2010 Bloodstock Review & recent 'ringside' action.

The race for the 2010 flat jockey’s title may have gone right to the wire, but there was to be no last minute excitement in the bid to be top UK sire - a contest over long before Doncaster’s season finale.

After surrendering his title to fellow Coolmore stallion Danehill Dancer in 2009, Galileo regained his crown in impressive style amassing total earnings near £5m; almost double that of nearest challenger and another son of Danehill – Juddmonte Farm’s Dansili.

Ballydoyle’s Irish Derby and Irish Champion S. victor Cape Blanco was the top Galileo earner of 2010 with an impressive haul of over £1.3m. Those earnings, when added to his three juvenile victories makes him the third most successful progeny of his sire ever in terms of prize money and the chestnut will bid to help Galileo retain his crown, not to mention improve on his own already impressive record as he races on in 2011.

Another Ballydoyle inmate making a hefty contribution to Galileo’s success was the recently retired Rip Van Winkle, who garnered almost £650k in prize money, but managed only one victory – a last-gasp success over Twice Over in the Juddmonte International at York. Last seen in public when beaten a nose by Godolphin’s Poet’s Voice in the QEII S. at Ascot, Timeform’s highest ever rated son of Galileo now heads to Coolmore’s Irish Stud to stand alongside his sire, at a fee of €20k.

Galileo clearly has plenty of ammunition in his war chest for next season, and it would be no surprise if his most explosive weapon turned out to be Henry Cecil’s unbeaten Dewhurst winner and champion two-year-old Frankel. The much-hyped bay amassed over £266k in his four Juvenile victories and goes into the winter as the clear favourite for both the 2000 Guineas and The Derby. Cecil is not one to be easily carried away, and when he talks of Frankel in the same breath as horses like Wollow and Diesis then people will sit up and take note. However, despite waxing lyrical for some time about the bays ability, Cecil has expressed concerns about his stamina for the Derby trip.

Other Galileo juveniles sitting prominently in the Ante-Post markets for next years Classics include Prix Marcel Boussac heroine Misty for Me, joint favourite for the 1000 Guineas, along with Dewhurst runner-up and Criterium International victor Roderic O’Connor, who sits just behind Frankel in the market for the first two colt’s Classics.

Although Galileo’s nearest challenger Dansili finished a long way adrift in second, the contest may have been closer but for the career-ending gallops injury suffered by Sir Micheal Stoute’s imperious King George VI victor Harbinger. That injury led to his retirement to stud rated the Greatest Racehorse in the World and at the time, hot favourite for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. With prize money in the region of £2m for the winner of Longchamp’s Autumn showcase, a Harbinger victory would have taken the top-sire race right down to the wire.

Proving that he deserves his ‘World Class’ title, Galileo was not only successful on European shores and at the time of writing tops the worldwide sire list of Northern Hemisphere earnings.

Although only seventh in the UK list, Darley’s now French based King’s Best – sire of Epsom Derby and Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe hero Workforce - lies in second place in those worldwide rankings with earnings of £5.5m.

There is no doubt that is an impressive haul, but a closer look reveals that it is almost entirely due to two of his Classic generation, as Japanese bred Eishin Flash amassed £1.2m for his Japanese Derby victory at Tokyo, six days prior to Workforce’s Epsom master class.

Those Derby victories, along with Workforce’s gutsy Longchamp success accounted for almost £4m of King’s Best earnings and although only just adrift in terms of prize-money, his ten black-type victories in 2010 is a long way behind Galileo’s tally of 17 - a notable seven of those coming at the highest level.

With a European record of 36 first-season winners, Darley’s Iffraaj was a clear-cut winner of the freshman sire title, amassing almost £1m from his 70 strong first crop.

His current flag-bearer and sole G1 victor is Richard Fahey’s unbeaten colt Wootton Bassett, who landed two valuable sales races before a pillar-to-post victory in the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere-Grand Criterium at Longchamp’s Arc meeting. He will now be aimed at the 2000 Guineas for which he is currently a top price of 16/1, and his trainer, who rates him as the best he’s ever had, is reportedly confident of a bold show in the Newmarket showpiece.

Ringside Action.

It has been a busy period on the sales circuit of late, with plenty of recession-busting bidding taking place around the World.

One recently retired colt whose first progeny were destined to cause a stir is last years champion and half-brother to Galileo, Sea the Stars. Busy plying a lucrative trade at The Aga Khan’s Gilltown Stud following his authoritative Arc success, Christopher Tsui’s superstar has reportedly covered in the region of 120 mares at a fee of €85k each.

To date, nine mares confirmed in foal to the superstar son of Cape Cross have sold at an average price a little over £450k, with the first of those appearing at the Fasig-Tipton November Breeding sale in Lexington, Kentucky following the Breeders’ Cup meeting. Love to Dance, an impeccably bred daughter of Sadler’s Wells and sister to 2007 Arc winner Dylan Thomas, now holds the accolade of being the first to be sold through a public sales ring after bloodstock agent Ryan Bell went to $1,050m for the ex-Ballydoyle five-year-old on behalf of John Clay’s Kentucky based Alpha Delta stable.

