ITB August 2022 >> European yearling sales

JULY-AUGUST 2022

£4.95 • ISSUE 111

EUROPEAN YEARLING SALES

READY TO ROLL

INSIDE >> Bloodstock agent Hubert Guy, purchaser of the Group 1 winners Onesto and Zellie, talks to Jocelyn de Moubray >> Martin Stevens chats with Klaus Eulenberger of BBAG, who declares the September Sale “a pinhookers’ paradise” >> Freddy Powell outlines the new Arqana sales format and the reasoning behind the newly launched Arqana race series >> Trainer Yann Barberot explains why he really enjoys training in Deauville – and he is making a successful job of it, too! >> Gestüt Ammerland has a successful history with Arqana and is looking forward to selling its first draft in Deauville

Expert Eye 2015 b h Acclamation - Exemplify (Dansili)

All eyes on the future GROUP/STAKES WINNERS COVERED IN FIRST THREE BOOKS OF MARES

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Acclamation

Dark Angel

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Mehmas

Expert Eye

Contact Shane Horan, Henry Bletsoe or Claire Curry +44 (0)1638 731115 | nominations@juddmonte.co.uk

www.juddmonte.com

TIMEFORM RATING

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Acclamation

Dark Angel

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Mehmas

Expert Eye

The only Gr.1 winning miler by sire of sires Acclamation The brilliant 2YO now siring eyecatching 2YO winners

GOFFS UK PREMIER YEARLING SALE 23RD - 24TH AUGUST DONCASTER, UK Since 2019, over 70 graduates have won Stakes races in 11 countries including recent Group 2 Superlative Stakes winner Isaac Shelby & dual Royal Ascot winner Rohaan.

Be a part of it and take your place in history with Great British Racing International, British racing’s dedicated service provider, committed to helping international parties to navigate the esteemed networks that make up this world-leading industry.

Discover how GBRI can guide you on your journey to buying in Britain. greatbritishracinginternational.com

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Racing to Ukraine

The Lambourn-based horsebox driver Julia Bennett has been on four aid trips to Ukraine sine April. We reprint two of her emotive diary entries as posted on the Lambourn facebook page

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Changing formats

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Debut mission

Ted talks...

... and asks just what is happening to all the UK-based stud farms?

Girls aloud

Cathy Grassick had a productive time at the July Sale, has been making hay at home and judging equine classes at agricultural shows

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Joyous July

Aisling Crowe reviews the July meeting at Newmarket which saw some impressive performances from exciting juvenile prospects and a Group 1 victory for Prosperous Voyage The leading US sire Giant’s Causeway left a final crop of just three, but the Grade 1 winner Classic Causeway is one of the trio, writes Melissa Bauer-Herzog

Stallion statistics

Leading overall European sires, the leading sires of two-year-olds and broodmare sires, courtesy of Weatherbys

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Gestüt Ammerland might be selling its first major draft at Arqana this August, but the farm has a long and successful association with the Deauville sales company

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Porter’s pedigrees

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Photo of the month

The golden years

In the 1970s French racing was at the top of its game producing some of the best horses in Europe and the world.

Jocelyn de Moubray takes a look at the reasons why this has changed and outlines a solution for French and European racing

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Loving his job

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Group 1 buying

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A pinhookers’ paradise

New York Giant’s

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Freddy Powell of Arqana outlines the new look for this year’s yearling sales and the reasoning behind the creation of the new race series

In the first of a three-part series, Alan Porter discusses the latest pedigree and genetic research – he finds that those who wrote breeding theories 150 years ago were not too wide of the mark A rare Suffolk Punch foal at Whatton Manor Stud

Trainer Yann Barberot loves training in Deauville, and he is making a pretty good job of it, too US bloodstock agent Hubert Guy talks about his French-trained Group 1 purchases, Zellie and Onesto.

Over the last few years breeze up consignors have sourced some fine yearlings at the BBAG September Sale.

Martin Stevens finds out more

The European sale scene

from Laura Green

follow us on twitter @tbredpublishing

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This publication may not be reproduced or transmitted in whole or part without permission of the publisher. The views expressed in International Thoroughbred are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publishers. While every care is taken in the preparation of this magazine, the publishers cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of the content herein, or any consequences arising from them.

the team

the photographers

the writers

editor sally duckett publisher declan rickatson photography trevor jones design thoroughbred publishing

alamy equine creative media tattersalls laura green NYRA courtesy of stud farms

jocelyn de moubray aisling crowe sally duckett martin stevens alan porter ted voute cathy grassick

advertising declan rickatson 00 44 (0)7767 310381 declan.rickatson@btinternet.com subscriptions tracey glaysher itsubs@btinternet.com

the printers micropress

the stats weatherbys

accounts

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annie jones

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ukraine mission

The Hague to Przemysl is a 1,530 mile-drive that takes over 15 hours The Harwich-The Hague ferry crossing takes seven to eight hours Lambourn to Harwich is a three and a half hour drive

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ukraine mission

Julia Bennet is a freelance horsebox driver mainly driving for Lambourn Racehorse Transport and Lambourn-based trainers. She also rides out for trainer Ali Stronge and is vice president of the National Association of Racing Staff.

Since April, she has been on four trips to the Ukraine-Polish border with supplies for horses, animals and humans.

On the return journey she was keen to offer transport to any refugees who were seeking a lift to the UK and to safety, and on her latest mission she achieved that goal.

On the next few pages we have reprinted her emotive diaries as originally written on the Lambourn facebook community page, they give some idea of the anguish and torment that is taking place in Ukraine and the challenges she and the team have had to overcome.

If you would like to offer some support , please go to www.racingtohelpukraine.uk

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ukraine mission June 27

“

HI EVERYONE, THANK YOU FOR TUNING IN. Today has been probably the toughest day I’ve ever spent out here, everyone is absolutely shattered tonight.

As I write that “tough day” comment down I’m trying to understand what exactly made it so tough.

Well it’s lots of things really, I will try to explain.

The temperatures out here are very high currently, it’s rarely dipping below 30 during the day and steadily climbs to around 34 in the afternoon and this trip had us do two solid days driving to get out here. That was followed by a day of multiple aid drops in order to supply the reliable chains who are taking aid into Ukraine to fill an ever-increasing demand from those who are returning to the remains of their homeland.

The full range of human emotions are put through their paces at top speed on a day like today.

First, it is because we made it out here for the fourth time since April.

Second, that our communities and local businesses have yet again stepped up to provide the goods that we are delivering, and the vehicles to carry them out here. It is truly humbling to see such generosity in abundance from so many people, including some we hardly know.

Third, there’s the physical hard graft of unloading tonnes of supplies by hand and sorting and stacking it all into various warehouses for further distribution.

And during that process we are walking amongst refugees, who have witnessed the horrors of this barbaric war and decided enough is enough. They are tearful, exhausted, frightened, displaced and have a carrier bag holding the remains of their old life... and that is it.

So when the long drive, the work and the heat start to make us feel weary we have to check ourselves and remember how easy we actually have it.

There were times today I thought I would burst into tears by the enormity of it all, but the fear is that, if I started crying, I would never stop. It meant that I kept that self pity button from being pressed.

I said goodbye to a guy we have met many times on these trips and he is now taking his family back to Odessa.

Before the Russian invasion I had never heard of Odessa, but now we all have and we know this is a really risky move.

We just have to hope for him and his family.

He has shown such gratitude to us for coming to help him, his family and fellow countrymen.

Since the first time I came out here I felt we should avoid coming home with empty vehicles if at all possible and so far we have always provided lifts for people, even if just across Europe.

I had tried and failed a couple of times to arrange

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The lorries parked up outside the team’s hotel near Rzeszow in Poland Philip Mitchell’s lorry filled with donations, plus half a tonne of dog food

“... we are walking amongst refugees, who have witnessed the horrors of this barbaric war and have decided enough is enough

transport for any refugees travelling to the UK, and had even been told I was wasting my time.

But tomorrow, my friends, that changes thanks to a charity working out here and an inner perseverance trait that I have been known to harbour.

We have a few more humanitarian aid drops to do in the morning and then we will pick up a few people and pets and start making our way home.

There will be many tears shed along this intrepid journey to the free world.

These people have lost so much and said so many goodbyes. Their lives are full of danger and uncertainty and they are basically being forced to place their trust in multiple people whom they do not know. This trip has involved quite a few new faces and everyone has really stepped up brilliantly. It’s truly wonderful to know how many good people there actually are. Thank you.”

ukraine mission

Near the Hook of Holland port (Julia, centre) with the Ukrainian refugees and Bella the Great Dane

July 1

D

EAREST LAMBOURN, please accept my apology for the lateness of this update, tiredness suddenly caught up with me. This trip has been an emotional roller-coaster like no other. It’s been tough on every level for everyone involved but somehow we have made it back to the UK – not only in one piece but also with four Ukrainians, two cats and a dog who are now going to call England “home”; it is the conclusion of a dream I had in early April as we drove home on the first convoy.

It seems so simple to fit all that into one paragraph, but to actually get through the entire process required truly monumental efforts from a top team of people from multiple agencies, the bulk of whom are volunteers who have only been working in their new roles since early March.

We were in Przemysl doing our final aid drop on the same day that Russia chose to kill 1,000 Ukrainian people in a shopping centre; it really was not that far away.

We met our first couple outside the refugee centre in Przemysl, while we were unloading our donations.

All of a sudden I heard Charlie [Thornycroft] saying, “Julia, your people are here”.

I turned around to see a man who looked truly terrified, wide eyed and looking at me, perhaps wondering if I was the

“...watching a grown man weep due to the absolute fear of his situation was heartbreaking; after 65 years of life, his wife and he had just one suitcase each for their belongings

one who could take him and his wife to safety.

They had been displaced from Odessa since early March and the toll that had taken on both of them was all too clear to see.

I introduced myself, borrowed a car and took them to the house they had been staying in so they could collect their few belongings, say goodbye to their host and some friends they had made.

Their host was a deaf preacher and he was in a neighbouring town working and wasn’t able to say goodbye.

Obviously with my limited (zero) language skills I couldn’t offer much assistance, but their friends came to say goodbye instead. So many hugs. So many tears.

Honestly, watching a grown man weep due to the absolute fear of his situation was heartbreaking; after 65 years of life, his wife and he each had just one suitcase of belongings. They had been forced to leave their children, grandchildren and a cat behind.

I found myself feeling an enormous sense of responsibility for these people whom I had only just met and been entrusted with to get them to the UK safely.

Later that evening when we were having dinner they received a message from their host and they cried and showed it to me. The wonders of modern technology meant

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ukraine mission I could hover my phone over the text using Google Translate and then screenshot what it said. I needed tissues.

We agreed to swap the driver teams round so that driver David [Dormer] could stay with the couple to reassure them we would look after them.

It is worth saying that Dave and I used to see each other at the races until the first Covid lockdown. He rang me about six weeks ago and said he had been following our trips on Facebook and wondered if we would be interested in a “retired pensioner with terminal cancer” coming along on the next one? Obs! Of course he could come!

I know Dave will cry when he reads this but the compassion and empathy of this man was an absolute inspiration to us all. He immediately connected with this couple and identified the reassurance they needed.

J

ENNY [Cassan] and Neil [Carson] set off on that endless journey home, while myself and Sharon [Ingram] headed off to collect the now famous Great Dane, Bella.

It was a real honour to be entrusted with her safe travel to the UK. She holds almost saint-like status to the children and workers at the horse hub, which is some 15 minutes north of Rzeszow, where she stayed for several months.

She has had many a heartbreaking secret whispered into those giant ears by those escaping this barbaric war. With all the trauma she endured to reach the hub she remains deeply loyal to humans. A war hero if ever there was one.

We drove a while and then Sharon, travelling with Aidan [Bocci] swapped with Jonathan [Harding, Racing Post] and we collected another two people from further into Poland, this time a young girl and her granny and their cats.

They had escaped Kharkiv on March 9. All these refugees have their dates of escape etched right at the front of their minds, it's hard to believe they will ever forget them.

And so off we all trundled back the way we came about 30-hours earlier. Our overnight stop wasn’t quite what we had planned but the refugees unanimously said they had known far worse and that we really shouldn’t worry.

By that point I was pretty happy just to share a bean bag with the dog on the floor in the back of the lorry, I was that tired. I reckon we slept about three hours each and then we set off for the docks and the hard border that stands in the way of these people’s future.

Thanks to our brilliant shipping agent Ben, my paperwork “blip” (understatement right there) was fixed, the passports were stamped and we were on the ship sailing towards Harwich. Aside from the older gentleman, none of the others had ever left Ukraine before so the ferry crossing was a different world.

Once on the ship the young girl became very distressed having been told to leave her cats. She thought she was being

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Top to bottom: The team delivering donated suitcases to the main refugee centre in Przemysl. Refugees flying to their onward destination need proper suitcases and most fled their homes with their belongings in plastic bags.

One of the refugees checking out the guinea pig, who shared a lift to Leeds.

Julia with Bella the Great Dane, who has been rehomed in Dorset Horse rugs donated to the horse hub

told she couldn’t bring them to the UK, not just that they couldn’t come upstairs. Those moments are so desperate when you feel like you’ve added to more trauma due to the language barrier. Thankfully it was all sorted and peace restored.

In the media there have been multiple stories of people being forced to leave animals at train stations at the very last minute because there is no room on the train. I simply cannot imagine having to face a choice of that magnitude.

We were blessed with a smooth crossing and, as if by magic, we arrived at the docks. Safe. England feels especially safe after those trips.

There was one interesting moment at Border Control as apparently Ukrainian refugees don’t usually arrive by freight.

They do now.

The hand overs went very smoothly with the logistics team working like clockwork and the girls and cats were met by a driver who took them to Leeds. He already had the guinea pig in the car that he’d collected earlier from Calais.

The poor girl had another moment then and cried “Pig”?

She must have been thinking ‘Who on earth are these people?!’ But on meeting the guinea pig it was all good again.

We said our goodbyes knowing we would probably never meet again, just knowing that we share part of their history.

Before we went our separate ways I asked the young girl if she will stay in Britain. She replied like so many of them do: “For now yes, tomorrow nobody knows what’s gonna happen.”

And there are millions of people living like that but if we can make something a little brighter, a little easier, then we will. We dropped the older couple a little further along the road and went through the same farewell of hugs and tears and hoping that it will all be okay for them.

It was way past midnight and we were already receiving messages that our supplies had been safely delivered into Ukraine. The 20km of donated electric fencing will be set up to graze horses to save money on feed, and also to fence off areas in villages that are not yet cleared of land mines.

This is a long and brutal war. There are stories of genocide and brutal torture, and remaining Ukrainians declaring that the dead are the lucky ones.

We dropped the lorry off and noticed the milkman was already up and out on his rounds; it was nearly dawn again.

What an extraordinary effort. This team signed up to deliver some horse and dog feed and ended up being a part of history. Ukraine, you are in our hearts forever and it is our honour to help you.

And Lambourn, what can I say? Thank you for getting stuck into this, it is so humbling to see such generosity. I and the team feel so blessed to have met so many wonderful donators and volunteers through this and all the other trips.

There will be more trips. Bless you all and thank you.”

www.racingtohelpukraine.uk

Gr.1 winner WINTER POWER

Bungle Inthejungle GROUP 1 SIRE

New Stakes horses in 2022 include MANHATTAN JUNGLE, 1st Prix des Réservoirs at Vichy and FUNNY MONEY HONEY, 2nd Prix La Flèche at Chantilly

SHANTISARA

Coulsty

GROUP 1 SIRE AGAIN IN 2022 Sire of Gr.1 winner SHANTISARA Covered over 150 mares this year

Gregorian

PROVEN STAKES SIRE YEAR AFTER YEAR GREGORIAN CHANT

Sire of GREGORIAN CHANT, a Group horse again in 2022 and WAHAAJ an impressive maiden winner at Nottingham for Patrick Owens

T 00 353 (0)45 876940 E i n f o @rathaskerstud. ie W www. rathaskerstud. co m

ted talks

TED TALKS...

‘s

The historic Lavington Stud was sold last year and is no longer operating as a stud farm: 0 it is one of many farms lost from the British bloodstock industry

Ted asks: “What is happening to the UK-based stud farms?

O

VER THE PAST FEW YEARS, a disproportionate number of stud farms have closed their doors, few are being retained in the industry in new hands and owner-breeders are disappearing.

I took a look through Alan Yuill Walker’s book “Thoroughbred Studs of Great Britain” and have followed the stories of a number of the farms listed... sadly, it does not make for happy reading from a bloodstock

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perspective. although a number of farms are thiriving and developing.

Last year Lavington Stud was sold, following on from the sale of Fair Winter Farm and Normandie Stud. The latter two, although still running as a stud farms, do so with boarders on commercial properties.

Marston Stud, owned by Lord and Lady Wellesley, has been leased out and Lord Rothschild’s Waddesdon Stud is no longer a thoroughbred stud.

Adstock Manor Stud no longer exists, neither does Angmering Park

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Stud.

Arches Hall is leased by Jamie Railton, Ashley Heath and Warren Hill Studs are now part of Cheveley Park Stud, Bernice Cuthbert’s Aston Park no longer exists.

Aston Upthorpe is under the Darley banner and still operates.

Banstead belongs to Juddmonte, but Barleythorpe no longer exists.

Lady Fairhaven’s Parsonage Farm is up for sale.

Beech House went to Shadwell Estates which is now reducing in size and, although not for sale, some

of their studs are available to lease.

Biddestone is now owned by a Kuwait businessman, Bloomsbury is now leased and Bottisham Heath Stud is used as an overflow yard for Newmarket studs in the summer.

Brook Stud is now the home of the Woods family and Burton Agnes Stud is no longer.

Buttermilk Stud was sold to a local farmer.

The mighty Cheveley Park Stud has thrived, expanded and is home to one of the largest UK-owned private broodmare bands in the UK.

Hadrian Stud is part of Darley, while the mighty Hascombe is still operated successfully by the Oppenheimer family with much of the same blood lines.

