It has been quite a week for the old boys. Continuing a fine season, Way To Paris (GB) (Champs Elysees {GB}) finally notched a deserved Group 1 victory for himself and his trainer Andrea Marcialis in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud. At seven, he is a year younger than the sprinting duo of Limato (Ire) (Tagula {Ire}) and Judicial (Ire)
(Iffraaj {GB}) who respectively recorded their 14th and 15th victories in Group 3 contests at Newmarket and Newcastle on Saturday.
Then of course there’s the redoubtable Caspian Prince (Ire), who ran his 101st race that same day, chalking up his 20th win at odds of 28/1. The biggest head-scratcher is how this remarkable 11-year-old, by Dylan Thomas (Ire) out of the unraced Crystal Gaze (Ire) (Rainbow Quest), has ended up winning the majority of his races over five furlongs. Now in his tenth season in training, Caspian Prince was an inspired purchase at 11,000gns at the Tattersalls December Yearling Sale and yet another credit to the skills of bloodstock agent Gill Richardson, whose bang-for-buck ratio with the horses she selects is as good as any out there. The horse has had seven different trainers in his career, with his highest-profile success coming for Tony Coyle when Caspian Prince beat Judicial’s half-sister, the dual Group 1 winner Marsha (Ire) (Acclamation {GB}), in the G2 Friarstown Stud Sapphire S. almost three years ago.
The Italian Way
Way To Paris may have the perfect name and sire to win a Group 1 in the Parisian suburbs, but both he and his connections have their roots firmly planted in Italy. Bred by Franca Vittadini’s Grundy Bloodstock, he races in the colours of nonagenarian Paolo Ferrario and is trained in Chantilly by Italian ex-pat Andrea Marcialis. Moreover, Way To Paris’s dam Grey Way (Cozzene), from whom he inherits his grey coat, was herself the winner of the G2 Premio Lydia Tesio among her five victories on Italian soil. Twelve years prior to Way To Paris, who was born when Grey Way was 20, the mare had produced the dual G1 Premio Presidente della Repubblica winner Distant Way (Distant View), who later served his time at stud in Italy.
Champs Elysees, a perfectly capable Flat stallion who was massively popular with the jumps brigade in the three seasons he stood at Castle Hyde Stud, died in 2018, the year his daughter Billesdon Brook (GB) won the 1000 Guineas. The brother to Dansili (GB) and Cacique (GB) also featured among the Italian group-race winners over the weekend via his German-bred and -trained son Durance (Ger), who beat French raider Royal Julius (GB) (Royal Applause {GB}) by a neck to land the G2 Gran Premio di Milano for owner-breeder Gestut Ebbesloh.
The other group race on Sunday’s card at San Siro, the G3 Premio Carlo Vittadini, is named in honour of the father of Way To Paris’s breeder, who was himself the owner of the outstanding triple Classic winner of 1975, Grundy (GB) (Great Nephew {GB}). It brought up a double not just for German runners but also for sons of Hasili (GB) as the race was won by the Juddmonte-bred Runnymede (GB), (Dansili {GB}}, who is now trained by Sarah Steinberg for Stall Salzburg having been bought for 75,000gns at Tattersalls in February 2019.
A further feather in the cap for Italian breeding over the weekend came in Ireland, where Speak In Colours (GB) (Excelebration {Ire}) recorded his sixth triumph in the G2 Weatherbys Ireland Greenlands S. Bred by Paolo and Emma Agostini, the 5-year-old raced initially in their Scuderia Archi Romani silks at two when trained by Marco Botti (who also trained his sire). Following his win in the listed Doncaster S. at two, Speak In Colours was sold to Chantal Regalado-Gonzalez and transferred to Joseph O’Brien, subsequently adding another four stakes victories to his record.
The Derby Cross
The main event of the weekend, the Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby, produced the novel result of a Coolmore-owned winner whose sire and damsire both stood as Darley stallions. However much the Irish Derby’s reputation regrettably continues to be devalued, there is much to like about the newest name on the roll of honour, Santiago (Ire) (Authorized {Ire}), not least his ability to have bounced back so soon after winning the G2 Queen’s Vase at Royal Ascot.
Then there is his pedigree, and the fact that his fifth dam, Allegretta (GB), also pops up in the backgrounds of plenty of top-class horses, most notably as the grandam of Galileo (Ire) and Sea The Stars (Ire).
Santiago’s Classic victory further embellishes the late Cape Cross’s record as a broodmare sire, a position he also occupies in the pedigrees of Derby winners Australia (GB) (Galileo {Ire}) and Masar (Ire) (New Approach {Ire}), Japanese Derby winner Logi Universe (Jpn) (Neo Universe {Jpn}), South Australian Derby winner Russian Camelot (Ire) (Camelot {GB}), G1 Zabeel Classic winners Authentic Paddy (NZ) (Howbaddouwantit) and Consensus (NZ) (Postponed), and six-time Group 1 winner Laurens (Fr) (Siyouni {Fr}).