The first to pass through a UK ring was another ex-Ballydoyle Sadler’s Wells mare in the form of Soinlovewithyou. UK based bloodstock agent, and advisor to Lady Bamford, Hugo Lascelles paid 950k gns for the half-sister to Duke of Marmalade at the Tattersall’s December Mares sale. Apparently purchased on behalf of owner-breeders in the US, Lascelles indicated that the foal might return to a UK sale in the future.

The two recent Tattersalls December sales included 34 horses from the dispersal of Lady Tavistock’s Woburn based Bloomsbury Stud, which is to cease operation after 45 years.

First, a daughter of Highest Honor out of the 1980 Queen Mary S. winner Pushy, realised the highest price when sold to agent Charlie Gordon Watson for 1.1m gns. Bought on behalf of an undisclosed ‘big new investor’ in British bloodstock, the 12-year-old dam of Michael Stoute’s Ascot specialist Perfect Stride is confirmed in foal to Cape Cross.


Topping the previous week’s foal’s sale at 320k gns was another from the Bloomsbury dispersal - a March 12 colt by the ill-fated Singspiel out of the above mare First. Following a rare Coolmore - Darley duel, it was Pat Shanahan and Michael (M.V.) Magnier who came out on top for the Tipperary heavyweights.

Sirecam video of Singspiel/First colt

Bloodstock agent David Redvers signed for the top lot at the December mares sale with a bid of 1.3m gns for Diary - a daughter of Green Desert and the dam of 2009 Prix de l’Abbaye winner Total Gallery. Confirmed in foal to Galileo, the mare was purchased on behalf of Qatar Royal, Sheikh Fahad Al Thani.

The first foals of 2008 Breeders’ Cup Classic hero Raven’s Pass have been well received, with particular success across the Atlantic at the Keeneland November sale. Averaging just over £100k from 15 sales, the highest price paid is currently $335k for a March 14th colt out of Japanese mare Eishin Bridle who was part of the dispersal of Jerry Bailey and Lance Robinson’s Gulf Coast Farms. A major player near the top of the U.S. breeding and sales industries in recent years, Gulf Coast are perhaps best known as the breeder of champion two-year-old and Preakness S. winner Lookin At Lucky, who will now stand at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky for a fee of $35k in 2011.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and bloodstock advisor John Ferguson showed support for their Darley stallion when going to 170k gns each for two colts at Tattersalls December. The second of the colts purchased is out of Italian Oaks winning mare Zanzibar and as such is a half-brother to American Stakes performer and ex-Michael Bell inmate Spice Route.

The top first-season sire at Keeneland November was four-time G1 winner Henrythenavigator who stands for $65k alongside Giant’s Causeway and Lookin At Lucky at Coolmore America. With an average of $208k from five lots, a March 17th foal out of American G1 winning mare Versailles Treaty was his top-priced colt fetching $450k.

Duke of Marmalade, another of Coolmore’s new multiple G1 winning Stallions has also been well received with a current average sale price of £57k from 21 sold lots. Timmy Hyde’s Camas Park Stud paid a high of €215k at Goffs November for a February 26th colt and fourth produce of Bowstring, a group placed ex-Juddmonte daughter of Sadler’s Wells.

Gavin Dobson, December 2010

Twitter: @gav_dobson

Folly to dismiss European 'also-rans' across the Pond...

Even by his own very high standards, the 2010 season has been a roaring success for Prince Khalid Abdullah and his Juddmonte Farms operation.

At the time of writing, the famous Green and Pink colours have been carried to success at the highest level in eleven G1 contests in Europe, not to mention four at the highest level in the US.

Although the G1 winners began as early as May when Special Duty landed Newmarket’s 1000 Guineas, June 5^th was a red-letter day for the operation as subsequent Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe hero Workforce landed the G1 Epsom Derby in record-breaking fashion.

That was not the end of the big-race honours for the Saudi Prince that day as just four hours later his ex-French trained mare Proviso battled to victory in the Just A Game S. at Belmont Park to land the second of her four GI victories since transferring to the American barn of Hall of Fame trainer William Mott. 

Crossing the water from Europe for a new life in the US is not a new occurrence for racehorses.

Reports suggest that Bulle Rock, a direct descendant of the Darley Arabian left the UK for Virginia as early as 1730 and around the time of the American Revolution, perhaps the most significant British imports stepped foot on American soil in the form of Messenger and Diomed.

The latter - winner of the inaugural Epsom Derby in 1780 - is plausibly the most important to ever make the long journey West as in 1805 he sired what many believe to be the greatest of America’s Foundation sires, Sir Archy.

More recently however, horses departing European shores for a new life in America have done so not to forge a career in the breeding shed but to aim for prizes seemingly out of reach in their homeland. 

Despite various campaigns in support of a switch to synthetic surfaces in order to reduce the number of serious injuries, the vast majority of racing in the US still takes place on a traditional dirt surface. Races on turf play second fiddle, and breeding patterns ultimately follow suit with horses in America continuing to be bred for dirt suiting speed over turf suiting stamina.