Heatherwold Stud is now owned by Mike Caddy from HSBC and continues to operate a private broodmare band but is for sale, Hesmonds is owned by Mr Bizichof but his interests are now in France rather than the UK and it might be sold again Juddmonte owns Side Hill, Escort, Banstead Manor, and Eagle Lane not to mention studs in US and Ireland, but Cayton Park was recently sold to South African interests.

Kingwood is more a rehabilitation project and home to trainer Owen Burrows, but Hillwood Stud replaces them.

Kirtlington Stud is on the market.

Lanwades is independently owned by Kirsten Rausing and thrives with American and German bloodlines and is not afraid of middle-distance sires.

Limestone Stud is no longer a commercial operation.

Littleton Stud has been successfully run by Jeff Smith for decades and has just invigorated its bloodlines.

Manor House Stud was recently bought by John Dance as a training base and stud.

Meon Valley continues to be prolific and successful at the sales, Minster Stud is operated

by Willie Carson and he still buys new bloodlines to keep the stud current, along with his neighbours Chris Wright at Stratford Place and Nicholas Jones’s Coln Valley Stud, who regularly tops a yearling sale.

Moyns Park Stud has tried on recent occasions to reinvent itself,

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It is rare that stud farms are handed down through the generations, and in the Newmarket vicinity where many have been bought by -Middle Easternbased purchasers

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Childwick Bury Stud, although no longer in the Joel family, is operating a small private boarding stud.

Cliff Stud has scaled down and no longer operates on a commercial basis, while Cliveden is no longer and is owned by an Indian property developer and lies unkept with fences falling down and paddocks abandoned.

Copgrove Hall Stud, managed

by Brian O’Rourke, is a thriving commercial stud in the north of England.

Cotswold Stud is no longer and bought by a hotel group for development.

Crimbourne Stud is no Longer having been sold after Sir Eric Parker’s death Dalham Hall is the centre of Sheikh Mohammed’s global operations, whilst Derisley Wood Stud was taken over by Juddmonte.

Dunchurch Lodge is still operated by the next generation of the Wyatt family. Egerton and Lordship parted company and Trevor Harris successfully operates the latter, whilst Egerton was being used to David Elsworth train, and as a small boarding stud Eydon Hall Farm half lies dormant, and is half leased to myself.

Floors Stud has been sadly reduced and, following the death of the Duke of Roxburgh, boards mares in the south of England, and the stud is leased out.

Fonthill is no longer operated by Lord Margadale’s family but leased.

Gainsborough Stud is another under the Darley banner.

Garrowby of Lord Halifax has since closed.

Gazeley Stud, although not in the McCalmont family, continues to operate as a private stud.

but has never quite managed a comeback.

The National Stud thrives as a boarding stud, ever waiting for the next Mill Reef to appear, but has a great following and is armed with some potential stallions for the future.

Its neighbour New England Stud continues to thrive since Peter Stanley’s world travels and, together with Stanley House, is a commercial player at Tattersalls.

Northmore Stud Farm has a loyal following over the years.

Overbury Stud has excelled under Simon Sweeting since he leased the farm from the Holland Martin family.

Pinfold Stud went the way predicted by its last owner who refused to subsidise the breeding of bloodstock, although very successful.

Plantation is now owned by Micheal O’Leary and is building a commercial presence after Lord Howard De Walden’s tenure.

The Royal Studs continue to breed at the highest level although Shirley Heights and associated stallions are a distant memory.

Rutland Stud and Sandley Studs are no longer, and Sandwich taken over by Cheveley Park Stud.

Shadwell encompass various studs around Bury St Edmonds and Sheldon Stud is no longer.

Sledmere Stud is no longer although attempts were made for a revival.

Snailwell Stud, a Joel family stud, ceases to operate or does so at a reduced level, while Stetchworth Park Stud has been for sale several times, but is still operated by the Gredley Family.

Stowell Hill stud operates on a smaller level since the death of Bob McCreery.

The Sussex Stud is leased and is not a thoroughbred any more, Thornton, one-time home for mighty Kris, is no longer.

Waverton Stud is no longer but West Blagdon and Whatton Manor continue to be owner-operated.

White Lodge is part of Darley umbrella. Whitsbury is thriving under Ed Harper, who continues to adapt to the increasing pressures of English stud farming, Woolton House and Woodminton are gone, and Worksop Manor is being revived by Henry Farr.

Wyck Hall Stud is owned by the Jockey Club and leased out.

The moral of the story? It is rare that stud farms are handed down through the generations, and in the Newmarket vicinity many have been bought by Middle Easternbased purchasers.

It is startling evidence that our industry is not the Sport of Kings, it is just not economically viable.

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ted talks

TED TALKS...

There is no solution. The industry has self-funded prizemoney through the EBF and GBB with help from the Levy, but it’s time to renegotiate with government or adjust the income streams from broadcasting or the bookmakers to help breeders.

Increased recognition and incentives are helping some stay in the business, but more is needed.

So, what do we do about increasing interest in breeding horses at the remaining studs in 0 the UK? There are few farms that have started afresh, such as Lady Bamford of Daylesford who has become a big owner.

Julian Richmond Watson and his wife Sarah have bred an Oaks winner at their Lawn Stud, and Bob and Pauline Scott have nurtured their Park Stud with the help of James Delahooke, who has helped

“

Increased recognition and incentives are helping some stay in the business, but more is needed

“

‘s

them achieve some impressive sales prices.

In the north of England the McIntyre family’s Theakston Stud continues to thrive and grow in the hands of the new generation, while in the south, Newsells Park Stud is commercial and a huge success in a relatively short period of time.

Andrew Black of Chasemore has built a completely new entity near Epsom and in the west country

the Pocock Family has invigorated a dairy farm to produce top class international runners.

Ed Sackville has guided Rockcliffe Stud and produced Sky Lantern.

Newmarket hosts John Troy of Willingham Stud, who has grown on the outskirts of HQ, along with Genesis Green operated by the Swinburn Family.

There are many Gulf region owners starting to breed and board mares on commercial stud farms.

Some farms have closed, and clients have moved – such as from Catridge Farm to Charlock Stud, while Culworth Grounds has received stock from the Dowager of Bedford.

Far Westfield Farm has a Qatar breeder.

It is with uncertainty that breeders continue and the recent deaths of Prince Khalid Abdullah,

David Thompson and Sheikh Hamdan has compounded issues.

Traditionally the thoroughbred industry survives, and the passing of some has created opportunities for younger breeders to come in or buy at the sales.

On the sales’ side the traditional vendors are dwindling, and very few who sell either all the colts or the entire crop, are left.

Meon Valley and Cheveley Park are prime examples of those who continue to do so.

Raising horses is an art which eludes many people with its attention to detail and the ability to change course or plans at short notice.

Yes, you do need luck and the right bloodlines, but some studs and their management are much more prolific than others Many popular boarding farms fail to produce stakes winners and very few manage it year in and year out.

Management and knowledge of raising horses, coupled with attention to detail, increases the number of stakes winners you produce.

If you have a full farm but no stakes winners or no Group 1 winners, it’s surely time to ask yourself why?

In the meantime, we need to club together to make a great industry greater in unity and save the many prolific and successful studs before they are sold for alternative uses and are lost from the industry.

A success story: Andrew Black’s Chasemore Farm is thriving and at the July Sale invested in the Group 1 winner Chachamaidee

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The fastest son of Shamardal.

The most precocious by Dubawi.

Record-breaking Blue Point and the spectacular Too Darn Hot: first yearlings selling now. It’s their time...

Europe’s Premier Source of Classic Winners

MAGICAL LAGOON

IRISH OAKS purchased at TATTERSALLS OCTOBER YEARLING SALE, BOOK 1 for 305,000 gns

DESERT CROWN

THE DERBY purchased at TATTERSALLS OCTOBER YEARLING SALE, BOOK 2 for 280,000 gns

CACHET

1000 GUINEAS purchased at TATTERSALLS CRAVEN BREEZE UP SALE for 60,000 gns

TAT T E R S A L L S O C T O B E R YEARLING SALE Book 1 October 4 - 6 Featuring the £20,000 Tattersalls October Book 1 Bonus Book 2 October 10 - 12 Book 3* October 13 - 14 Book 4* October 15 *Featuring the £150,000 Tattersalls October Auction Stakes

NATIVE TRAIL

IRISH 2000 GUINEAS, CHAMPION 2YO purchased at TATTERSALLS OCTOBER YEARLING SALE, BOOK 1 for 67,000 gns purchased at TATTERSALLS CRAVEN BREEZE UP SALE for 210,000 gns

T: +44 1638 665931 sales@tattersalls.com www.tattersalls.com

girls aloud

J

....Girls aloud

ULY ALWAYS STARTS with a bang and the quality of this year’s Tattersalls July Sale catalogue meant that prospective buyers from all across the globe were in town to enjoy a fine week of sales and racing.

The demand for high-quality stock from Europe has increased with the increasing popularity and great prize-money for Turf racing in the US, a buoyant market in Australia and many Middle Eastern buyers looking for additions to their racing strings.

I was very busy working on behalf of a number of clients from Ireland and further afield to try find a hidden gem. The list was a long one as I was looking for both racing prospects and breeding prospects – a lot of time and effort went into putting the various short lists together.

The undulating hills of Park Paddocks are certainly more enjoyable in sunny July, so it was pleasant work. It was also exciting to see the excellent redevelopment of the Solario complex.

I was delighted with what we managed to buy and so were my clients – we bought some lovely value mares and fillies to breed and race. The higher end of the market proved very competitive, and a lot of highquality fillies and mares are due to leave the British and Irish stud book for further shores.

While it is wonderful to see such healthy trade, but we also must be mindful as breeders to protect the quality of our broodmare bands and not to let it be diminished as, otherwise, we will not maintain the high standards of the stock currently produced.

The racing at the Newmarket July course never disappoints and this year the weather had got the memo and we were greeted with beautiful sunshine to bathe the picturesque track. It is always such an enjoyable meeting and has one of the most stunning pre-parade rings – a delight for both humans and horses alike.

On the track there were many exciting performances to enjoy from the electrifying two-year-olds by colts and fillies – Persian Force (Mehmas), Isaac Shelby (Night Of Thunder) and Mawj (Exceed And Excel) to the high-class Group 1 performances from Prosperous Voyage (Zoffany) and Alcohol Free (No Nay Never).

Sadly, I was unable to sneak up to York on Friday to see our homebred speed queen Flotus (Starspangledbanner) run in the 6f Group 3 William Hill Summer Stakes.

The Simon and Ed Crisford-trained filly, now owned by Katsumi Yoshida, did not disappoint, and led nearly from start to finish. She has her connections dreaming of a Group 1 win to add to her second in the Cheveley Park and then Commonwealth Cup third.

Her dam Floriade, who has a full-sister at foot, got extra carrots that night back in Newtown Stud!

I did get to visit Carisbrooke Stud, with whom I work closely, and it was wonderful to get to see the beautiful foals and yearlings, enjoying

The ITBA’s chairwoman Cathy Grassick is delighted with her purchases at the July Sale, has been making hay at home, as well as judging at the Bannow and Rathangan Agricultural Show

The beautiful shaded pre-parade ring on the July course at Newmarket

the sun and lush grass of the Lambourn valley. The farm has been developed into such a wonderful facility with a quality broodmare band the result of careful investment and planning by owner Yvonne Jacques, as well as the care and attention from stud director Martin Grassick and manager Fay Cort.

It was also fantastic to be able to catch up on all the news from my cousin Chris Grassick, who is training very successfully in partnership with William Muir in Lambourn. The team had recently landed the spoils at Haydock with exciting prospect Swayze, who had previously put in an eye-catching run when seventh in the Palace of Holyroodhouse Stakes at Royal Ascot. Team Muir Grassick had also just won with Stockpyle, an Oasis Dream brother to stable star Pyledriver.

B

ACK HOME IN IRELAND it was time to turn attention to making hay and the whole country seemed to be busy in that endeavour at that moment. I took time out to visit Wexford and attend the Bannow and Rathangan Agricultural Show to judge some equestrian classes, including the thoroughbred broodmare class with good friend John Lenihan of Ballyogue Stud. It was such a pleasure see so many enthusiastic horse people proudly displaying their stock and I really enjoyed my visit.

At the show, I spotted Redmill’s marketing guru Jane Davis in the show ring and was reminded of the Ireland’s Corinthian Challenge, Jane one of the amateur jockeys taking part in the three-race charity series.

Jane has been hosting the social media initiative Thoroughbred Tales on Twitter detailing her journey to the series, and it has been excellent to follow her progress.

We wish her and all of her fellow riders the very best of luck raising funds for the Irish Injured Jockeys fund.

Details of how to support the riders can be found at https:// corinthianchallenge.com/2022-riders.

www.internationalthoroughbred.co.uk

21

2022 GROUP WINNERS SOLD IN AUGUST including 2 Royal Ascot winners

MEDITATE

NOBLE TRUTH

Sold

Sold

Unbeaten in Three starts Sprint Stakes G3, Curragh Albany Stakes G3, Ascot

Jersey stakes G3, Ascot King Charles II Stakes Listed, Newmarket 2nd Prix Jean-Luc Lagardère G1, Longchamp

PURPLEPAY

WELWAL

Sold

Bred & Sold

Prix de Fontainebleau G3, Longchamp

Prix de Sandringham G2, Chantilly 3rd Critérium International G1, Saint-Cloud

And also: L’Imperator - Fort Marcy Stakes G2 Belmont, The Good Man - Prix de Barbeville G3 Longchamp In 2021: Cheshire Academy - Prix Noailles G3, Who knows - Prix Francois Boutin G3, Berneuil - Prix du petit couvert G3, Saqr - Qatar Derby (G1 Local) Doha Éric Puerari : +33 (0)6.07.34.38.24 • Michel Zerolo : +1 305.588.4643

ARQANA AUGUST YEARLING SALE

I ALMANZOR (3)

I KODIAC

I SIYOUNI (3)

I CALYX

I LE HAVRE

I WOOTTON BASSETT (5)

I CHURCHILL (3)

I NO NAY NEVER (2)

I YOSHIDA

I GALILEO (2)

I OASIS DREAM

I ZARAK

I HARRY ANGEL

I SEA THE MOON (3)

I KINGMAN (2)

I SHALAA

Including a full sister to Noble Truth (Kingman) - Lot 149

Don’t miss our yearlings!

21 Yearlings with black type performers under the first dam

Philippe Lazare : +33 (0)6.33.59.47.15 • Jean-Daniel Manceau : +33 (0)6.30.30.81.27

© Agence G / ScoopDyga / RacingPost / Z. Lupa

31 Yearlings

uk racing Prosperous Voyage: had finished a good second in the 1,000 Guineas and maybe her Falmouth Stakes (G1) victory should not have been such a surprise

Joyous July

Newmarket’s summer course had it all scintillating weather, sumptuous racing and a big priced result to boot, writes Aisling Crowe

O

N A GLORIOUS SUMMER’s week at Newmarket, star equines emerged to shine brighter than the sun.

The most unexpected result of the July Meeting was Prosperous Voyage overturning previous form with Inspiral in the Group 1 Falmouth Stakes.

However, if form analysts looked hard enough, there were signs that Prosperous Voyage possessed the capability to upset the favourite.

Runner-up to last season’s champion two-year-old in the Fillies’ Mile and May Hill Stakes, Ralph Beckett’s Zoffany filly was inches away from snatching 1,000 Guineas glory on the Rowley Mile in May when second to Cachet, but disappointed when only tenth behind Inspiral in the Coronation Stakes (G1) at Royal Ascot prior to her Newmarket run.

Her trainer saw the common thread linking all her best performances: “I think the key to her really is a straight track.

“Around a bend she scraped home in her maiden at Epsom, but then she got beat at Chester but when she has run on a straight track she has run her race and today she did, too.

“Maybe Inspiral didn’t turn up today, maybe she bounced, but this filly ran her

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Maybe Inspiral didn’t turn up today, maybe she bounced, but this filly ran her race and that is all that really matters if you are me! race and that is all that really matters if you are me!”

Fourth on debut over an extended 6f at Doncaster, she showed resilience to get off the mark on her next start and then came that Chester second placing.

After that she was tested in Group 3 company in Goodwood’s Prestige Stakes, in which she met trouble in running but managed to finish third. Then came her two juvenile runs behind Inspiral.

She made her seasonal reappearance in

the news

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uk racing the 1,000 Guineas where she ran on strongly and narrowly failed to overhaul Cachet. She was then due to run in the Group 1 Prix Saint Alary but traffic chaos on the M20 forced the team to abandon their trip to Paris.

“I was saying to Kelsey Lupo, the owners’ [Marc Chan & Andrew Rosen] representative, before the race that it has felt like this filly has run six times this year as she has had so many false starts but it is actually only her third start,” remarked Beckett.

Prosperous Voyage is the fifth individual Group 1 winner for her late sire Zoffany, who died at the age of 13 early last year.

A son of Dansili, he won five of his seven starts at two with the highlight his Group 1 triumph in the Phoenix Stakes. He also won the Group 3 Tyros Stakes and the Listed Golden Fleece Stakes.

Z

OFFANY FAILED to win at three, but ran Frankel to threeparts of a length when second to him in the St James’s Palace Stakes (G1), and he filled the same position behind Mutual Trust in the Prix Jean Prat (G1).

His fifth Group 1 winner was bred by Paul Shanahan and Tim Hyde through Lynch Bages and Camas Park Stud, who sold her to Grant Pritchard-Gordon of Badgers Bloodstock for £65,000 at the 2020 Goffs Orby Sale which was held in Doncaster.

Her family is one that has provided Juddmonte Farms with enormous success over the last four decades, and stems from the outstanding blue hen Best In Show.

Charlie Gordon-Watson bought her dam Seatone from the Juddmonte draft at the 2011 Tattersalls December Mare Sale.

At the time, she was a winning three-yearold Mizzen Mast half-sister to the Grade 1 Clement L Hirsch Turf Championship and United Nations Handicap winner Senure and the Grade 3 winner Speak In Passing.

Their dam Diese won the Group 3 Prix Corrida and is a Diesis half-sister to European champion two-year-old Xaar and to the Group 3 winner Masterclass.

Diese is also a half-sister to the Listed second Didicoy, dam of Grade 2 winner Didina who is in turn the dam of

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The Sun Chariot is the obvious race for her.

