this time, Grant was on hand for the Prince’s first Prix de Triomphe victory with Rainbow Quest, later destined as the leading classic sire in the United Kingdom for two decades. Remarkably, he was also a contributing party to the mating which produced Danehill, the first “world” sire of our time, and he was still around to preside over the sale of Danehill to John Messara’s Arrowfield farm some years later. Rather quaintly, the name Danehill comes not from our Danish connections, as is so often supposed, but from a nearby village in County Essex, a few miles from where Grant grew up.

Prince Abdullah Khalid (Juddmonte)As an indication of the esteem in which he was regarded by his former employer (and as a tribute to the magnanimity of Prince Khalid Abdullah,) in as generous a gesture as we can imagine, the Prince (first cousin to the King of Saudi Arabia) continued to pay Grant a salary for 5 years after he left Juddmonte. Now that’s a one-off!

Grant is currently on a visit to South Africa, and has taken in a couple of nights at Hartford House while visiting neighboring farms and meeting local breeders and trainers. He was entertained on two occasions by our A & B teams (though not in that order), and kept up well into the wee hours in the process.

We are fortunate at Summerhill to see many international visitors calling on us throughout the year, and Grant is as welcome and distinguished a guest as any.