Those bred for a career on dirt rarely travel beyond 10 furlongs (1¼ miles), with only a handful of high-quality dirt races over further. The highest profile example being the Belmont S. - third leg of the American Triple Crown - known colloquially as the ‘test of the champion’ due to its seemingly gruelling distance of 12 furlongs (1½ miles)).

This is obviously not the case in Europe, where, although there are a handful of courses with synthetic surfaces, the predominant racing surface is turf and races are run over much further.

Breeding practices in the World of turf racing differ significantly because of this with horses much more likely to be bred with longer distances in mind.

This approach gives them the upper hand when pitched into turf contests against their US counterparts and the superiority of European runners in turf races at the Breeders’ Cup backs up this hypothesis.

European invaders have recorded 43 wins at the Breeders’ Cup since its inception in 1984 with 34 of those wins coming on the grass.

However, it may be worth noting that it is not only the high-class Euro raiding party at the Breeders’ Cup that taste success at the highest level on the American turf.

The aforementioned Proviso – as a winner of two G3 contests in France - is not the typical European to Stateside expatriate. More often than not, those finding success at the highest level after a Transatlantic voyage, boarded the plane carrying with them moderate form at best from their native land. 

Before leaving his County Kildare base for a new life in America, David Hanley co-bred and trained a Pivotal filly by the name of Golden Apples.

Successful in one of her four starts in Ireland, Golden Apples’ best form came when third in the 2001 renewal of the G2 Pretty Polly S. at The Curragh. Sold soon after to infamous owner Gary Tanaka, she was transferred into the care of California based trainer Ben Cecil and won the 2001 G1 Del Mar Oaks on her American debut.

Placed in two further G1 events that year, the filly was named the 2002 Female Grass Runner of the Year following victories in the GI Beverley D. S. at Arlington, the GI Yellow Ribbon S. at Santa Anita Park and her fourth in the GI Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf back in Chicago.

She was retired to broodmare duties in 2003 following a 1/2-length defeat in the GI John C. Mabee Handicap at Del Mar, with career earnings totalling of over $1.6million.

Similarly, the ill-fated Tuscan Evening - herself a leading contender for the same Eclipse Award as Golden Apples before her untimely death in August of this year - was another to achieve dramatic improvement following a drastic change in scenery.

G2 and G3 placed in Ireland, the bargain 4,500guineas weanling was arguably unlucky not to spring a 66/1 shock in the G1 2008 Irish 1000 Guineas at The Curragh, but the daughter of Oasis Dream did not manage a win in eleven starts for trainer John Joseph Murphy and left for California at the end of her three-year-old campaign.

Successful on her second start in America, the bay landed eight further victories and over $1.1million in prize-money for new trainer Jerry Hollendorfer. At the time of her premature passing, she was unbeaten in six stakes contests - a run that concluded with victory in the GI Gamely S. at Hollywood Park in May.

In late November 2009, Tuscan Evening finished second, beaten 1¾-lengths in the GI Matriarch S. at Hollywood Park. The winner that day was Ventura, another Juddmonte Farms UK export with a mediocre level of form in Britain - though she did land a Kempton Listed contest on her final start in the UK for Amanda Perrett.

Transferred into the care of the late, great Bobby Frankel following that success, the daughter of the 2000 GI Arlington Million winner Chester House - himself another Juddmonte UK to US shipper, though one with a slightly higher level of form being the winner of the 1999 Brigadier Gerard S. at Sandown – won a G2 at Keeneland on her US debut.

Two starts later Ventura landed the spoils in Belmont’s GI Just A Game S. and was an admirable second on a yielding surface in the GI Woodbine Mile. The mare bounced back to form in style with an impressive four-length victory in that years renewal of the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf on the Santa Anita Pro-Ride before following up in the GI Santa Monica Handicap over the same course & distance.

In March 2009 she was beaten only a nose by American turf superstar - and last years Breeders’ Cup Classic runner-up - Gio Ponti in the Frank E Kilroe Mile on the Santa Anita turf but then made amends for the defeat in the Woodbine Mile a year prior when returning to the Canadian track following a five month lay-off to land the odds in September.

She failed to defend her crown in the Filly & Mare Turf at Santa Anita when a 1¼-length second to nemesis Informed Decision but ended her career on a high with the facile victory over Tuscan Evening, taking her earnings over $2.5million.

With this years Breeders’ Cup meeting at Churchill Downs on the horizon, it may pay dividends not to hastily discount any familiar names who did not set the World alight on European soil - and rest assured, even if the ex-Euro ‘also-rans’ do not land the spoils at the US World Championships in November, they will not be taking part in any future GIs merely to give their new connections a day in the American sun.

© Gavin Dobson, October 2010.

Please visit my new Website...

Hi,

Due to a multitude of commitments, I am struggling to keep atop of this blogging lark - as can be seen from my lack of posts in the last few months!

However, I have recently uploaded a new website that aims to showcase my editorial skills a little more than my speed figure skills - now that I am officially a Freelance Journalist!

Please head over to http://www.gdobson.co.uk to check out the site and feel free to let me know what you think.

One day I hope to resurrect this blog as my speed figures seem to be working better than ever lately, when I get the time to use them that is!

Many Thanks
Hollywood_G