We will keep bringing her back to Newmarket Cityscape and Bated Breath.

Since then the family has produced Group/Grade 1 winners, including Close Hatches (US Champion) Tacitus, Siskin and Logician.

Seatone herself had foaled the Australian Listed third Romanesque (Montjeu), and her first foal was by far her best until Prosperous Voyage emerged.

Her Swain half-sister Cochin is now the dam of Australian Group 2 and Group 3 winner Permit by Zoffany’s sire Dansili, and the French Group 3-placed Seaport by Dansili’s full-brother Champs Elysees.

Seatone’s Chester House half-sister Five Fields is the dam of Listed winner Upcountry

by Oasis Dream and the second dam of Evening Sun, a Muhaarar gelding who won the Grade 3 San Francisco Mile at Santa Anita on the same weekend Prosperous Voyage was second in the Guineas.

Seatone has a two-year-old No Nay Never colt named Tenerife in training at Ballydoyle and he was bought by Peter and Ross Doyle for 450,000gns at Book 2 last year. Her yearling is a filly by Camelot.

Her best offspring will have the opportunity to add further silverware to the family trophy cabinet when she returns to her favoured track.

“The Sun Chariot is the obvious race for her,” outlined Beckett. “We will keep bringing her back to Newmarket. In the Guineas she was drawn in the middle of the track and slightly away from the action.

“We always intended to roll forward in the Guineas and she did. She sat quite close to the pace she wasn’t able to tackle the winner

Mawj: another Group winner for broodmare Modern Ideals

uk racing from where she was but she was only beaten a neck that day. It was a good ride today,” Beckett added.

Modern Ideals produces another star

Modern Ideals is fast developing into one of the most important producers in the vast Godolphin broodmare band, despite finishing nearer last than first on her two starts for André Fabre.

Still only a 12-year-old, Modern Ideals, who is from the first crop of New Approach, has produced four winners from her first five runners with three of them successful in stakes company. The trio is headed by this season’s Poule d’Essai des Poulains winner Modern Games, who was also successful in the 2021 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf for Charlie Appleby and Godolphin.

Modern Games was one of a remarkable three Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup winners for his sire Dubawi last November.

Her four-year-old Shamardal gelding Modern News won the Listed Royal Windsor Stakes in May and was subsequently second in the Group 3 Diomed Stakes at Epsom and just a nose behind My Oberon when second in the Listed Midsummer Stakes back at Windsor on his most recent run.

The latest black-type performer to be foaled by the half-sister to Ultra, the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardère winner and Darley sire, is Mawj.

A two-year-old filly by Exceed And Excel, she made quite the impression when bolting up on her debut in a Newmarket maiden in mid-May. Sent off favourite for Royal Ascot’s Albany Stakes, she found only Meditate too powerful in the finish but was a tough second.

Without that No Nay Never filly to contend with in Newmarket’s Group 2 Duchess Of Cambridge Stakes, she survived a stewards’ inquiry to keep her half-length success over Listed Empress Stakes winner Lezoo, the first black-type winner for Zoustar from his debut Tweenhills-bred crop.

Trainer Charlie Appleby remarked on Mawj’s stature when reflecting on her performance: “She’s a tiny filly but she obviously has class. When she won here first time out it was off the back of one piece of work because she was light, and she won well.

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www.bbag-sales.de

Torquator Tasso Winner Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Gr.1 Gr.1 winner as 3 and 4yo

August -Online- Sale: 19th August 2022 Premier Yearling Sale: 2nd September 2022 October Mixed Sales: 14th and 15th October 2022

uk racing “She was behind a good filly at Ascot and now winning this is a good result for her.

“I hope she grows. Sometimes the fillies change as three-year-olds, but if she grows it would be great. I’ll take her to Dubai to find nice races for her in the winter, but her next target is the Cheveley Park. She will have a break now. Seven furlongs will be better for her at the end of the season.”

As well as Ultra, Mawj’s dam is also a halfsister to the Group 3 Prix Minerve winner Synopsis (In The Wings) and to Epic Similie.

She is a daughter of Lomitas, who was twice Listed-placed in France and is the dam of Figure Of Speech, second in the Group 2 July Stakes.

Second dam Epitome is a Nashwan halfsister to the Grade 2 Canadian Handicap twinner Callista and to Noesis, who was twice successful as a three-year-old in France and is the second dam of Criterium

Mawj is a tiny filly but she obviously has class.

I remember when she won here first time out off the back of one piece of work because she was light and she won well

International and Prix Lupin winner and sire Act One. The third dam Proskona, by Mr Prospector, won the Group 2 Premio Umbria and Group 3 Prix de Seine-et-Oise.

Cartesienne, a Pivotal half-sister to Modern Games, Modern News, Mawj and Feminism is a five-year-old Shamardal mare who made €370,000 to Jill Lamb at Goffs last November. She is the only runner out of Modern Ideals who has failed to win.

She was subsequently offered in-foal to Lope De Vega at the Goffs London Sale where she failed to reach her reserve, not selling for €680,000.

Issac Shelby: serious plans ahead

Almost a quarter of a century had elapsed since the iconic blue and green silks of Robert Sangster were last in the July course’s

Isaac Shelby: the exciting Night Of Thunder colt returned the distinctive Sangster colours back to the winning enclosure at Newmarket

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uk racing winners’ enclosure following Commander Collins’ victory in the Group 2 Superlative Stakes in 1998.

Isaac Shelby returned the vibrant and unmistakeable colours to the number one spot, this time in the guise of Manton Thoroughbreds run by Sangster’s son Sam who purchased the Night Of Thunder colt as a yearling.

Commander Collins, a son of Sadler’s Wells who features on both sides of Isaac Shelby’s pedigree through Galileo, was sent out to win by Peter Chapple-Hyam, a previous incumbent of the Sangsters’ Wiltshire powerbase.

However, Brian Meehan, who has been training at Manton for 16 years, believes that Isaac Shelby could have a future career more reminiscent of Doctor Devious, who won the race in 1991 for Sangster and Peter Chapple-Hyam, than Commander Collins.

“He’s very nice. You’re always tempted to make predictions but he really is the business I think, he looks really special and could even be a Guineas horse. He’s got a good temperament and Sean [Levey] knows him well so they’re a good package,” remarked Meehan.

I

SAAC SHELBY could follow in Doctor Devious’ hoofprints quite quickly – the champion Ahonoora colt contested and won the Vintage and Dewhurst Stakes following his Newmarket success, and Meehan is keen to keep Isaac Shelby at 7f for the moment with the Newmarket Group 1 firmly on the horizon.

“We’d stay at seven now which I think is ideal but we won’t be in any hurry. I think we’d train him as a Guineas horse now.

These horses are special and they’re the reason you do it. You get the most enjoyment out of training winners of course, but when you get horses like him with serious potential it’s exciting.

“I don’t know if we’ll run again [before the Dewhurst] we’ll get him back and sit round the table and make a little plan after a week or so. Goodwood would come too soon, but the Champagne Stakes is a race I’ve thought about. I love the Breeders’ Cup so

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Rob Hornby with the Group 1 July Cup winner Alcohol Free (No Nay Never)

the Juvenile Turf is one we’ll definitely factor into our thoughts as well,” Meehan added.

Isaac Shelby made a lasting first impression with the ease of his debut win at Newbury on the final day in May, but despite that he was still only third choice of the bookies for the five-runner Group 2.

A grandson of Dubawi, who won the Superlative Stakes in 2004 before landing the National Stakes late that season, Isaac Shelby was bred by Elaine Chivers and sold by her Park Wood Stud to Sam Sangster for £92,000 at last year’s Goffs UK Premier Sale.

He is the third foal out of Kentucky Belle, an unraced daughter of Heliostatic, who was bought by Richard Knight for Chivers for just 4,500gns at the Tattersalls February Sale 2019, in-foal to Raven’s Pass.

His broodmare sire Heliostatic is a Galileo full-brother to Irish Derby and Coronation Cup winner Soldier Of Fortune out of a halfsister to Sholokhov and from the family of Group 1 winners Intense Focus and Skitter Scatter.

The horse Isaac Shelby beat in the Superlative Stakes, Victory Dance, comes from the same family as Heliostatic and is a Dubawi half-brother to Skitter Scatter.

Isaac Shelby’s dam Kentucky Belle is a

half-sister to the Grade 2 Mac Diarmada Handicap winner Ramazutti by Honors Grade and to My Best Ten, the dam of the stakes winner Vow To Recover.

His second dam Mine Inning is a stakesplaced daughter of Mining and out of Weed It Out. She, too, was stakes-placed and is a Clever Trick half-sister to Grade 1 American Derby winner and sire Pocket Zipper, Grade 2 Sheridan Stakes winner Jungle Blade and the Grade 3 winner and sire Prince Forli.

Meehan commented that the team at Manton had always held Isaac Shelby in high regard. The fact the colt had come out and proven himself in the cauldron of a scorching hot July course was very satisfying for them all.

Kentucky Belle has a yearling colt by Al Kazeem, who is heading to the sales, and was covered by Sergei Prokofiev this year.

“All winter he’s looked like a nice horse. He’s straightforward with a lovely temperament and is very easy to deal with.

We’ve got a great team at home with some very good judges and they’ve always like him.

“It’s easy to think that he was going to be nice, but this is high-end stuff and he’s really proven himself.”

At the 2022 European and Dubai Breeze-Up Sales, Keeneland September Yearling Sales graduates resold for prices including:

UAED 2.5 million €550,000 UAED 2 million €450,000 425,000gns 260,000gns €280,000 x 2 €260,000

UAED 1.1 million UAED 1 million UAED 825,000 230,00gns 220,000gns €200,000 UAED 650,000, etc.

America’s borders are open again, make plans to attend this year’s Keeneland September Sale.

Begins Monday, Sept. 12

SEPTEMBER.KEENELAND.COM Ed Prosser · European Representative · +44 (0) 7808 477827 · eprosser@keeneland.co.uk

us racing

New York Giant’s Despite a final crop of just three, Giant’s Causeway has extended his legacy again, writes Melissa Bauer-Herzog

W

HEN CHAMPION SIRE Giant’s Causeway died in the midst of the 2018 breeding season, he had covered just a handful of mares. It meant he had three live foals born to his name the following year.

But the Iron Horse has stamped these last representatives and they are living up to the legacy created by their sire.

His son, the new Grade 1 winner Classic Causeway, first caught the eye when making an impressive 6l debut victory at Saratoga last September.

The colt earned his first Grade 1 placing on his next start in the Claiborne Breeders’ Futurity (G1) then started his three-year-old season with a pair of graded stakes wins on

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the Dirt to qualify for a spot in the Kentucky Derby (G1).

An 11th place finish in that first Triple Crown race saw him switch trainers from Brian Lynch to Kenny McPeek – within two starts the colt became a dual surface graded stakes winner.

A combination of two weeks’ rest and his first start on Turf against a tough Belmont Derby (G1) field saw Classic Causeway sent off at odds of 26-1. But the front-running speed that saw him win multiple graded stakes on the Dirt, proved to be his best weapon on the Turf allowing him to take an easy lead.

Nations Pride and Stone Age attempted to give European invaders their second consecutive win in the race, but could only fight for the minor placings with Nations

Pride finishing three-quarters of a length behind the winner with a head separating the Charlie Appleby-trained runner from Stone Age. A homebred for Kentucky West Racing and Clarke Cooper, the victory meant that Classic Causeway became the 36th Grade 1 winner for his sire.

Classic Causeway is the best of Giant’s Causeway’s final three runners, but all three have shown stakes talent.

Giant Game finished third in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1) and the Shadwell homebred Monaadah collected a fourth place in Newmarket’s Listed Sir Henry Cecil Stakes only days before Classic Causeway’s Grade 1 win.

McPeek hinted that it is possible Classic Causeway could make a trip abroad at some

us racing

The impressive Classic Causeway: the straightforward three-year-old colt from the last crop of Giant’s Causeway could head on his Turf travels

point in the future, though right now he’s focused on the Saratoga Derby Invitational on August 6 – the middle leg of the Caesars Turf Triple Series.

“I was fortunate that the ownership gave me carte blanche on him,” he said. “They just said, ‘Do what you think is right.’

“I said then that if it was my horse, I’d try him on the grass.

“This could be a world-traveller on the Turf and the sky’s the limit with him. A mile and a half he might even be better.”

The first leg of the Caesars Turf Tiara Series was a coming out party for Frankel’s daughter McKulick in the Belmont Oaks (G1), who is another talented Tattersalls October Yearling Sale graduate for trainer Chad Brown.

Purchased for 180,000gns by Mike Ryan,

McKulick had been forced to patiently wait for her chance to shine after two seconds and a third at the graded stakes level in her last three starts.

Brown had just been waiting to stretch her out to the 1m2f distance and she rewarded his faith, coming from 6l off the pace to catch the Charlie Appleby trainee With The Moonlight for a Frankel exacta.

The loss was to prove a sign of things to come later on the card with Appleby runners finishing second in both the Oaks and Derby.

Bred by Essafinaat UK, McKulick is the third graded stakes winner for her Group 3-placed dam Astrelle, alongside Fearless King and Just Beautiful. Astrelle has a two-year-old Cracksman three-quarters brother to McKulick to come and had a filly

by Calyx last year.

For all his international success, this is the first US Grade 1 winner for Frankel and it came in a big way.

McKulick’s Grade 1 victory pulled the stallion two clear of Dubawi by number of 2022 Grade 1 winners – his six winners at the level being the best of any northern hemisphere stallion this year as of July 11.

For trainer Chad Brown, the win was more important than just being his sixth in the race. The date of McKulick’s victory brought together two special storylines for the trainer.

“It’s an extra special win with it being Bobby Frankel’s birthday today,” Brown said. “This horse is the first offspring of Frankel that I actually bought.

“Seth Klarman was nice enough to let me name this filly after my very first employee

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Introducing the

SAPPHIRE SALE A commercial sale of Flat Foals Yearlings & Breeding Stock

12 November 2022 Previous Gems include: Matron Stakes winner CHAMPERS ELYSEES Norfolk Stakes winner THE LIR JET Molecomb Stakes winner STEEL BULL etc.

ENTER NOW www.tattersalls.ie

us racing after I left Frankel, that’s why I chose this horse being by Frankel. And wouldn’t you know on his birthday she wins a Grade 1?

The irony and the importance of it today, on his birthday means everything to me personally.”

On the Dirt side of the three-year-old group, a confusing division got thrown into even more chaos the week before the Belmont Derby when Charge It returned to the races.

A lightly raced son of Tapit, Charge It caught the eye when a very green second in the Curlin Florida Derby (G1) in April.

The colt headed to the Kentucky Derby where he finished 17th in his only off-theboard performance before being given two months off before the Dwyer Stakes (G2).

Those two months made a noticeable difference in Charge It’s maturity and after racing just off the leader early in the 8f race, he took over with 3f left to go and destroyed the field. The question wasn’t if he would win in the stretch but by how far? The answer was 23l.

Tapit has had a quiet year compared to his normal standard but that “quiet” includes two Grade 1 winners, plus the Grade 1-placed Charge It among his seven stakes winners.

Charge It is also another feather in the cap of his bluehen granddam Take Charge Lady whose results this year are reminiscent of 2013 when she won Broodmare of the Year honours.

Her own daughter As Time Goes By won the Beholder Mile (G1) in March and her great-grandson Courvoisier – also by Tapit – won the Listed Jerome Stakes in January.

One week before the three-year-old Grade 1s took over the headlines the four-year-old Olympiad made another move toward proving that he is one of the best in the older male division with a 2l victory in the Stephen Foster (G2).

The Speightstown son has gone undefeated in his five starts this year with three of those coming in graded stakes, but he has yet to contest a Grade 1 in 2022.

His only run at that level came in last year’s Cigar Mile (G1) when he finished fourth in his stakes debut. While he has the most wins of any older stakes horse this year, he’d need to make moves in a few Grade 1s to topple horses such as Flightline and Life Is

The first northern-hemisphere top-priced yearling of 2022: by Curlin and a half to Gronkowski

Good – both who have 2022 Grade 1 wins on their resume.

Sold for $5 million at last autumn’s FasigTipton November Sale, the three-time Grade 1 winner Shedaresthedevil had started her season off with two unlucky stakes placings for her new owners.

That losing streak came to an end on July 2 when she proved that she is back to her best with a length and three-quarters win in the Fleur de Lis (G2).

The flag bearer for her repatriated sire Daredevil, she has won half of her starts with eight other top three placing in 20 races – her only off-the-board finishes coming when sixth in last year’s Longines Breeders’ Cup Distaff (G1) and on the Turf as a two-year-old.

The US yearling sales off and running

The Fasig-Tipton July Yearling Sale, the first US yearling sale of 2022, got the season off to a good start with the sale posting an 11 per cent increase in average and 12 per cent increase in median plus an increase in gross with 29 fewer horses offered.

The final horse through the ring was the sale topper when DJ Stables won the bidding war at $600,000. The Gainesway-offered Curlin colt is a half to former British-based stakes winner and multiple Grade 1-placed Gronkowski, and out of a half-sister to Flashy Bull.

For DJ Stables’ general manager Jon Green, who signed the ticket, he knew he wanted the colt from the second Hip 302 left the barn.

“In my book I literally wrote down ‘wow’ and ‘he’s a beast’ and I just don’t write that down. But for the most part when a horse comes out of the barn and you see a really outstanding colt like that, you know, it gives you the shivers,” said Green.

While veteran sire Curlin topped the sale, the next three spots were filled by young stallions with Gun Runner producing a $430,000 colt at the top of the leaderboard for the second half of the offerings.

Purchased by De Meric Sales from Gainesway, Hip 153 is a full-brother to Indiana Oaks (G3) second Runaway Wife, who earned that placing only days before her brother went through the ring.

Omaha Beach’s first yearlings were well received at this sale and his daughter out of Gas Station Sushi even held the top spot for over 50 hips when Solis/Litt went to $410,000 for the Spendthrift Farm-bred.

All but one of that three-time Grade 1 winner’s offerings sold with each bringing over $150,000 and averaging $236,000 with a median of $195,000.

