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WHITSBURY MANOR STUD >>
“We’ve been watching him for quite a while,” says Oakshott. “He didn’t run as well as he could have done in the July Cup and they found he had a slight niggle in his hock. That’s when we started to think we might have a chance to buy him.” As a son of Oasis Dream and half-brother to Camacho, who has made a decent start to his stud career despite limited opportunities, Showcasing has obvious appeal. “It’s a great boost when you buy a young stallion with a close relation who’s already proving himself – and Camacho is by Danehill so it’s the same line,” he adds. Showcasing, who apparently has no qualms about his recent move from Newmarket to Hampshire, is settling in happily next door to the stud’s elder statesman, Cadeaux Genereux, now living out his retirement at the place where he was born and where his sire Young Generation stood for all too short a time. He died in 1986, in his sixth season at stud, the year after Cadeaux Genereux was foaled. “Cadeaux Genereux was bred by the Kennards but was foaled here quite by chance –
St Leonard’s Church, where Whitsbury Manor’s former owner William Hill is buried
we were thrilled he came back here,” says Chris Harper, who is understandably immensely fond of the 25-year-old chestnut from whom he has bred the Group 1 winners Bijou d’Inde, Hoh Magic and Red Pepper. Showcasing can look forward to plenty of support from within, too.
“He’s just what we’re looking for, not only from the commercial aspect of selling nominations but also for us to send our mares to,” says Ed Harper. “We will reckon on sending around ten of our own mares to him in his first season. We’ve always supported
‘We are very commercial, this is our bread and butter’
Stud manager Charlie Oakshott, owner Chris Harper and his son Ed, a member of the TBA’s Next Generation Committee
Despite a good year on the racecourse for the Whitsbury sires, the continued downturn in the size of foal crops (see page 65) will have affected patronage of stallions countrywide and in an age of enormous books for some, young stallions need a decent level of support to help make that all-important breakthrough with their first runners. “We’ve felt the recession like anyone else but we’ve also thought that things could have been worse this season,” says Charlie Oakshott. “I suppose it’s been slower: we used to book an awful lot of mares in November or December and now we’re still booking mares in February or March.
THOROUGHBRED OWNER & BREEDER INC PACEMAKER
People are taking more time to book into stallions and sometimes not deciding to do so until they’ve actually seen the foal on the ground.” At Whitsbury Manor Stud, huge books are not the norm. Sakhee’s Secret covered a first book of 120 and generally the stallions are limited to around 100 mares. While fewer breeders choosing to have their mares covered is not the ideal scenario for a stallion stud, as commercial breeders themselves, with involvement in around 25 of the 60 resident mares, the team at Whitsbury can see the potential advantages of the current situation regarding the next few seasons.
Oakshott says: “There are more people deciding not to breed their older mares or late-foaling mares and they’re probably quite right not to. The good news from that, of course, is that we’ll see a reduction in numbers over the next few years. “We breed and sell a lot of foals and yearlings ourselves, and hopefully that makes them more of a precious item. We race very few ourselves – the odd filly out of an older mare or a particular mare – but we are very commercial. Unlike perhaps the Arab studs or the bigger English studs, this is our business, this is our bread and butter, and we have to make it profitable to survive.”
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