Santiago’s dam Wadyhatta (GB) was bought from Shadwell at Arqana’s Summer Sale when carrying Santiago for €275,000. Sheikh Hamdan has himself enjoyed plenty of success with the family over the years, notably through Tamayuz (GB) (Nayef), a half-brother to Santiago’s grandam Thamarat (GB) (Anabaa).
The 2007 Derby winner Authorized will probably end up being best remembered as the sire of dual Grand National winner Tiger Roll (Ire) and, like so many sons of Montjeu (Ire), he has had decent success with his jumpers, which include Nichols Canyon (GB) and Goshen (Fr). But Authorized is also a Flat sire of some note, his chief earner being the evergreen Hartnell (GB) who, like Santiago, won the Queen’s Vase before he was exported to Australia.
Authorized served 12 seasons at Darley’s British, Irish and French wings before being sold to stand in Turkey for the Turkish Jockey Club for the 2020 season.
Fairy’s Story
In a good week for former Derby winners, the 2014 hero Australia (GB) was represented by a third group win for his first-crop son Buckhurst (Ire) in the G3 Alleged S., as well as a runner-up finish for 3-year-old daughter Cayenne Pepper (Ire) in the G1 Pretty Polly S.
An interesting runner of Australia’s on the pedigree front was Saturday’s Hamilton maiden winner King Fairy (Ire). Trained by William Haggas, he was making his second start in the colours of his breeder, the Tsui family’s Sunderland Holdings, and the 3-year-old colt is inbred 3×3 to their Arc winner and brilliant broodmare Urban Sea (Miswaki) through his grandsires, the half-brothers Galileo (Ire) and Sea The Stars (Ire).
King Fairy’s dam My Fairy (Ire) was unraced but is a sister to My Titania (Ire), who was Sea The Stars’s first group winner back in 2013. The family has also been kind to Haggas who trained another of the mare’s half-siblings, the triple Group 2 winner Muthmir (Ire) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}).
Rude Awakening
The international barriers are slowly lifting and Thursday saw the first English runners in French group races this season. The prizes for both contests were duly smuggled back across the Channel by Hughie Morrison and Charlie Appleby after last year’s G2 Dante S. winner Telecaster (GB) (New Approach {GB}) ran out the easy winner of the G3 La Coupe followed by the triumph of Space Blues (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) in the G3 Prix de la Porte Maillot.
Following a run of solely domestic contests since racing resumed in France on May 11, these interlopers were clearly not welcomed by all. The next day’s Jour de Galop bore the front-page headline ‘Rude Britainnia’ and went on to grumble about ‘Des Anglais sans pitie’.
But really the only rude thing about the day’s racing was the start time: the Weekly Wrapper was still mucking out when Telecaster romped home at 8.40am Newmarket time. The French don’t usually like to let racing interrupt lunch, let alone breakfast.
More Joy For Darley Matriarch
Eastern World (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) has an awful lot to live up to in following his high-flying siblings onto the racecourse but the 3-year-old looks set to uphold the family honour following his comfortable maiden win at Newmarket on Sunday.
At the very least he has kept a clean sheet for his dam, the celebrated Darley mare Eastern Joy (GB) (Dubai Destination). Eastern World is her sixth winner from as many runners and all those who have gone before him—all by Darley sires—have notched black-type victories. Heading the list is the Dubai World Cup winner Thunder Snow (Ire) (Helmet {Aus}) and he is followed, in ratings order, by Always Smile (Ire) (Cape Cross {Ire}), Ihtimal (Ire) (Shamardal), Winter Lightning (Ire) (Shamardal) and First Victory (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}).
Great Heavens
As we look ahead to the most exciting weekend of action since racing returned, with the Derby, Oaks, Eclipse, Prix du Jockey Club and Prix de Diane all being staged within two days, we must first acknowledge the welcome return of the great mare Magical (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), who extended her Group 1 record to five wins with significant ease in Sunday’s Alwasmiyah Pretty Polly S. at an almost deserted Curragh.
In a more normal season, we might have been expecting her to line up again at Sandown on Sunday to try to reverse the 2019 placings with Enable (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}) in the Coral-Eclipse. As it is, she had a pretty easy hit-out for her seasonal debut and we may see her next instead in the ‘King George’ at Ascot, where she completed her magnificent four-year-old season with victory in the G1 QIPCO Champion S.
Magical’s celebrated dam Halfway to Heaven (Ire) (Pivotal {GB}) was not the only mare of that name to have produced a top-flight winner of the weekend. This is where country suffixes come in handy. Halfway To Heaven (SAf), a daughter of Jet Master (SAf), is the dam of Sheikh Hamdan’s Hawwaam (SAf) (Silvano {Ger}), who won Saturday’s GI Premier’s Champions Challenge at Turffontein, his second Grade 1 victory of the month and, like Magical, fifth in total.
The Irish Halfway To Heaven had already produced a multiple Group 1 winner in Rhododendron (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) but her South African namesake has her matched there, too, as her 5-year-old son Rainbow Bridge (SAF) (Ideal World) is also a dual Grade I winner in South Africa.
And finally…
Well done to the BHA for persuading the government to allow owners to return to the racecourse in time for a belated Derby day. A well-timed decision indeed.
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