A $400,000 Arrogate filly sold late in the sale to take the fourth spot and an Uncle Mo colt joined her in fourth at that sale price.

Uncle Mo was also the sire of the $500,000 sale topping three-year-old stakes-placed Kuchar during Fasig-Tipton’s July Selected Horses of All Ages Sale the day before the yearling session.

The sale sold 189 of 248 offered for a gross of $21,763,500, average of $115,151, and median of $90,000.

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stallion stats Leading European Flat sires (by prize-money earned to July 11, 2022) Stallion

Breeding

Dubawi Frankel Sea The Stars Dark Angel Galileo Lope de Vega Kodiac Churchill Nathaniel Kingman Siyouni Starspangledbanner Zoffany Camelot Oasis Dream No Nay Never Invincible Spirit Night of Thunder New Bay Mehmas Showcasing Mastercraftsman Wootton Bassett Dandy Man Australia Dabirsim Acclamation Exceed And Excel Intello Iffraaj Aclaim Le Havre Footstepsinthesand Territories Zarak Caravaggio Adlerflug Muhaarar Shalaa Teofilo Charm Spirit Kendargent Fast Company Holy Roman Emperor Toronado Dream Ahead Sea The Moon

Dubai Millennium-Zomaradah (Deploy) Galileo-Kind (Danehill) Cape Cross-Urban Sea (Miswaki) Acclamation-Midnight Angel (Machiavellian) Sadler’s Wells-Urban Sea (Miswaki) Shamardal-Lady Vettori (Vettori) Danehill-Rafha (Kris) Galileo-Meow (Storm Cat) Galileo-Magnificient Style (Silver Hawk) Invincible Spirit-Zenda (Zamindar) Pivotal-Sichilla (Danehill) Choisir-Gold Anthem (Made of Gold) Dansili-Tyranny (Machiavellian) Montjeu-Tarfah (Kingmambo) Green Desert-Hope (Dancing Brave) Scat Daddy-Cat’s Eye Witness (Elusive Quality) Green Desert-Rafha (Kris) Dubawi-Forest Storm (Galileo) Dubawi-Cinnamon Bay (Zamindar) Acclamation-Lucina (Machiavellian) Oasis Dream-Arabesque (Zafonic) Danehill Dancer-Starlight Dreams (Black Tie Affair) Iffraaj-Balladonia (Primo Dominie) Mozart-Lady Alexander (Night Shift) Galileo-Ouija Board (Cape Cross) Hat Trick-Rumored (Royal Academy) Royal Applause-Princess Athena (Ahonoora) Danehill-Patrona (Lomond) Galileo-Impressionnante (Danehill) Zafonic-Pastorale (Nureyev) Acclamation-Aris (Danroad) Noverre-Marie Rheinberg (Surako) Giant’s Causeway-Glatisant (Rainbow Quest) Invincible Spirit-Taranto (Machiavellian) Dubawi-Zarkava (Zamindar) Scat Daddy-Mekko Hokte (Holy Bull) In the Wings-Aiyana (Last Tycoon) Oasis Dream-Tahrir (Linamix) Invincible Spirit-Ghurra (War Chant) Galileo-Speirbhean (Danehill) Invincible Spirit-L’Enjoleuse (Montjeu) Kendor-Pax Bella (Linamix) Danehill Dancer-Sheezalady (Zafonic) Danehill-L’On Vite (Secretariat) High Chaparral-Wana Doo (Grand Slam) Diktat-Land of Dreams (Cadeaux Genereux) Sea The Stars-Sanwa (Monsun)

36

www.internationalthoroughbred.co.uk

Courtesy of Weatherbys To Stud

Rnrs

Runs

Wnrs

Wins

Wnrs/Rnrs%

SWnrs

2006 2013 2010 2008 2002 2011 2007 2018 2013 2015 2011 2011 2012 2014 2004 2015 2003 2016 2017 2017 2011 2010 2012 2010 2015 2014 2004 2005 2014 2007 2018 2010 2006 2017 2018 2018 2010 2016 2017 2008 2015 2008 2011 2007 2015 2012 2015

168 165 154 277 126 212 311 97 112 152 200 131 192 137 159 149 151 110 89 156 190 150 114 217 131 192 151 127 97 178 69 131 169 107 46 83 72 142 117 90 118 109 154 145 108 123 103

437 479 417 1016 320 763 1138 305 353 451 644 415 726 438 602 471 554 347 249 630 635 493 377 941 406 795 569 489 360 618 276 362 633 329 144 264 218 471 408 293 545 415 511 576 461 502 288

81 66 60 106 37 82 93 42 34 66 71 45 53 36 57 30 52 39 32 45 48 48 38 69 35 48 43 43 39 53 31 44 46 28 26 28 31 38 39 28 38 32 38 51 37 40 30

115 89 80 138 49 112 122 59 43 85 92 52 74 45 76 44 73 49 42 66 72 61 45 97 49 62 62 73 56 70 44 53 63 33 28 38 38 51 53 39 55 41 49 70 52 58 40

48.21 40.00 38.96 38.26 29.36 38.67 29.90 43.29 30.35 43.42 35.50 34.35 27.60 26.27 35.84 20.13 34.43 35.45 35.95 28.84 25.26 32.00 33.33 31.79 26.71 25.00 28.47 33.85 40.20 29.77 44.92 33.58 27.21 26.16 56.52 33.73 43.05 26.76 33.33 31.11 32.20 29.35 24.67 35.17 34.25 32.52 29.12%

20 17 12 6 12 11 5 3 3 5 6 2 5 3 2 4 4 6 4 3 5 3 4 2 7 0 3 4 3 2 2 1 1 2 5 4 7 2 3 4 0 3 1 3 1 0 5

SWs 23 20 14 7 15 12 5 5 4 6 6 3 5 6 3 6 6 6 4 3 7 3 5 2 7 0 3 4 4 2 3 1 2 2 5 4 10 2 3 5 0 3 1 3 1 0 6

£ 4,607,804 3,932,552 2,779,026 2,500,126 2,366,694 2,144,384 2,080,604 1,978,786 1,831,171 1,638,680 1,609,069 1,524,609 1,521,771 1,474,009 1,422,981 1,278,290 1,257,636 1,234,646 1,181,631 1,150,747 1,139,186 1,136,395 1,128,012 1,100,918 1,020,793 1,005,885 981,214 965,847 942,570 930,901 875,717 866,564 858,417 853,086 852,769 846,841 843,495 837,030 815,917 812,836 810,603 798,774 792,898 774,786 764,611 758,120 746,497

AT A M ER OR OV ALE F Y LIT GS UA LON NEMW Q E YS

The

August

Sale

13 - 15 August

DEAUVILLE - FRANCE

A unique three-day sale with an exceptional selection of yearlings at the heart of a prestigious racing weekend in Deauville’s atmosphere.

DISCOVER THE LOTS CATALOGUED ON www.arqana.com

©Scoopdyga - Zuzanna Lupa

SA EE DA R TH

stallion stats Leading European sires of two-year-olds (by prize-money earned to July 11, 2022 bold = first-season sire) Stallion

Breeding

No Nay Never Havana Grey Showcasing Kodiac Sioux Nation Dandy Man Cotai Glory Brazen Beau Starspangledbanner Camacho Mehmas Tasleet Bungle Inthejungle Exceed And Excel Invincible Spirit Dark Angel Pedro The Great Kingman Expert Eye Dubawi Zoustar Acclamation Goken Ardad Night Of Thunder Harry Angel Shalaa Kessaar Johnny Barnes Gleneagles Wootton Bassett Havana Gold Justify James Garfield Al Wukair Churchill Twilight Son Kodi Bear Sixties Icon Ulysses Ribchester Bated Breath Charm Spirit Holy Roman Emperor Saxon Warrior Profitable Cracksman

Scat Daddy-Cat’s Eye Witness (Elusive Quality) Havana Gold-Blanc de Chine (Dark Angel) Oasis Dream-Arabesque (Zafonic) Danehill-Rafha (Kris) Scat Daddy-Dream The Blues (Oasis Dream) Mozart-Lady Alexander (Night Shift) Exceed And Excel-Continua (Elusive Quality) I Am Invincible-Sansadee Snaadee) Choisir-Gold Anthem (Made of Gold) Danehill-Arabesque (Zafonic) Acclamation-Lucina (Machiavellian) Showcasing-Bird Key (Cadeaux Genereux) Exceed And Excel-Licence To Thrill (Wolfhound) Danehill-Patrona (Lomond Green Desert-Rafha (Kris) Acclamation-Midnight Angel (Machiavellian) Henrythenavigator-Glatisant (Rainbow Quest) Invincible Spirit-Zenda (Zamindar) Acclamation-Exemplify (Dansili Dubai Millennium-Zomaradah (Deploy) Northern Meteor-Zouzou (Redoute’s Choice) Royal Applause-Princess Athena (Ahonoora) Kendargent-Gooseley Chope (Indian Rocket) Kodiac-Good Clodora (Red Clubs) Dubawi-Forest Storm (Galileo) Dark Angel-Beatrix Potter ( Cadeaux Genereux) Invincible Spirit-Ghurra (War Chant) Kodiac-Querulous (Raven’s Pass) Acclamation-Mahalia (Danehill) Galileo-You’resothrilling (Storm Cat) Iffraaj-Balladonia (Primo Dominie) Teofilo-Jessica’s Dream ( Desert Style) Scat Daddy-Stage Magic (Ghostzapper) Exceed And Excel-Whazzat ( Daylami) Dream Ahead-Macheera ( Machiavellian) Galileo-Meow (Storm Cat) Kyllachy-Twilight Mistress ( Bin Ajwaad) Kodiac-Hawattef ( Mujtahid) Galileo-Love Divine (Diesis) Galileo-Light Shift (Kingmambo) Iffraaj-Mujarah (Marju) Dansili-Tantina (Distant View) Invincible Spirit-L’Enjoleuse (Montjeu) Danehill-L’On Vite (Secretariat) Deep Impact-Maybe (Galileo) Invincible Spirit-Dani Ridge (Indian Ridge) Frankel-Rhadegunda (Pivotal)

38

www.internationalthoroughbred.co.uk

Courtesy of Weatherbys

To Stud

Rnrs

Runs

Wnrs

Wins

Wnrs/Rnrs%

SWnrs

SWs

£

2015 2019 2011 2007 2019 2010 2018 2016 2011 2006 2017 2019 2015 2005 2003 2008 2014 2015 2019 2006 2019 2004 2017 2018 2016 2019 2017 2019 2018 2016 2012 2014 2019 2019 2018 2018 2017 2017 2009 2018 2018 2013 2015 2007 2019 2018 2019

31 61 36 67 40 46 33 20 36 44 18 21 30 17 23 32 14 16 27 18 18 22 8 18 14 29 22 30 10 15 6 18 4 16 12 12 19 18 6 4 21 10 17 17 18 29 11

59 144 72 132 91 116 89 58 72 104 41 46 90 35 41 61 43 31 64 33 40 46 19 45 22 59 50 73 36 24 14 39 6 36 26 26 53 46 18 4 43 23 39 33 29 61 21

10 25 8 16 16 10 14 8 10 8 4 5 6 4 6 6 7 9 7 8 3 4 3 4 4 4 4 8 3 4 2 2 1 3 3 4 2 4 2 1 4 3 5 3 4 5 7

15 29 11 17 19 12 17 13 10 11 6 7 8 5 8 8 9 9 8 8 4 7 5 5 5 4 4 8 5 5 4 2 2 5 5 5 2 4 3 1 5 5 6 3 5 5 7

32.25 40.98 22.22 23.88 40.00 21.73 42.42 40.00 27.77 18.18 22.22 23.80 20.00 23.52 26.08 18.75 50.00 56.25 25.92 44.44 16.66 18.18 37.50 22.22 28.57 13.79 18.18 26.66 30.00 26.66 33.33 11.11 25.00 18.75 25.00 33.33 10.52 22.22 33.33 25.00 19.04 30.00 29.41 17.64 22.22 17.24 63.63

3 0 3 1 0 2 1 2 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

5 0 3 1 0 2 1 2 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

385,924 355,652 266,004 252,059 227,907 215,902 204,036 196,944 162,718 160,565 160,396 153,698 152,514 142,244 140,136 135,952 133,099 119,090 112,030 101,464 101,376 101,195 97,081 94,088 91,909 87,232 86,264 85,979 83,206 78,087 74,916 72,825 71,862 71,612 71,113 66,541 65,453 60,952 59,334 59,200 58,741 58,609 56,505 56,028 54,079 53,616 52,880

A RICH HISTORY OF

SUCCESS

DO 20 N’ T CO 2 2 M I NS YEA SS IG RL OU NM IN R EN G TS

Recent BLACK TYPE SALES GRADUATES include: AUNT PEARL

· 1st Breeders’ Cup JFT Gr.1 · 1st Jessamine Stakes Gr.2

BAYSIDE BOY

· 1 Champagne Stakes Gr.2 · 3rd Dewhurst Stakes Gr.1 · 3rd Futurity Trophy Stakes Gr.1 st

BURGARITA

· 1 Prix de la Seine L · 3rd Prix de Diane Gr.1 st

EL DRAMA

· 1st Dee Stakes L · 2nd Thoroughbred Stakes Gr.3

FRANCESCO GUARDI · 3 Denford Stakes L rd

JUBILATION

SAFFRON BEACH

· 2nd Prix de Cabourg Gr.3

· 1st Sun Chariot Stakes Gr.1 · 1st Duke Of Cambridge Stakes Gr.2 · 2nd 1,000 Guineas Gr.1

LONE EAGLE

· 1st Zetland Stakes Gr.3 · 1st Cocked Hat Stakes L · 2nd Irish Derby Gr.1

SEE THE ROSE

· 1st Prix Six Perfections Gr.3 · 3rd Prix de Sandringham Gr.2

MARCH LAW

SKY ANGEL

· 2nd Chesham Stakes L

NEW ENERGY

· 2nd Irish 2,000 Guineas Gr.1

PLACE DU CARROUSEL

· 1st Prix Cleopatre Gr.3 · 2nd Prix Saint-Alary Gr.1

· 2nd German 1,000 Guineas Gr.2 · 2nd Prix Imprudence Gr.3

SOLDIER RISING

· 2nd Saratoga Derby Gr.1

STATEMENT

· 2nd Fred Darling Stakes

GARRUS

· 1st Prix de Ris-Orangis Gr.3 · 1st Prix de Meautry Gr.3

ISABELLA GILES

· 1st Rockfel Stakes Gr.2 · 1st Prestige Stakes Gr.2 · 3rd Chartwell Stakes Gr.3

JUAN DE MONTALBAN

· 2nd Derby Italiano Gr.2

SAFFRON BEACH

BALLYLINCH STUD

Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny, Ireland

Te l : + 3 5 3 ( 0 ) 5 6 7 7 2 4 2 1 7 • i n f o @ b a l l y l i n c h s t u d . i e • w w w. b a l l y l i n c h s t u d . c o m

stallion stats Leading European broodmare sires (by prize-money earned to July 11, 2022) Stallion

Breeding

Galileo Pivotal Dansili Oasis Dream Dubawi Monsun Teofilo Invincible Spirit Shamardal Montjeu Danehill Dancer Green Desert Exceed And Excel Sea The Stars Kingmambo Acclamation New Approach Zamindar Street Cry Danehill Cape Cross Dalakhani High Chaparral Holy Roman Emperor Selkirk Giant’s Causeway Rock of Gibraltar Fastnet Rock Peintre Celebre Anabaa Quiet American Singspiel Duke of Marmalade Sadler’s Wells Iffraaj Lear Fan Raven’s Pass Hurricane Run Hernando Elusive City Nayef Lawman Muhtathir King’s Best Barathea Oratorio Medicean

Sadler’s Wells-Urban Sea (Miswaki) Polar Falcon-Fearless Revival (Cozzene) Danehill-Hasili (Kahyasi) Green Desert-Hope (Dancing Brave) Dubai Millennium-Zomaradah (Deploy) Konigsstuhl-Mosella (Surumu) Galileo-Speirbhean (Danehill) Green Desert-Rafha (Kris) Giant’s Causeway-Helsinki (Machiavellian) Sadler’s Wells-Floripedes (Top Ville) Danehill-Mira Adonde (Sharpen Up) Danzig-Foreign Courier (Sir Ivor) Danehill-Patrona (Lomond) Cape Cross-Urban Sea (Miswaki) Mr. Prospector-Miesque (Nureyev) Royal Applause-Princess Athena (Ahonoora) Galileo-Park Express (Ahonoora) Gone West-Zaizafon (The Minstrel) Machiavellian-Helen Street (Troy) Danzig-Razyana (His Majesty) Green Desert-Park Appeal (Ahonoora) Darshaan-Daltawa (Miswaki) Sadler’s Wells-Kasora (Darshaan) Danehill-L’On Vite (Secretariat) Sharpen Up-Annie Edge (Nebbiolo) Storm Cat-Mariah’s Storm (Rahy) Danehill-Offshore Boom (Be My Guest) Danehill-Piccadilly Circus (Royal Academy) Nureyev-Peinture Bleue (Alydar) Danzig-Balbonella (Gay Mecene) Fappiano-Demure (Dr. Fager) In the Wings-Glorious Song (Halo) Danehill-Love Me True (Kingmambo) Northern Dancer-Fairy Bridge (Bold Reason) Zafonic-Pastorale (Nureyev) Roberto-Wac (Lt. Stevens) Elusive Quality-Ascutney (Lord At War) Montjeu-Hold On (Surumu) Niniski-Whakilyric (Miswaki) Elusive Quality-Star of Paris (Dayjur) Gulch-Height of Fashion (Bustino) Invincible Spirit-Laramie (Gulch) Elmaamul-Majmu (Al Nasr) Kingmambo-Allegretta (Lombard) Sadler’s Wells-Brocade (Habitat) Danehill-Mahrah (Vaguely Noble) Machiavellian-Mystic Goddess (Storm Bird)

