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Words Alan Yuill Walker
Breeder of the Month – May 2013
GEORGE SELWYN
Ashbrittle Stud & Mark Dixon
Fourth generation Oaks runner Talent on her way to post
James Rowsell’s Ashbrittle Stud has been in existence only for a decade and although Oaks winner Talent was foaled, raised and broken in at this establishment in Somerset under the supervision of stud manager Brendan Boyle (Ashbrittle receives a supply of TRM’s world famous Calphormin plus a bottle of premium Irish whiskey), her background is indelibly linked with her other joint-breeder. Mark Dixon, from Wallingford in Oxfordshire, is the nephew of the late Dick Hollingsworth, who died in 2001. At Arches Hall Stud in Hertfordshire, he proved to be one of the most successful owner/breeders of his generation but was interested only in middle-distance and staying horses, gaining a solitary English Classic victory with Talent’s third dam Bireme in the 1980 Oaks. Had Talent carried the crimson and silver braid colours at Epsom that Mark Dixon inherited from his uncle instead of Ashbrittle’s silks, there would have been trouble at mill, as Talent’s better fancied stablemate and runner-up Secret Gesture sported the almost identical claret and gold braid (complete with tassel) registered by her new joint-owner, Qatar Racing. Remarkably, Talent’s first three dams, Prowess, Yawl and Bireme, all competed in the Oaks. Talent belongs to the first crop of Derby winner New Approach and her tail female line is inundated with Classic middledistance stallions. Of her first seven dams, three are by Arc winners,
Prowess (by Peintre Celebre), Yawl (by Rainbow Quest) and Ripeck (by Ribot) and two by Derby winners, Bireme (by Grundy) and Felsetta (by Felstead). The remaining two were by the champion broodmare sires Big Game and Nearco. Bireme was in retirement when Mark Dixon inherited the majority of the Arches Hall Stud broodmare band, and Yawl was one of them. Winner of the Rockfel Stakes, she never recaptured her form after being injured in the Oaks. Prowess, the first offspring that she produced for her new owner, was successful in a York maiden and third in the Cheshire Oaks. Now owned jointly by Ashbrittle Stud and Dixon, she has three progeny of racing age, Skilful (by Selkirk), who won a valuable handicap at Ascot last autumn, Talent, and Much Promise (by Invincible Spirit), a two-yearold filly trained, like Skilful, by John Gosden. Just as Mark Dixon declined to sell his family racing colours to Sheikh Fahad Al Thani, he and James Rowsell intend to keep Talent and her yearling sister. However, the colt foal by Fastnet Rock out of Prowess could be going to Tattersalls’ December Sale. (Ashbrittle Stud, pages XX to XX)
SPECIAL MERIT – May 2013
Brian Haggas May 18 was a special day for Yorkshire owner/breeder Brian Haggas, with Beaten Up winning the Group 1 Doomben Cup in Australia and his halfbrother Harris Tweed finishing runner-up in the Listed Aston Park Stakes at Newbury, where he had won the Group 3 John Porter Stakes last season. Their dam, Frog, has proved a fine broodmare as within the space of three years she produced not only Harris Tweed (by Hernando) and Beaten Up (by Beat Hollow), but also Vow (by Motivator). Sold as a yearling from Highclere Stud for 60,000gns, Vow finished fourth in last year’s Oaks after winning the Lingfield Oaks Trial. Last season all three were in training with Brian’s son William, as was their now three-year-old half-sister Tweed (by Sakhee). The dam, whom William Haggas saddled to score five times as a three-year-old, died foaling a Sir Percy filly (named Tadpole) in 2012. Brian Haggas paid 16,000gns for Frog as a yearling in 1994 as he had been so impressed when seeing her brilliant relative Girl Friend win the Prix Maurice de Gheest at Deauville. Recently he bought back Frog’s treblewinning daughter Froglet, who is by the William Haggas-trained Derby winner Shaamit.
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