40

www.internationalthoroughbred.co.uk

Courtesy of Weatherbys

To Stud

Rnrs

Runs

Wnrs

Wins

Wnrs/Rnrs%

SWnrs

2002 1997 2001 2004 2006 1996 2008 2003 2005 2001 1998 1987 2005 2010 1994 2004 2009 1998 2003 1990 2000 2003 2004 2007 1993 2001 2003 2009 1999 1997 1992 1998 2009 1985 2007 1985 2009 2007 1996 2005 2004 2008 2001 2001 1995 2006 2002

475 330 353 386 233 125 182 377 254 230 262 124 234 103 60 233 134 132 116 94 220 172 172 161 139 113 168 107 128 124 7 152 98 151 131 11 82 78 67 105 126 127 72 137 119 119 128

1476 1158 1249 1435 781 417 603 1376 893 798 819 461 871 318 221 853 462 492 429 308 802 593 632 628 489 399 632 345 453 491 39 514 392 522 477 35 274 280 264 408 484 420 285 524 467 523 507

158 110 120 116 92 48 51 105 90 74 76 25 76 39 20 58 45 46 46 28 61 47 53 57 45 35 50 31 38 37 6 49 37 40 45 5 18 24 22 40 46 37 28 42 42 40 37

204 151 156 163 126 65 63 133 117 94 93 42 102 60 24 80 59 59 64 37 79 59 63 89 53 50 70 38 47 52 9 58 46 51 60 10 28 30 29 57 63 44 43 59 54 60 46

33.26 33.33 33.99 30.05 39.48 38.40 28.02 27.85 35.43 32.17 29.00 20.16 32.47 37.86 33.33 24.89 33.58 34.84 39.65 29.78 27.72 27.32 30.81 35.40 32.37 30.97 29.76 28.97 29.68 29.83 85.71 32.23 37.75 26.49 34.35 45.45 21.95 30.76 32.83 38.09 36.50 29.13 38.88 30.65 35.29 33.61 28.90

16 11 9 10 7 5 8 1 6 4 3 2 2 8 2 3 6 3 6 4 2 5 5 1 3 5 2 2 3 5 2 2 2 2 3 1 2 3 4 4 1 1 3 2 1 1 1

SWs 16 13 9 11 10 8 11 1 7 4 3 3 2 8 3 3 6 4 8 7 2 6 5 3 3 5 2 2 5 6 3 2 2 2 3 2 2 3 4 5 1 1 3 2 1 1 1

£ 3,634,051 3,180,961 3,082,907 2,441,284 2,410,893 2,290,950 2,254,380 1,943,124 1,831,607 1,774,098 1,629,146 1,551,440 1,450,473 1,406,266 1,392,856 1,345,131 1,327,543 1,305,966 1,226,027 1,212,859 1,189,740 1,172,212 1,072,861 1,072,509 1,056,676 967,289 962,019 938,672 901,902 877,744 867,072 840,351 837,762 819,374 780,087 763,993 754,470 732,443 726,809 709,315 706,582 690,458 681,736 679,638 658,293 642,287 625,528

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B L O O D S T O C K

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GROUP ONE SUCCESS Begins in Ireland YEARLING SALE

DATE

Tattersalls Ireland September

20-22 Sept

Goffs Orby

27-28 Sept

Goffs Sportsman’s

29-30 Sept

SONNYBOYLISTON (IRE) G1 Irish St Leger September Yearling Buy

PROSPEROUS VOYAGE (IRE) G1 Falmouth Stakes Goffs Orby Buy

BUY IRISH-BRED TO RUN FOR €10,000 IRISH SALES VOUCHERS IN IRE INCENTIVE SCHEME RACES www.itm.ie/IRE_Incentive

arqana sales

O

VER THE PAST TWO YEARS we have became accustomed to bloodstock sale dates and formats changing, it became part of bloodstock life as sales

companies adjusted programmes in order to maintain trade during the two years of lockdown complications.

Once again this year the Arqana yearling sales has a rather different format – a half day’s sale on the Saturday of the August

ARQANA RACE SERIES Deauville Racecourse: Thursday August 10, 2023 Race Horse 1400m unraced colts 1400m unraced fillies 1200m conditions 2000m conditions, 3yo * Three-Year-Olds (*from 2024)

Prize-money €170,000 €170,000 €290,000 €290,000*

ParisLongchamp: Saturday, September 30, 2023 Race 1600m

Horse conditions

Prize-money €290,000

Eligibility for the Arqana Series

August Yearling Sale 2022, September Yearling Sale 2022, October Yearling Sale 2022, November Yearling Sale 2022, Breeze Up Sale 2023

Changing formats Arqana has changed its set-up for its August Sale, has created a new two-day September Sale, and has launched a new race series Executive director Freddy Powell explains the thinking and the initiatives 44

www.internationalthoroughbred.co.uk

Sale, no V2 version to conclude business and a two-day September Sale. However the altered format, for once, has nothing to do with pandemics, but rather French bank holidays.

“Monday, August 15 is a bank holiday in

arqana sales France and with traditionally good racing on that day, we could not sell on the Monday afternoon as usual,” explains Arqana’s executive director Freddy Powell.

When the realisation of this emerged the Arqana team considered a variety of differing

ARQANA YEARLING SALES 2022 August Sale Saturday, August 13, 2pm: 1-145 Sunday, August 14, 5:30pm: 146-230 Monday, August 15, 5:30pm: 231-313

September Sale Thursday, September 8, 2pm: 1-157 Friday, September 9, 2pm: 158-313

October Sale October 17 to 21

Photo: Laura Green

options. Then when France Galop decided to race on the Tuesday, August 16, it forced a complete reconsideration.

As Powell outlines the changes are maybe part of a natural shift in the make up of the August Sale.

“The August Sale Part 1 and Part 2 started to be a little out of place as there were some really nice horses in Part 2 and by international sires, but a lot of people were not staying.

“So we were thinking anyway, let’s have only one part for August so all the horses will be seen by everyone.

“As all the horses have to be on site from the outset and we can’t use the racecourse stables, it means that are constrained by the number of boxes that we have.

“So the catalogue has had to be little smaller and we have taken out 40 or 50 horses who would usually be in the August Sale. As obviously we are trying to keep the best ones in August, it has made it look a really nice catalogue.”

With those horses out of the August Sale, V2 unable to take place, York races starting straight after the sale, the sale company hit upon staging a September Sale.

In reality it is not a ground-breaking solution – a September Sale was something that had to be enacted through 2020 when the whole of the August Sale had to shift back a month.

“It has advantages as it gives a few more weeks for the horses, and sometimes creating a new rendezvous can give a new buzz for the marketing. We will have the V2 horses, but more, V2 was about 150 horses.

“The V2 Sale was always for mature and forward horses with precocious pedigrees.

September Sale is forward, mature horses but not necessarily precocious pedigrees as we don’t produce that many of those horses in France.”

Powell outlines the strategic mix for the three Arqana yearling sales this year.

“We will have August, which will be little like Saratoga, then September will be mix of Somerville and Doncaster, then October which is a real Book 2 and it will be graded – the first two days will be the most important for most international people.”

The vibes are already looking good for the August Sale and, according to Powell, bloodstock and racing people from all around the world, who might not have been able to travel to Deauville for a couple of years, are getting their hotels booked.

“The August Sale is already attracting a lot of people, and reservations are already looking good,” he says. “It is the first year after two years of travel restrictions, lots of Australians, Japanese, Americans are planning to travel – Deauville in August was one of those things that people missed and is one of the first things that people wanted to do again.

“We will put everything in order so that we can welcome everyone and all can have a wonderful few days. We love to again be the place where people want to be.”

Arqana has made a lot of effort over the last decade to position itself as an international quality sale and a destination for international investors and breeders.

However, top quality stock needs to back up the marketing and Powell recognises the financial investments put in by the country’s breeders to achieve these goals.

He says: “The greatest work of all has been from the French breeders over the last few years. They have been buying fillies and mares all around the world and sending them to top stallions, it really means that I am not challenged by any catalogue in the world when I

Freddy Powell: looking forward to this year’s Arqana yearling sales

www.internationalthoroughbred.co.uk

45

arqana sales

Online sales

As with all global equine auction companies, COVID led Arqana to create dedicated online sales and, while that was something forced into existence out of necessity, they are here to stay.

Powell says: “A lot of people think they are cheaper and easier to run, they are not easy and it is expensive to run an online sale – you have to do the videos, the photos, it is quite a process. Some people love them, but you have to target the right clientele and have the right horses.

“We are planning a more established calendar for online sales, we have recruited Marine Moussa as bloodstock executive – she will have focus on recruitment and finding new opportunities online.

“In Australia the online sales work tremendously, but it is a big country and has just one set of rules and administration.

“Selling horses in France to French people is easy, selling horses in France to international people is easy, but once you start selling a horse based in England or Ireland there are different jurisdictions, logistics, VAT problems, legal issues.

“For instance, if a horses sells in Ireland, but the hammer falls in France and there is a dispute after the sale, which jurisdiction does it come under? We will go step by step.

“And the new online-only companies, don’t have a standard because they are new, they can do it their own way. But if Arqana or Goffs start selling online, people want the same standard, the same guarantees.”

Online sales of breeding rights

“In November we have our established sale of shares and breeding seasons.

“I think before it was an opaque sector and hidden market; stallion masters were just selling shares or breeding rights to people they knew or could be good for the career of the stallion.

“Now a lot of people have followed the market over the last few years, some people didn’t even know they could buy a share!

“Stallion masters love someone who will support a stallion in the third or fourth years, so it is not ideal if someone has rights but will not do that, but it will find its balance.”

46

www.internationalthoroughbred.co.uk

see our August catalogue.

“The capital they have invested in bloodstock over the last few years means we have first and second foals out of numerous Group winners and 17 siblings of Group 1 winners. Breeders have used international stallions; it is very exciting, very motivating, and has resulted in a great catalogue.

“We are proud of the August catalogue, it has been very well received. The catalogue might be a bit thinner, but when reading it page after page is good.”

Within our crowded international sales calendar, Powell admits it was difficult to find a slot for the September Sale.

“Yes, it was a struggle and we will do everything we can to help those who want to come from the Somerville Sale at Newmarket to get to Deauville as quickly and easily as possible.

“However, people have got used to being able to be active at the sales, without necessarily being there. Previously if you asked any agent or trainer regarding buying without seeing, they would be shocked, that mentality has changed a lot.”

The results of the inaugural September Sale will be monitored closely by the Arqana team, and its continuation into 2023 will depend on its performance in 2022.

Powell says: “If it works we will definitely keep it, but we are not going to be stubborn about it! We are not trying to fix things that are not broken. We are quite confident, the catalogue is good, we will do everything we can do attract people and the horses have been selected as individuals.”

New exciting race series

In July, Arqana announced sponsorship of a new race series for the sales company’s unraced graduates and that has several objectives both for Arqana and French racing in general.

“We believe that anything we invest into racing and sponsorship has two goals,” outlines Powell.

“The first is to reward those who are buying at Arqana and who trust the French system, the other objective is to attract new owners and work with France Galop. Like everywhere in the world France is losing owners and it is something we want to address.”

We have American owners who say that at the Saratoga and Del Mar meetings they are running horses in $100,000 maidens, – why can’t we do the same here?

As with sales, Arqana has decided to position the unique benefits afforded to it by the Deauville and ParisLongchamp locaions.

“Prize-money is a good thing, it is important, but experience is even more important,” he says. “By sponsoring in August around the weekend of the sales and on Arc weekend, we can offer our buyers an experience at those wonderful meetings.

“All those people who have a runner in the Criterium on Arc weekend the last few years, have said it has been quite special.

“We will be selling on Friday next year, and there will be a new evening race meeting the night before for these races. It will definitely create a dynamic and give a proper experience.”

It might seem a little strange to focus on untried horses, but there was a strategy around that thinking, too.

“We wanted to give as many people a chance to run on that day in August so we thought what is the biggest population of horses that we have in the middle of August and we realised that is the unraced horses.

So we have two unraced maidens over the straight 7f at Deauville straight.

“We have a lot of American owners who say that at the Saratoga and Del Mar meetings they are running horses in $100,000 maidens – so we thought why can’t we do the same here?”

Do you know what they have in common ?

023

in 2 1st foals

ARMOR

&

STANDING AT HARAS DE BOUQUETOT

MEHMAS

At stud in 2017

STANDING AT TALLY HO STUD

2 sires with similar profiles : WINNER ON DEBUT IN THE SPRING OF THEIR 2-YEAR-OLD SEASON

2-YEAR-OLD GROUP WINNERS SPEED LEADERS SPRINTER 2-YEAR-OLD CAREERS

RETIRED SOUND TO STUD

At 2-year-old

One of the leading sire of 2-year-olds in Europe SUPREMACY

1st Middle Park Stakes Gr.1, 1st Qatar Richmond Stakes Gr.2.

LUSAIL

1st Gimcrack Stakes Gr.2, 1st July Stakes Gr.2.

MALAVATH

1st Criterium de Maisons Laffitte Gr.2.

PERSIAN FORCE 1st July Stakes Gr.2.

AL SHAQAB STALLIONS

www.alshaqabracing.com

gestüt ammerland

A debut mission Gestüt Ammerland is taking a draft of eight yearlings to the Arqana August Sale, and while it might be the first time that the stud is selling at the Deauville complex, the farm has a rich history of buying in France

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gestüt ammerland Yearlings at grass: far left,

by Kingman and out of Baltic Duchess (Lot 219), and, right, is a filly by Lope De Vega and out of Golden Gazelle (Lot 289)

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gestüt ammerland

D

IETRICH AND ANNABEL von Boetticher’s Gestüt Ammerland is offering a daft of eight yearlings at the Arqana August sale. The eight – five colts and three fillies – represent the families which have made Ammerland famous throughout the racing and breeding world.

This is in itself an event as throughout all the years Ammerland’s red and green colours have become famous, being carried to victory in all of the French Classic races, in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe twice, several Deutsches Derbies, the Irish Derby, the Coronation Cup, the Hong Kong Vase and many other top races, Ammerland has always been an owner-breeder that has retained the horses it bred on the stud found on the banks of the Starnberger, south of Munich in southern Germany.

‘This year there are a total of 17 yearlings on the farm,” says Crispin de Moubray the family’s long-term advisor. “There will be 16, all those with good enough x-rays, to be offered for sale as yearlings.

“As well as the eight going to Deauville in August, Ammerland will be selling the two final colts it owns in partnership with Newsells Park Stud at Tattersalls in

There will be a total of 16 yearlings, all those with good enough X-rays, to be offered for sale as yearlings October, a full-brother to the Arc winner Waldgeist and a Siyouni out of Waldgeist’s Group 2-winning half sister Waldlied.”

Von Boetticher and Ammerland are now in their fifth decade as an owner and breeder at the highest level as the first Group 1 win came in 1988 when Luigi won the Deutsches Derby in the red and green colours of what was then called Stall Marcassargues.

The champion filly Borgia was the first filly to win the Deutsches Derby for more than 40 years in 1997. She was the first

Prix de Diane winner Golden Lilac: she is a daughter of the Deauville-bought Grey Lilas

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Ammerland homebred to prove herself on the international stage finishing third in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and then second in the Breeders’ Cup Turf as a three-year-old, before winning the Hong Kong Vase at five when trained by André Fabre.

If Borgia and Hurricane Run, the Irish Derby and Arc de Triomphe winner of 2005, both came from families von Boetticher developed in Germany, the sales in Deauville have played a large part in the stud’s wider success in the 21st century.

Three key purchases in Deauville led to wins in the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches, the Poulains, the Prix du Jockey-Club, Prix de Diane and the Arc de Triomphe.

In 2002, the Deauville August Sale got off to a terrible start – it was the first sale to be held in euros and its first after 9/11.

By the end of the first evening session the average was running at around 50 per cent down on what had been a boom year in 2001.

“The filly I had picked out was a grey Danehill presented by the Haras du Mezeray,” remembers de Moubray. “I was on the phone to von Boetticher when she was in the ring but it was obvious she was not going to be sold so we decided to wait and see.

Dietrich asked Fabre to have a look at her and, once his trainer had given the go ahead, he told me to go and negotiate with Mezeray and we agreed to buy her for €150,000.”

Named Grey Lilas, she made her debut in Deauville for Fabre the following August and succeeded in finishing last of five in a 6f maiden.

As a three-year-old she was a different proposition and won the Group 1 Prix du Moulin under Eric Legrix, the Prix de la Grotte and the Prix de la Nonette and was placed in the Poule d’Essai des Pouiches, the Prix de Diane and the Prix de l’Opera.

At stud, Grey Lilas was even better and her second foal, the Galileo filly Golden Lilac, won her first five career starts, including the Pouliches and the Prix de Diane and added the Prix d’Ispahan to her haul as a four-yearold.

Grey Lilas has produced seven winners so far. Her three-year-old Churchill gelding Gaidar has won his only start to date and her last foal Grey Lux is an unraced

gestüt ammerland two-year-old Lope De Vega colt in training with Fabre for Ammerland.

The Deauville draft includes a daughter of Golden Lilac by Blue Point (Lot 290), and a Lope De Vega filly out of Golden Gazelle, a full-sister to Golden Lilac (Lot 289).

The year 2005 was a good one for Ammerland as the stud’s homebred Montjeu colt Hurricane Run finished the season with five wins in six starts to his name, including the Irish Derby in the stud’s colours.

He finished second to Shamardal, beaten only a neck in the first Jockey-Club run over 2100m.

After being sold to the Coolmore partnership, he won the Arc de Triomphe in the colours of Michael Tabor. Hurricane Run was clearly the best middle-distance colt in Europe.

At the Arqana December Sale 2005, von Boetticher was interested in Lady Vettori, then an eight-year-old mare offered in-foal for the fourth time to Montjeu.

L

At the Arqana December Sale 2005, von Boetticher was interested in Lady Vettori, then an eight-year-old mare offered in-foal for the fourth time to Montjeu

Lady Frankel’s first foal, a Kingman filly called Lightning Lady, is in training with Fabre for Ammerland, her second foal a Shamardal colt (Lot 21), goes to the August Sale.

Lady Livonia’s first foal, the Saxon Warrior colt Ser Sed, was sold in Deauville in October last year for only €15,000, but has now won two of his three starts to date for trainer Joel Boisnard.

Lady Livonia’s second foal, a colt by Sea The Stars, is Lot 22.

The third significant Ammerland purchase in Deauville came at the 2010 August Sale.

The Newsells Park Stud’s Deauville draft that year included two Monsun fillies, the first out of Green Swallow, who was bought

by Nicolas Clement for €160,000. Named Yellow And Green, she developed into a Group 2 winner.

The other one, a daughter of Waldmark, was bought back at only €100,000.

The filly by Blue Point and out Golden Lilac is due to sell in August as Lot 290

ADY VETTORI had been an excellent two-year-old, winning her first five starts, including the Prix du Calvados in Deauville before finishing third in the Prix Marcel Boussac at the Arc

weekend.

Nobody else showed any sustained interest in the mare, but still von Boetticher and de Moubray had to go to €500,000 to buy her on one bid more than reserve.

The Montjeu colt she was carrying turned out to be an ordinary individual and managed to win only one small conditions race for Ammerland, however, the second foal after her purchase was the Shamardal colt Lope De Vega. He was not only the winner of the Poule d’Essai des Poulains and Prix du Jockey-Club, but today is one of the world’s leading stallions standing at Ballylinch Stud in Ireland for €125,000.

After Lope De Vega, Lady Vettori continued to produce high-class horses for Ammerland and her last two foals were the Frankel fillies – Lady Frankel, a Group winner who was only narrowly beaten into third in the Prix de l’Opera, and her unraced full-sister Lady Livonia.

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gestüt ammerland

Wildfeder is safely in-foal to Lope De Vega and together with the other 15 Ammerland mares is back at the stud

The Ammerland-bred Waldgeist has first yearlings and the farm offers two colts by the Arc winner: Lot 124 out of Sassella and Lot 207 out of Annabel’s Choice

Von Boetticher was very interested – she was a daughter of Monsun from a fine German family, but he was not really looking to buy that year.

After speaking to Andreas Jacobs at length the pair, who had been friends for some years, agreed to go into partnership and race her together on a valuation of €100,000.

Waldlerche was, of course, trained by Fabre and won her first two starts, including the Group 3 Prix Penelope, a prep race for the Prix de Diane.

Her racing career didn’t then work out as planned, but Waldlerche had shown more than enough to secure a mating with Galileo for her first cover. The colt was named Waldgeist, who also went into training with Fabre initially for a partnership which included Coolmore, and then later for Ammerland and Newsells Park.

Waldgeist went on to win four Group 1 races – the Criterium de Saint Cloud, the Prix du Ganay, the Grand Prix de Saint Cloud and then, on his final start, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in which he beat Enable.

He now stands at Ballylinch.

His first foals are yearlings of 2022 and the Ammerland draft includes two sons, one out of the Listed winner Sassella (Lot 124) and the other out of Annabel’s Choice (Lot 207).

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The last two members of the draft are a Kingman filly out of Baltic Duchess (Lot 219), and a Camelot colt out of Sevenna (Lot 132).

Baltic Duchess is a half-sister to the Group 1 Prix Vermeille winner Baltic Baroness out of a Sadler’s Wells daughter of Borgia.

Baltic Duchess’s first foal a two-yearold Frankel colt called Baltic Voyage is in training with Ralph Beckett.

Sevenna is another Galileo filly – she was bought as a yearling in Baden Baden and won a Group race at Goodwood for trainer Sir Henry Cecil in the colours of Ammerland.

She has produced four black-type winners.

When Newsells Park Stud was sold by the Jacobs family the partnership with Ammerland was dissolved with Newsells buying Waldlied, a Group 2-winning New Approach half-sister to Waldgeist, while Ammerland bought his full-sister Wildfeder for €2,050,000 at last year’s Deauville December Sale.

“Wildfeder is safely in-foal to Lope De Vega and together with the other 15 Ammerland mares covered this year back home at the stud,” de Moubray adds.

The stud has eight horses in training with Fabre, including four two-year-olds, and others with Peter Schiergen in Germany and John and Thady Gosden in England.

It may be the first time Ammerland is selling so many yearlings in Deauville, but it is fair to say that few if any anybody has done better than Ammerland when it comes to buying in Deauville.

Gestut Ammerland’s Arqana August draft Lot

Details

Pedigree

21

b,c.

Shamardal-Lady Frankel (Frankel)

22

b,c.

Sea The Stars-Lady Livonia (Frankel)

124

ch,c.

Waldgeist-Sassella (Lope De Vega)

132

br,c.

Camelot-Sevenna (Galileo)

207

ch,c.

Waldgeist-Annabel’s Choice (Dubawi)

219

b,f.

Kingman-Baltic Duchess (Lope De Vega)

289

ch,f.

Lope De Vega-Golden Gazelle (Galileo)

290

b,f.

Blue Point-Golden Lilac (Galileo)

M

Haras de M O N TA I G U

ARQANA 2022 AUGUST YEARLING SALE

­

Sybille Gibson • Mob.: +33 648.316.753 • Office: +33 233.359.702 • harasrm@orange.fr • www.harasdemontaigu.com •

french racing review

French racing really enjoyed a golden age through the 1970s, frequently some of the best horses in Europe and the world were trained in France.

Jocelyn de Moubray analyses why racing in France, and indeed Europe, is quite different now and what can be done to improve matters

A golden age of racing 54

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french racing review

I

DON’T USUALLY spend a great deal of time thinking about racing in the 1970s, but Lester Piggott’s death led me, via Twitter, to watch some of the decade’s best races again.

And it was a great pleasure to witness Lester’s elegance and tactical finesse,

however, his excellence was one of several aspects of the time which struck me as relevant to racing some 30 years later.

Taking a random sample of big races reposted on social media following Piggott’s death it seemed that at the time there was usually a serious French-trained runner in

the best races in Britain during the 1970s.

It was, of course, in many different ways the golden age of racing in France.

At the beginning of that decade the Tiercé was at its absolute peak as the country’s popular betting medium and French racing had the prize-money; the new, modern racecourses filled every Sunday, and had the technology to attract the best horses and horsemen from all over the world.

The first Tiercé to be televised was in 1956 and between then and 1980 turnover on what was initially only a weekly event held every Sunday, rose by 5000 per cent in 25 years and accounted for nearly 70 per cent of betting turnover in France.

During the 1970s the major Frenchtrained winners in England included Dahlia, Empery, Pawneese, Flying Water, Sagaro, Northern Baby, Nonoalco, Ace Of Aces and Lassalle, while others such as Gyr, Gay Mecene, Dancing Maid, Nobiliary, Caro, Allez France and Blushing Groom made a name for themselves in England’s best races without winning one.

Sometimes, as Maurice Zilber enjoyed pointing out after winning the Derby with Empery in 1976, the top French trainers kept their best horses for the races at home in France as they knew they could win in England with those just below in quality.

Many of the best of these French-trained horses were American-breds and at the time it was French-based owners and trainers, as well, of course, Vincent O’Brien, who were most actively looking for the best young thoroughbreds in North America.

The Texan Nelson Bunker Hunt owned stables and a huge string of horses in France, who were often sent to race in Britain, headed by the incomparable Dahlia. France’s leading trainers, including François Boutin and Alec Head, were among the first to realise that then the best racehorses were being bred in North America.

If a proportion of the world’s best racehorses were attracted to France in the 1970s, aside from the prize-money and the facilities, there was also the appeal of Empery winning the Epsom Derby in 1976.

Trained by Maurice Zilber, the Vaguely Noble colt was one of then frequent French-trained visitors to the UK

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french racing review a strong group of trainers in the prime of their lives with international experience and ambitions.

Boutin had first come to prominence when winning the Oaks at Epsom with La Lagune in 1968 when he was only 31. Alec Head was more or less the same age when he won the Derby with Lavandin in 1956, and these two were joined at Chantilly by the expatriates Maurice Zilber, who had come from Egypt, and the Argentine Angel Penna.

François Mathet may have been the perennial leading trainer in France, but in England, Ireland and the US, the Frenchbased trainers who made their mark were Zilber, Penna, Head and, above all, Boutin.

Nobody at the time would have been

Nobody at the time would have been aware, but by the end of the 1970s the tide had already turned against the French racing world

Lyphard with his trainer, the late Alec Head (left), and jockey Freddy Head.

The colt retired to stand at Haras d’Etreham in 1973, but, in 1978 amid the growing power of the French socialist party under its leader François Mitterand, it meant that Lyphard, along with Nureyev and Riverman, was transferred to stand in Kentucky in the US

aware, but by the end of the 1970s the tide had already turned against the French racing world. There were internal mistakes.

The disastrous decision to limit severely the exposure of racing on television, as otherwise, the argument went, nobody will bother going to the racecourse itself, was taken in the early 1970s.

By the time Jean Luc Lagardère took over as president of France Galop in 1995, and launched France Course the following year to show racing on a dedicated television channel, generations of French people had grown up without any exposure to racing on the television, and the country’s racecourses were already deserted for all, but the special occasions.

At the same time the Tiercé had been so successful as a popular mass betting medium that no provision was made for the future when the betting market would be transformed by technological and political changes. The Tiercé went from once a week, to four times a week, to every day, but it was only after a decade or two of growth had been lost that the PMU finally started to adapt to the modern world.

I

T WAS ONLY UNDER Lagardère that French racing began to relax its centralised model.

Half of Europe’s racecourses are in France, but it was only at the end of the 1990s that France Galop agreed to run the first Tiercé outside Paris – it took place at Lyon and attracted 40,000 to a racecourse where today a good crowd would be one which reaches four figures.

Until this century French racing was rigidly centralised and all of the good races and money were at the Paris tracks, with the rest of country competing at a lower level in every respect.

If those responsible for French racing made some terrible decisions, ultimately the important factors were far beyond their control.

In 1981, François Mitterand was elected France’s first socialist president and, hard though it may be to understand today, at the time for many this heralded a coming revolution. A significant amount of wealth left France quickly and the assets rushed

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french racing review onto a plane, included the great stallions Riverman, Lyphard and Nureyev.

Many of those who had been investing in bloodstock and racehorses in France switched their focus to Kentucky where the greatest of all bloodstock bubbles was taking off in the early 1980s.

The Kentucky bloodstock boom was fuelled by the arrival of new buyers of racehorses from Dubai and Saudi Arabia and for reasons of culture and language none of these new stables were to be based in France – their management teams have always been a mixture of English speakers from England, Ireland and the US. The Maktoum family and Juddmonte, founded by Prince Khalid Abdullah, raced horses in France for decades but they never purchased farms or based their stallions and broodmares there.

O

VER THE first two decades of the 21st century French racing and above all Frenchbased breeding has made significant progress.

The quality of stallions available to breeders in France is higher today than it has been at any moment during the last 40 years.

There may no longer be homebreds representing Lagardère, the Wildenstein family, the Niarchos family, the Moussac family and others in many of the major races, but the quality of commercial breeding in France has never been higher.

French racing is now a nationwide sport and of the leading Group race trainers in France, only Fabre and Francis-Henri Graffard are based in Chantilly; Jean-Claude Rouget, Jerome Reynier and Henri Alex Pantall are in Deauville, Pau, Marseilles and the west of France.

One thing French racing does a great deal less well than either Britain or Ireland is encourage young professionals. Many of the best young French jockeys are currently riding in either the US or Hong Kong having failed to establish a position at home.

Fabre, Rouget and Pantall have been France’s leading Group race trainers throughout the century, and it has proved very difficult indeed for the younger

Vadeni winning the Eclipse Stakes, the first French-trained winner of the Group 1 since 1960.

The fall in the number of top-class horses in France is not just restricted to the country and Jocelyn de Moubray believes it is more of a broader European-wide issue

Fabre, Rouget and Pantall have been France’s leading Group race trainers throughout the century, and it has proved very difficult indeed for the younger generations to break through

generations to break through The relatively high prize-money in France, together with the generous premiums for French-bred horses who race in France, has not encouraged France’s trainers to race abroad, except when absolutely necessary.

France’s prize-money structure has attracted much of the Italian racing and breeding world to move there and it keeps many of Germany’s trainers afloat, while for all but a handful of the very best French horses earn more money by racing in France than travelling to England, Ireland or further afield.

There are regular articles in the French professional press posing questions as to whether or not French-trained horses can still compete with their rivals trained in Britain and Ireland and the apparent or perceived decline in standards is still something racing professionals and fans are concerned with.

However, there seems to be something more complex going on as the lack of top-class horses is not a French problem, but rather one which is affecting Britain and Ireland at the same time.

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french racing review In Britain, the number of horses rated 111 or higher fell by some 40 per cent between 2010 and 2021 to 100.

In France, there were 46 horses rated the equivalent of 111 or higher in 2019, the last pre-covid season. The number of Frenchbased horses rated at this level has been stable for some time as in 2001 there were 47, however, if you look three-year-olds there has been a sharp decline. In 2001 there were three French three-year-olds rated 120+ and 24 rated 111+, in 2019 these figures had fallen to just one and 12.

Go back to 1993, which is as far as France Galop’s website goes, and there were nine three-year-olds rated 120+ and 40 rated 111+.

This may seem a long tangent in an article which began by looking at French runners in Britain in the 1970s, but in the end the two are at least in my mind clearly linked.

Although it is not something which has been discussed in the various articles and letters to Racing Post, TDN and other trade publications which have addressed the problem with competition in better races, the decline in the number of high-rated horses could very well be a function of the expansion in the number of races in the European Pattern race programme.

The European Pattern started in 1971, but during its first decade it was relatively small and didn’t aspire to do anything more than codify the races which had always been considered to be the most important.

I

F FRENCH-TRAINED horses went to race in England it was in the great races, the Classics, the Eclipse, the Champion Stakes and the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth, races which did not need labels in order to be attractive.

The dramatic expansion in Pattern races came later, fuelled by the desire of every sales company to have as many black-type races as was possible.

The only country which has done things differently is Japan. In Japan there are still very few Group and Listed races, a total of 129 Group races and 232 black-type races out of 16,000 races in the country.

In Europe, there are about 14,000 races in Britain, Ireland, France and Germany

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Too many Pattern races? A European-wide issue?

European race structure compared with Japan Europe All races (appx):

14,000

Group races:

392

Black-type races:

750

%

5.3

Japan All races (appx):

16,000

Group races:

129

Black-type races:

232

%

1.4

together and a total of 392 Group races and 750 black-type races (five per cent).

In Japan, 0.8 per cent of all races are Group races and 1.4 per cent are black-type.

If Europe wished to return to similar ratios it would have to downgrade 280 Group races and some 500 Listed races.

The results of the Japanese policy are looking very positive indeed for Japanese racing and breeding at the moment. There is no problem with competition in Japan where every Group 1 attracts a full field, nor is there a lack of highly-rated horses.

Horses are only likely to achieve high ratings if the best are encouraged to race against each other. This has long since ceased to be the case in Europe and what has been a relatively unexposed problem in England, Ireland and France is becoming ever clearer now that the overall number of horses in training is falling and the best of them tend to be owned by a small selection of the same owners.

A dramatic change from the current situation would be almost impossible to enact.

Too much has been unthinkingly invested

in a failing system for too long.

The European Pattern is not only absurdly inflated, but it is based upon the dubious parameter of an average rating of the first four in each race (it would make sense to give more weight to the winner’s rating to promote those races which produce top class winners).

The Pattern has become a self-fulfilling loop as every national organisation only gives high ratings to horses running in Pattern races as understandably each country wishes to protect its own races.

However, looking back to the 1970s does at least demonstrate how an attractive European racing system used to be – one in which the best horses from all over Europe regularly competed against each other in the few races widely acknowledged to be the ones which count.

After decades in which Japan’s racing professionals were keen to learn from their counterparts in Europe, North America and Australia it is time for Europeans to understand the features of the Japanese system which are working so well today.

Arqana’s selection...

by WOOTTON BASSETT, SAXON WARRIOR and ZARAK from the families of Cityscape, Visorama and Almanzor

Top performers bred or sold include Gr.3 winner GO ATHLETICO and the multiple 2YO winners AXDAVALI, PRINCESSE DE SABA, MOUILLAGE, TOIMY SON, etc.

Guillaume Vitse • Le Lieu Calice, 14430 Hotot en Auge, France • T: +33 6 64 86 28 44 • E: normandiebreeding@gmail.com www.normandie-breeding.com

WE’RE LIVE to fit in with

YOUR LIFE Visit us today and everyday

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yann barberot

Yann Barberot loves training in Deauville and the ex-jockey is having a fine time of things at present.

He won the All-Weather Sprint Championship in April with Bouttemont, had runners in this year’s French Classics, and Sicilian Defense won a Listed race at the start of the Deauville summer season

Y

ANN BARBEROT is a trainer whose time has come. Some 15 years after the ex-jockey launched his new career as a trainer in Deauville, the stable is clearly on the verge of joining the elite group of French-based trainers who compete regularly in the country’s best races.

In 2021, Barberot’s stable enjoyed its best season to date with 60 wins in France, and this year it succeeded in winning its first race in England when Bouttemont took the All Weather Sprint Championship at Newcastle in April. He has also been competing in the French fillies’ Classic races with Daisy Maisy and Sicilian Defense.

“My first plan was to go to Newcastle with a different horse,” says Barberot about his British All-Weather win, “but then when the time came I realised that Bouttemont was the horse at the peak of his form and ready to go.

“It was a great day, it is very difficult to

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Trainer Yann Barberot (far right) with Bouttemont after victory at Newcastle in the All Weather Sprint Championship

Loving his job

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63

yann barberot win in Britain – now we have one winner we shall certainly be looking for more.”

Travelling is however never straight forward.

“My next runner in Britain was Toimy Son in the Jersey Stakes at Royal Ascot,” he adds.

“He travelled over from Deauville on a day when the temperature was in the 90s and when I saw him in the paddock before the race I knew he had no chance.

“The horse was just not there and the journey had taken too much out of him.

“He may not have been good enough to

compete, but as it turned out we still don’t know as he didn’t run his race. I will keep trying.

“The prize-money in France is so good, particularly with the premiums for Frenchbred horses, that it is not always an obvious decision to pay for the transport to go and compete in England or even in Germany but I enjoy challenges and competition is our job.

“These days I train for some breeders, and for a breeder the equation is different than for those who are only interested in

racing and prize-money.”

Barberot was a jockey for nearly 20 years and rode more than 400 winners.

He was based in the west of France and rode frequently for the Deauville-based trained Stefan Wattel.

“I loved being a jockey,” he remembers, “and hadn’t really thought about what would come next, even in a little part of my brain!

I did have an idea that I might try to be a trainer. I used to go to Cagnes for the winter meeting for Stefan, and while he was away in Deauville I used to oversee the training of

Barberot believes that Deauville is just the best place to train racehorses with its good climate, easy access to Paris and Arqana close at hand

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yann barberot the horses who were based there and it was something I enjoyed a great deal.”

The future caught up with Barberot suddenly when his riding career was ended by a heart attack during a race at Craon in 2007.

“Let’s say that at the time I had trouble with my weight and my lifestyle was very far from a healthy one,” he explains.

For a year he stopped everything in order to recover and then had to face up to the future.

“I went to see Stefan and asked him if I

could work as his assistant. He said of course I could, but that he thought it was a bad idea and that in his opinion I should set up on my own. In the end he was right.

“I worked as his assistant for about a month and than in 2008 I set out in Deauville as a trainer.”

The choice of Deauville was an easy one at the time and he is more convinced than ever that it is the ideal place to train racehorses.

“Deauville has,” he says, “the perfect climate for training thoroughbreds as it is never either too hot or too cold but a

moderate temperature all the year round.

“All of the stud farms and breaking in and pre-training centres are close to Deauville, the summer meeting here is about the best quality racing in France of the year, and now we have a winter meeting on the All-Weather and under floodlights, too.

“Arqana is just across the road from the racecourse and we are only two hours by horsebox from the Paris racetracks. I don’t see where would be a better place to train from.”

The training centre in Deauville is full

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yann barberot these days and the successful trainers based there, Jean-Claude Rouget, Wattel and Barberot himself amongst others, have no problem filling the boxes they have available.

Since the arrival of Rouget, whose string is now split between Deauville and Pau, nobody doubts that it is possible to train the best horses and win the best races from Deauville.

“Jean-Claude has raised the profile of Deauville as a training centre,” says Barberot, “and we all have to aim higher if we wish to keep up. He used to keep horses here to prepare for big races before he had an official stable here and so he has appreciated Deauville as a training centre for years.”

Barberot adds: “Jean-Claude is amazing.

Sometimes we don’t see him for a week or so and yet when he comes back he not only knows all of his horses by heart but he knows mine, too!

“It is almost irritating as I don’t know his in the same way as he knows mine!

“If it is has been difficult for new trainers to break through in France it is in part because the older generation included remarkable trainers such as André Fabre, Rouget and Alain de Royer-Dupre.”

I

N RECENT YEARS Barberot has been able to buy better quality yearlings and the results have followed.

“It is,” he insists, “certainly a lot easier to buy well if you have some money to spend!”

Bouttemont was a €125,000 Deauville August yearling and Daisy Maisy was bought at the COVID-delayed September Sale in 2020 for €240,000.

Daisy Maisy was a close-up fifth in the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches and then sixth in the Prix de Diane.

“She is,” he reasons, “a good filly but just a little below the best. I hope she will be able to win her Group race. I will bring her back in trip – in the Diane the others were just a little too good for her and the distance a little too far.”

These two both belong to Philippe Allaire and partners, a name very well known in the trotting world where the Allaire family has been prominent for many years – Philippe

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Barberot’s string on an early morning training on the track at Deauville

Training high-class horses is like a drug, once you have had the experience you can only think about how to find new quality horses...

Allaire himself has owned and trained the winners of all of the top races.

“I have learnt a great deal from working with Philippe,” Barberot says. “He knows a great deal and at the same time we have fun and share the same ambition to compete in the best races.

“Training high-class horses is like a drug, once you have had the experience you can only think about how to find new quality horses in order to have the same feeling again.

“I know we need to keep winning handicaps and races to bring the money in,

but I am always trying to raise the quality of horses we have and we are constantly making a selection of which ones to keep.”

Barberot bought his own stable in Deauville a few years ago and built a new one next door.

Today he has 70 to 75 horses in training all the year round with another 30 or so being either broken in or pre-trained at one of the many establishments in the Deauville area.

“I wasn’t trained to run a business!” he laughs. “Now I have some 20 to 25 employees and so there is a big responsibility and plenty of stress, but I enjoy running a team and trying to bring along young people.

“I have two young apprentice jockeys working for me who both won their first race this year, Dorian Provost and Louis Nomis, and that is something I enjoy doing.

“If I hadn’t been involved with horses perhaps I could have been a football trainer?”

Barberot is hopeful his owners will follow him again at the yearling sales but then as he points out racing is a competitive business.

“Every year we have to start again from scratch,” he says. “Last year we won 60 races but you never know for sure how the next year will turn out and whether the ones we bought are any good.

“In this business you can never be sure of anything and all we can do is to keep doing everything possible to win races.”

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hubert guy

H

UBERT GUY has had a long career in the bloodstock business.

He moved to California in the early 1980s for a few months’ work experience and stayed for 35 years.

He started working as a bloodstock agent when advised by a lawyer that doing some international business was a good way to get a valid visa while he was waiting for a green card. Over the years he worked with some of the leading California-based trainers and bought numerous Grade 1 winners from France to the US. He is now based in Lexington, Kentucky but over the last few months has had an outstanding run in France having bought, and for a time part-owned, two of the best three-year-olds of their generation – the Group 1-winners Zellie and the Frankel colt Onesto, last month’s impressive winner of the Grand Prix de Paris.

“I had bought a horse for Elizabeth Fabre before which had worked out well,” Guy recalls when recounting the story of Zellie.

“When I said I was looking to buy a foal by Wootton Bassett at the sales in 2019 she and her daughter Lavinia were keen to be partners.

“We bought Zellie for €140,000 from the Haras de Grandcamp in Deauville. She had the pedigree – her dam is a half-sister to the 1,000 Guineas winner Speciosa and her second dam a half-sister to the top racemare Pride. She was a little small, but what I loved was her walk and her way of moving.

“We took her back to the yearling sale in 2020, which was moved to September because of covid, and there was no interest in her at all, no vets, and when she went through the ring, no bids.

“She was still a little small, still walked beautifully so she went into training with André Fabre. When he first worked her Fabre said he was pleased.

“She made her debut at the end of May and won by a head at Saint-Cloud in the colours of Lavinia Fabre beating a wellregarded filly of Jean-Claude Rouget’s.

“She won her next start three weeks later

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Group 1 buying

Zellie and Onesto, two of the best French three-year-olds of this year, were both purchased by bloodstock agent Hubert Guy. Guy is based in Lexington and he chats to Jocelyn de Moubray about his recent high level of success and the international bloodstock markets of France and the US

French-born bloodstock agent Hubert Guy went on a working trip to the US 35 years ago and is still there!

Photo: Keeneland

hubert guy

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hubert guy after being blocked in the race and coming from an impossible position. It was then that I said to Lavinia that we had perhaps found a top filly. A month later she won a Listed in Deauville by 3l and we sold her after the race.

“I knew Fabre was keen to take her to run in England, but in the end she went to ParisLongchamp for the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac on Arc weekend and won comfortably. We had sold her very well indeed, but still it was a thrill. It is incredibly difficult to win these championship races and we don’t always appreciate just how unlikely it is when you buy a horse that it ends up winning one of these top races.”

Guy is no longer involved with Zellie although he has, of course, followed her career carefully.

“She ran a great race to be fourth in the

1,000 Guineas and then ran flat in the Prix de Diane. I don’t know why, but I think these top racehorses are like the most finely tuned Formula 1 racing cars. They are fabulous machines but fragile and once you go into the red, more often than not, you never get back to where you were before.”

One of the main constituents of Guy’s business today is buying yearlings in the US to sell at the Ocala two-year-old in training sales.

He was at the 2021 Ocala sale when he saw a colt by Frankel put up one of the best times of the 900 horses in the sale.

“I called Jean Etienne Dubois and told him I had seen a Frankel colt put up a sensational breeze despite the fact that he has the pedigree of a 1m4f horse,” he recalls.

“Onesto is out of a Sea The Stars mare from the family of Dansili – his second dam is

a full-sister to Hasili, the dam of Dansili and the Group 1 winners Champs Elysees, Cacique, Bank’s Hill and Intercontinental.

“I was not, of course, the only one who had noticed and we had to go to $535,000 to buy him and he went into training for a partnership with Fabrice Chappet.”

O

NESTO WON ON HIS DEBUT at Chantilly last September looking like a future top horse.

He disappointed on his seasonal reappearance, but then won the Group 2 Prix Greffulhe to set up a run in the Prix du Jockey-Club (G1) in which he finished fifth, beaten only a length behind runner-up El Bodegon.

“It was obviously disappointing to finish

Guy bought the Prix Marcel Bousaac winner Zellie as a yearling with the Fabre family for €140,000 and sold her as a two-year-old “very well”

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hubert guy fifth when we were so close to being second!” says Guy. “I think he could have been ridden closer to the early pace, but then at the first draw we were thrilled to be in stall nine, and when it was redone we ended up drawn wide in 14!

Onesto proved that he had not shown his true form in the Jockey-Club with a decisive win some six weeks later in the Group 1 Grand Prix de Paris.

“It was a wonderful victory,” smiles Guy. “He won without being touched by the whip and is a very, very good horse. His trainer Fabrice Chappet has done a great job.

“I was not that surprised as we always thought he was a Group 1 horse, but between thinking that and achieving it is a difficult step to take and he has done it now.

“I was surprised by the second horse Simca Mille, who seems to improve 3l or

Onesto is probably the best horse I have ever bought, and he is the 28th Group or Grade 1 I have been involved with 4l with every start and who pushed Onesto right to the line, while we easily beat the foreign-trained runners whom I had feared.

“Now he will run in either the Prix Niel or the Irish Champion and then on to the Arc. I am really proud, just once in a while I can find a really good one, the Group 1 horse that we are all looking for!”

Guy adds: “Onesto is probably the best horse I have ever bought, and he is the 28th Group or Grade 1 winner I have been involved with.

“He has that turn of foot which I saw at Ocala, that day he went fast, and now he has learnt to relax and use his speed at the end of his races.

“His sire Frankel is also something exceptional and probably the best stallion in the world today. Onesto is his seventh Group 1-winning three-year-old and he gets 1m4f horses with that extra kick and natural speed.

“We shall find out how good Onesto is over the coming weeks and months, and the plan is, of course, to maximise his value as a stallion.”

Guy adds that he bought one two-year-old this year in Ocala to race in Europe.

“I bought a Medaglia D’Oro filly out of the top race mare Day At The Spa for $150,000, one bid over the reserve. She is currently in pre-training with Jean Pierre Dubois and for time being he is happy with her.”

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UY’S FAMILY had nothing whatsoever to do with horses or racing, but an early passion for riding and then racing led him to start riding out in Chantilly and then ride as an amateur jockey mainly in jump races.

“There was a time when I would get up at four in the morning and bicycle to the Gare du Nord to catch the train to Chantilly to ride out,” he remembers. “When you are young and passionate you are able to do things like that.”

Those he got to know at the time included Pascal Bary and Patrick Barbe and it was Barbe who got him a job with Charlie Whittingham in California.

“I left thinking I would stay for a few months but in the end I stayed and have never left the US,” he smiles. “I had thought I wanted to become a trainer, but started off looking for horses in France who could race

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hubert guy on in California and that has never really stopped.”

He enjoyed a remarkable partnership with the Peruvian-born trainer Julio Canani, for whom he bought 15 Grade 1 winners, including Silic and Tuzla, first and second in the Breeders’ Cup Mile in 1999, and Val Royal, who won the same race in 2001 despite having missed almost a year with a tendon injury in 2000.

Californian racing is now no longer quite the same thing that it was 20 or 30 years ago.

“There was,” Guy says, “a whole generation of Californian owners who disappeared at around the turn of the century – John Mabee, Allen Paulson and many others – and we never succeeded in replacing them.

“There was also a group of outstanding trainers in California, such as Bobby Frankel, Ron McAnally, Julio Canani, Charlie Whittingham, John Gosden, and there were never replaced either.

“These days social media is so important, and people don’t want be involved with something which can be seen in a negatively.

Also my impression is that some of these Californian people who could get involved

just don’t like losing – you don’t stay long in racing if you don’t learn how to lose.”

He still buys some horses in training to race in the US, but it has become a very strong market.

“At the end of the day,” he says, “there are not that many horses who fit the bill; few of these are on the market and those who are have become very expensive.

“When you see the prices fetched at auction recently by horses such as Speak Of The Devil, Rougir or Txope you can understand if people want to put their horses through a sales ring rather than doing private sales.”

He had always looked at yearlings, even if he didn’t buy many, but from 2005 onwards Guy starting looking seriously at the American sales, as well as those in France and sometimes in England and Ireland, with a view to pinhooking for the Ocala two-yearold sales.

He sees around 3,000 or so yearlings every year.

A breakthrough came in 2011 when he bought a First Samurai filly for $23,000 at Keeneland September.

“I had seen her at the farm, she was

Executiveprivilege: the daughter of First Samurai gave Guy his big breakthrough in 2011

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bred by Bill Betz who is one of the best in Kentucky, and always loved her, but her sire was not in fashion so I was able to get her for so little.

“She made $650,000 at Ocala, went to Bob Baffert, was named Executiveprivilege she won two Grade 1s and finished second to Beholder in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

“In today’s market she would have made double that, I had 15 vets and when she went round the walking ring outside she made all of the others look like low quality claimers.”

T

HIS YEAR has been excellent for Guy – he and his partners bought 13 yearlings in 2021 and sold ten as two-year-olds for an excellent profit.

“Ocala is,” he says, “a huge and open market. There is demand at every level and if you have the right horse you can make a lot of money.”

At the same time Guy buys some yearlings in France to go into training.

“Over the years, I have bought some with Fabrice Chappet and we have been lucky together, and if he works with other people too, we still buy a few together.

“I have also bought some for Vivaldi, one of the most successful French partnerships, and they have horses with Rouget and Stefan Wattel in Deauville, and then thanks to Zellie I have also an involvement in some with Fabre as well.”

Guy moved to Lexington in 2015, mainly because he was fed up with taking the flight from Los Angeles to Paris ten times or more every year.

“It is,” he says, “easier from Lexington and then from here I can get to all of the major East Coast tracks in less than two hours in a plane.”

He spends around two to three months a year in France.

“You have to keep looking at the horses,” he says. “If you see them regularly but not every day you notice how they are changing.

“After 40 years I am still trying to make better choices, to apply what I have learnt over the years, and hoping to get lucky. If you want to have success you have to think outside of the box otherwise your chances will be even slimmer.”

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bbag september sale

Pinhookers’ paradise This year breeze-up consignors have enjoyed some fine returns with BBAG September-purchased yearlings.

Martin Stevens talks to BBAG’s CEO Klaus Eulenberger

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bbag september sale

F

OR MANY YEARS, if you mentioned BBAG to members of the British and Irish bloodstock industry they’d immediately think of superior slowermaturing and stamina-packed yearlings by blue-chip sires such as Adlerflug and Soldier Hollow.

The Baden-Baden auction company is exceedingly proud of that, but its reputation has gained another dimension in recent years with many traders having found reasonably priced raw material for selling back home in Britain and Ireland.

This year’s round of breeze-ups proved to be a bonanza of BBAG bargains for vendors.

At Arqana, Church Farm and Horse Park Stud sold a Cracksman filly out of a threeparts sister to the German Oaks winner Feodora for €420,000 and a well-bred Sea The Moon filly for €110,000, the pair having cost just €49,000 and €30,000.

Powerstown Stud sold a Sea The Moon brother to the Listed winner Enjoy The Moon at Arqana for €350,000 and a Soldier Hollow colt out of a half-sister to Deutsches Derby winner Lucky Speed at Tattersalls for 130,000gns, the pair having been sourced for €92,000 and €28,000.

Another consignor in clover was Brown Island Stables, which bought an Oasis Dream colt closely related to Querari for €58,000 at BadenBaden and resold him at the Tattersalls Craven Breeze-Up Sale for 310,000gns.

Flat traders will no doubt be making a beeline for the yearling sales in Germany this year, then, but so too will the NH fraternity after Chris and Claire Bonner sold an Adlerflug three-yearold gelding to Henrietta Knight for £200,000 at the Goffs UK Spring Store Sale in May. The longer-term project cost a mere €19,000 as a yearling at the BBAG October Yearling Sale in 2020.

“It’s a pinhooker’s paradise!” exclaims the company’s director Klaus Eulenberger. “It started when Con Marnane started coming over to sell around 20 years ago, and then he came to the yearling sales and found some nice horses to pinhook. He struck lucky early with a yearling from one of the early crops of Montjeu, which was sold at the Craven Sale for good money and turned out to be a very classy horse.”

The horse in question was Noble Prince, a colt out of Gran Criterium (G1) winner Noble Pearl, who was bought from his breeder Gestüt Etzean for €90,000 at BBAG’s premier yearling sale of 2005. He was resold by Marnane’s Bansha House Stables for 230,000gns and entered training with André Fabre for Michael Tabor, for BBAG’s CEO Klaus Eulenberger

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bbag september sale whom he won a Listed race and ran second in the Prix de Chaudenay.

Noble Prince found a new lease of life over jumps with Paul Nolan, winning ten races in that sphere including the Jewson Novices’ Chase at the Cheltenham Festival. All in all, he was a fine advert for the soundness and versatility of German thoroughbreds.

“He was so sound,” emphasises Marnane, recalling that early BBAG purchase. “He just kept going and going. He gave us a good start with our German yearlings. We wouldn’t buy many from there, only one or two a year, but we also had Elegant Supermodel who ran third in the Albany Stakes at Royal Ascot.

They’re cheap as well. She was a Lope De Vega and she only cost €13,000.

“We always do a bit of a tour around to buy horses. We bought Amadeus Wolf in Italy and First Selection in Spain. We’d go anywhere to see if we can buy a racehorse for a bit of value.”

T

HE EXAMPLE of Noble Prince encouraged more pinhookers to head to Baden-Baden in search of a steal, with some notable results along the way.

One of the most memorable was the Exceed And Excel filly Likely, who was bought for €49,000 and resold by Grove Stud to David Redvers for £340,000 to top the Goffs UK Breeze-Up Sale of 2014. She slammed the useful Mattmu by 5l on her debut for David Barron.

“In the following years more and more buyers came over and realised there were lots of nice horses here,” says Eulenberger.

“In the early days they concentrated on the faster horses, the typical breeze-up types, but we don’t really have that many of those, so they then started taking a closer look at the Solder Hollows, as they’re such nice sales horses. The focus came to be more on quality and value for money.”

Pinhookers’ newfound interest in somewhat more stoutly bred stock is also a function in the evolution of the breeze-up business, with more money being spent on potential Classic performers, at Tattersalls and Arqana fixtures in particular.

“German breeders breed for stamina, everyone knows that, so we don’t necessarily

Forever Rose (Cracksman-Forever Beauty) was bought at the BBAG September Sale by Church Farm and Horse Park Stud for €49,000 and was sold at the Arqana Breeze Up for €420,000 The Oasis Dream ex Queimada colt was bought at the BBAG September Sale for €58,000 and was resold by Brown Island Stable at the Tattersalls Craven Breeze-Up Sale for 310,000gns

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bbag september sale have the fancy Dark Angels and Kodiacs that vendors would want for Doncaster here,” says Eulenberger. “But we have many by the likes of Adlerflug, Areion and Soldier Hollow, and they suit sales like Tattersalls Guineas and Arqana, where the market is different now – they’re not just focused on speed.”

If you’re reading this and thinking of making an investment in a German pinhook, by all means start planning your trip to Baden Baden for this year’s yearling sale, which takes place on Friday, September 2.

The catalogue features 15 lots by Areion, 11 by Soldier Hollow, ten by Sea The Moon and four by Adlerflug, and others by top sires such as Dubawi, Frankel, Kingman, Lope De Vega, Night Of Thunder, Sea The Stars, Wootton Bassett and Zarak.

But if you really want to be ahead of the game, and unearth some true value for money, Eulenberger has a pro tip.

“The pinhooking results from the main yearling sale have been good for a while and were outstanding this year, but we hold a mixed sale in October to coincide with racing at Baden-Baden and I think it’s

incredibly underrated,” he says.

“We’ve sold lots of very good horses out of the sale – not least the Arc winner Torquator Tasso – but there has been an especially high number of good pinhooks, too. It was here that the Bonners found their Adlerflug colt, and many other NH buyers such as Yorton Farm have been coming for some years.

“The only problem with BBAG October is that it usually clashes with Tattersalls October Book 3, so most of the international agents and pinhookers aren’t here, but we’re unable to change the date as we have the race meeting taking place at the same time. Our agent Richard Venn has been very helpful in assisting in facilitating pinhooks, though.”

F

OR HIS PART, Venn thinks the increase in British and Irish traders shopping at BBAG is down to a lack of horses being bred closer to home to suit the growing breeze-up market for class horses who can be guaranteed to stay 1m2f and up.

The Powerstown Stud-sold colt by Sea The Moon out of Enjoy The Life (Medicean) made €350,000 at Arqana and was bought for just €92,000 in Germany

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“Every year there’s new people coming to Baden-Baden,” he says. “All the serious pinhookers started to make their way to the sales here because they could see there was value there, it’s as simple as that. The likes of Johnny Collins, Brendan Holland, Roger Marley, Tom Whitehead, Norman Williamson, every year they’re here and every year they get a result.

“I think it helps that the German industry has a certain niche in that it’s breeding stoutly bred horses, not just sprinters, and that’s what a section of the market wants.

“Look at Tom Whitehead’s results with his pinhooks through Powerstown Stud – he had great touches with a Sea The Moon and a Soldier Hollow. They certainly don’t fit into the traditional archetype of a breeze-up horse.

“I just feel in a way, rightly or wrongly, that they’re breeding fewer staying types in the UK and Ireland than used to be the case, and the German-breds at BBAG are filling that gap and so the vendors are getting all these good results from trading them.”

Venn is just the right man to be representing BBAG on the global stage as he is a passionate defender of stamina breeding, which has sadly become a dirty word in some of the more commercial corners of the British and Irish bloodstock market.

He says: “We do need in our industry, for the sake of the racing programme and the health of the breed, a selection of sprinting, miling, middle-distance and staying horses, so we’ve got to continue breeding those that can stay.

“That’s where the Germans are. They’re breeding mostly staying types, with the ultimate aim of a mating being the production of a foal who could one day compete in the Deutsches Derby, their blue riband race. That’s why BBAG is so popular with jumps operations, and also Australians looking for horses for their cup races.”

If all that isn’t enough to convince pinhookers, or any connoisseurs of middledistance and staying horses, to head to Baden Baden this year, Venn surely clinches the deal by adding: “I can promise anyone they’ll have a good time, especially in September when there’s good racing; we have a big barbecue and there might even be a return of the German Elvis impersonator!”

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porter’s pedigrees

There was some credibility to bloodstock theories after all The first of a three-part series by Alan Porter on the latest bloodstock and genetic research

T

HERE WAS AN extended period of time when theories of thoroughbred breeding were a matter of keen debate, spawning much discussion in sporting publications, as well as numerous books.

Although discourse began in the early days of the breed, when I first became involved in that side of the thoroughbred industry, back in the mid-1970s, there was still plenty of lively debate as to how different pedigree methodologies can be utilised to produce a great horse. Certainly over the last two decades, discussion on the best way from a pedigree standpoint to breed a runner has definitely been much less apparent.

This is probably down to several factors.

One is that for those who are not private breeders, commercial considerations have probably become a much greater influence in the decision making process than any theory of breeding.

Another, at least in the US, is the predominance of automated on-line nicking programmes that rate a mating on the basis of the sire/broodmare sire, or sire-line/ broodmare sire line cross, with similar programmes offering a variation on the theme, popular in Europe and Australia.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, is the progress made since the completion of the equine genome and greater awareness of genetics.

With regard to the latter, nature might abhor a vacuum, but speculative theory – of which there was much with regard to thoroughbred breeding – flourishes in one, at least when that vacuum is caused by a lack of empirical evidence. There’s no doubt that since awareness of genetics has increased, and data has become more readily available to create metrics to measure performance, scope for speculative philosophising, at least that with any credibility, has greatly diminished.

That said, many of those who propounded pedigree theories – even if reasoning behind those

Lord Wavertree: founder of the Irish National Stud was a strong advocate of Lowe’s work

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theories doesn’t hold up to the scrutiny of current science or statistical analysis – were good observers. Although they may have “seen through a glass darkly” and been inclined to mistake the sign for the thing itself, more modern studies and genetic knowledge does show there was often something to what they had seen.

One of those theories, which holds a kernel of truth – but was dismissed, rather ironically, long before the modern advances in genetics – was the system devised by the Australian C. Bruce Lowe.

In the late 1800s Lowe examined existing female lines back to their earliest documented sources.

He discovered around 50 distinct founders, and then arranged those families in numerical order. That order was based upon the number of direct descendents of each founder that had won the Derby, Oaks

porter’s pedigrees and St. Leger up to that time.

Number 1 was allocated to the Tregonwell’s Natural Barb family, whose foundation mare could claim the most winners of these three Classic races amongst her descendents in tail female at the time; the number 2 to the family with the second largest number of these Classic winners among its offspring; and so on down the scale.

Lowe then decided that families 1, 2, 4 and 5 produced good runners, but not good sires, and that horses descending from, or inbred to, families 8, 11, 12 and 14 produced good sires.

These two groups were designated “Running Families” and “Sire Families” family number 3 receiving the unique distinction of being in both groups.

Lowe died before his work could be made public, but prior to his passing, Lowe had entrusted his research to William Allison of The Sporting Life, and it was Allison who was eventually responsible for the publication of Lowe’s findings, in the form of a book, published in 1895 and called Breeding Racehorses by the Figure System.

For some considerable time, Lowe’s theories about combining what he viewed as the “core families” were held in high esteem, and were used by such as Colonel Hall Walker (Lord Wavertree), who founded the English (now Irish) National Stud and August Belmont II, breeder of the great Man O’ War. Lowe’s concepts remained influential for most of the first half of the 20th century, but credibility was eroded in the 1940s when Timeform’s Phil Bull conducted a study which showed that success of the families in the Classics was proportional to their presence in the population, and family number 1, designated the best running

Bruce Lowe’s book outlining his work in the 1800s examining female thoroughbred lines and which he traced to their earliest documented sources and numbered according to their success rates in the Derby, the Oaks and the St Leger The credibility of his work was eroded by Phil Bull of Timeform, and there are aspects of knowledge now available that Lowe could not have known.

However, recent research has shown that Lowe was indeed “on to something”

One of those theories, which holds a kernel of truth – but was dismissed, rather ironically, long before the modern advances in genetics – was the system devised by the Australian C. Bruce Lowe

family, also produced more horses which finished last in selling plates than did any other.

Although that was the beginning of the demise of the use of Lowe’s methodology in planning matings (and the rise of computerised nicking services), it didn’t mark the disappearance of his numbering system, which has endured until today as a system for organising the history of the breed with regard to its female descent.

It can be seen up to the present day in copies of the Bobinski Tables and its successors, and quite frequently in private stud books.

Of course, there was much that Lowe couldn’t know at the time. Given the time period – in some cases over 350 years back to founder mares – and the number of generations involved, the General Stud Book (GSB) is remarkably accurate, but the advent of genetic testing has also revealed that there are numerous significant errors in female lines (see “Thoroughbred

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porter’s pedigrees Photo by Simon Mockeridge

GLOSSARY Haplogroup A very distinct group of mutations.

Haplogroups are mtDNA sequence polymorphism (a common variant in a specific sequence of DNA) variations that occurred possibly 150,000 years ago and correlate with the geographic origins of populations traced through the maternal lineages They have evolved from different ancestries, so under different selection pressures.

So, a haplogroup that developed in the East, such as L, has developed differently than the D haplogroup from which stems the Norwegian Fjord, Shetland Pony and Iceland Pony.

Kind: because MtDNA is “non-recombining” we can be sure the dam of Frankel is from Bruce Lowe’s number 1 family that first originated in the 1600s

racehorse mitochondrial DNA demonstrates closer than expected links between maternal genetic history and pedigree records” for reference).

What Lowe also couldn’t know is that a number of female lines (for example his family 4 and 13) are in fact genetically identical as far as the tail-female line is concerned. This means that before the advent of the GSB they had a common ancestor at some point preceding the earliest known founder by GSB records.

It also appears that Lowe’s concept of some female families being inherently superior to others is wide of the mark – a look at a population of nearly 200,000 horses revealed the percentages of elite performers produced by specific matrilineal lines vary little, one from another.

Lowe had an early inkling

What Lowe was almost certainly unaware of was the reason for his findings, and the genetics that differentiate one female line from another, a part of the genome called mitochondria.

Mitochondria are small structures in cells that generate energy for the cell to use, and are hence referred to as the “powerhouses” of the cell.

What makes them unique in genome, and for the study of pedigrees, is that they exist outside of the nucleus of a cell, and effectively are inherited entirely through the female line.

Since mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is “non-recombining”, i.e. it means that it can only change through spontaneous mutation.

So we can say, for example that Kind, the

Haplotype Is a sub-group that has the original mutations that define the haplogroup as well as further distinctions from other members of the haplogroup.

Amongst horses that have the mutations that distinguish the haplogroup, there can be a number of haplotypes.

For example, the L haplogroup has 10 haplotypes that have been found in the thoroughbred.

dam of Frankel, will have the same mtDNA as the founder of the family from which she stems (Bruce Lowe’s number 1 family), Tregonwell’s Natural Barb Mare, who was likely born in the mid-1600s.

In 2012 a scientific paper was published recording the establishment of the equine mitochondrial genome into 18 major haplogroups (annotated A through R), with a number of sub-groups under the broad haplotypes (now known as Achilli family identifiers, after the paper’s lead researcher).

To date through the work of people such as Dr Steve Harrison, Dr Mim Bower, Lyudmila Khrabrova, Judy Baugh, Ken McLean and Byron Rogers, 11 distinct haplogroups and a total of 36 haplotypes have been established within the thoroughbred (including most recently,

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porter’s pedigrees found by Byron Rogers, two Australian colonial families that weren’t previously known to exist in the thoroughbred population).

The largest group within the equine population in general and within the thoroughbred is the Achilli L haplogroup, which has 10 individual sub-haplotypes in the thoroughbred population.

To understand these haplogroups and haplotypes in terms of historical reference, it is most likely that the founder mare of a haplogroup lived 10,000+ years ago, while more recent mutations creating the unique haplotypes occurred 1000s of years ago, well before the establishment of the GSB.

Mitochondria: a key element

As far as athletic performance is concerned, mitochondria use aerobic respiration to generate most of the cells supply of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is used by the cell as a source of chemical energy, hence the description as the “powerhouses of the cell.”

An increase in both the size and number of mitochondria in the cells will result in improved performance all other things being equal (in humans, both steady distance running – aerobic training – and faster, more intensive interval training, have been shown to have a positive impact on mitochondrial density).

Mitochondria are, then, a key element in performance in any event that has a significant aerobic component.

While it’s well-known that, what for humans are described as middle and longdistance events, are primarily aerobic, it’s probably less realised that there is a major aerobic contribution to far shorter events.

The minimum distance over which top-class thoroughbreds race is 5f furlongs/1000m, and the duration of such events is in the region of 55secs.

In a study by Bond, et al “Assessment of two methods to determine the relative contributions of the aerobic and anaerobic energy systems in racehorses” a test of the relative anaerobic and aerobic contributions during three supramaximal treadmill runs (105, 115, and 125% V̇o2max) found that racehorses’ mean contributions were 81.4,

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...as far as elite thoroughbreds are concerned, the aerobic system, and therefore the mitochondria, does play a major role in performance even at the minimum distance 77.6, and 72.5 per cent (aerobic), and 18.5, 22.3, and 27.4 per cent (anaerobic) at 105, 115, and 125% V̇o2max, respectively.

So, as far as elite thoroughbreds are concerned, the aerobic system, and therefore the mitochondria, does play a major role in performance even at the minimum distance.

While his work had been discredited by Bull, later scientific papers have shown that Lowe was on to something.

He was correct in identifying the unique importance of the tail-female line, and was similarly correct in his observation that certain matrilineal lines combined well together.

Indeed, a recent paper

by Lin, et al “Potential role of maternal lineage in the thoroughbred breeding

strategy” showed the heritability of race performance between dams and foals is much higher than that between sires and foals, and that this difference is statistically significant.

To further confirm the findings of Lin, and that the importance of mitochondria to thoroughbred performance isn’t just speculation, is confirmed in a more recent paper from the Journal of Animal Science.­ In a paper entitled “Select skeletal muscle mitochondrial measures in Thoroughbred weanlings are related to race earnings and sire”, Guy, et al found a statistically significant correlation between lifetime earnings and skeletal muscle mitochondrial capacity of Thoroughbreds (based on biological samples from the gluteus medius muscle of thoroughbred weanlings).

Early round-up

So, up to this point, we’ve established that mitochondria is a part of the genome which exists outside the nucleus of the cell; is effectively transmitted only in direct female line; plays a vital part in producing aerobic energy; and that aerobic energy makes a major contribution to performance even at the shortest distance over which elite thoroughbred compete.

We’ve mentioned that there are 11 genetically distinct mitochondrial haplogroups found to date in the Thoroughbred breed, and 36 subgroups or haplotypes, but we’ve also noted that there isn’t any significant difference in the percentage of elite runners descending from each of these mitochondrial haplotypes.

It is has been found that even sprinters fuel themselves with some activity from their aerobic systems, and so for all thoroughbreds, the mitochondria play a vital role

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photo of the month: sleeping giant WHATTON MANOR STUD is very proud of the last foal born on the stud this year, a Suffolk Punch filly named Skye and out of Jemima.

The breed is incredibly rare and endangered, but there have been a handful of Suffolk Punch mares on the thoroughbred farm for the last 25 years, something that the stud’s owner Peter Player instigated, his son Ed Player explains.

“Dad was always obsessed with rare breeds and we started off with pedigree Long Horn cattle, then we moved onto Gloucester Old Spot pigs and then Leicester Long Wool sheep.

“When Dad saw the plight of the Suffolk Punch – there are only around 25 born a year – he thought we should try and put our thoroughbred expertise to the task of breeding Suffolk Punches.

“We have four mares and had one foal this year. Our experience of them is they tend to reabsorb their pregnancies more often than thoroughbreds, and then there can be difficulties once the mares have got their foals – they can knock them over as they are so big. The genetic gene pool is also massively reduced as there are so few of them so it is difficult to breed them.

“Skye is by a Suffolk stallion called Jenson who is owned by Bruce McKim [of Thorpeley Rare Breed Stud] and he hunts the stallion.

“The filly will be sold on weaning, and we sell them to all sorts of people – farm parks, logging enterprises, to pull funeral coffins, some to show and some to studs to stand as stallions. We are very careful when we sell the fillies that they go to someone who is going to breed properly.”

Of the day job with the stud’s thoroughreds, Player said: “We have some lovely yearlings and we have eight for the Goffs UK Premier, seven or eight for Tattersalls Somerville, eight for Book 1 and 20 in Book 2 and a good draft for Book 3.

“We have a very exciting Dubawi colt out of God Given, the half-sister to Postponed. We also have a very nice Too Darn Hot filly out of Minwah, the dam of Grand Dame, and a Too Darn Hot half-brother to Sense Of Duty, hopefully she will have won a Group 1 by the time we get to sell.

“The horses on the track have been flying – after Starman retired last year we never dreamed we’d be lucky enough to have Group 1 winners so to see State Of Rest, whom we sold as a yearling, win two Group 1s this year was very exciting.

“Sense Of Duty beat the older sprinters in the Chipchase in a canter and she could go very close in a Group 1, while Grand Dame chould be a Group filly.”

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