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A Different Kind of Royal Meeting

It’s Royal Ascot once again, but not as we know it. No crowds, no fashion, no Queen. It is a case of “Royal Ascot At Home” for virtually everybody this year, even for the main players whose money makes it all possible. That said, at least there is still Frankie, Aidan O’Brien, Wesley Ward, Sir Michael Stoute and Battaash (Ire) (Dark Angel {Ire}) and all the other working equine and human cast and crew that make this week so special. One of Britain’s most brilliant racehorses of recent years, Battaash deservedly hogs the limelight on Tuesday in the

G1 King’s Stand S. on an opening card that has been reformed in light of the season’s delay. In 2020, we have the unheard-of situation of Derby and Oaks contenders prepping for the Epsom Classics which are normally behind us at this stage. While the Group 2 races, the King Edward VII and Ribblesdale, are traditionally elaborate compensation prizes for those who missed out on glory in Surrey on the first Saturday of June, this time the likes of Frankly Darling (GB) (Frankel {GB}) and ‘TDN Rising Star’ Mogul (GB) (Galileo {Ire}) are being fine-tuned ahead of the mile-and-a-half monuments.

For Frankly Darling and Mogul, read Gosden and O’Brien. The following five days are set to provide the customary see-saw of success between these two master trainers and their respective distinctive riding talents Dettori and Moore. While there will be swings of fortune in other directions, the main core of the action will almost revolve around the now king of Newmarket and the peerless premier of Co. Tipperary. Between them, they have amassed a combined total of 119 winners at this meeting with 104 of those coming since O’Brien really clicked into gear with his first Group 1 in the millennium year.

Frankie Dettori, who requires six more Royal winners to tie with the legendary Pat Eddery on 73, will be without the buzz of the audience close-at-hand that spurned him on to his famous four-timer on Gold Cup last year, but he feels the importance of the stage just as keenly. “I don’t think the standard of racing is any different. It is pure quality as always,” commented the six-times leading jockey at the meeting. “It is the Olympics of Flat racing, but it will be weird if you do win a race and there is only yourself and the trainer and not thousands cheering you on as you walk back. I thrive on a big crowd so I will miss it, but I can’t change it.”

Day one sees the Italian ride two hot favourites in Anthony Oppenheimer’s Frankly Darling in the Ribblesdale and Shadwell’s Daarik (GB) (Tamayuz {GB}) in the opening Buckingham Palace H. Both are housed at Clarehaven Stables and the outcomes of their races will help to set the tone for the week. “With John everything he runs has got a chance,” he commented. “Ascot has never let me down before and though it will be different, I’m very excited.” Leading Ryan Moore by nine winners overall, he upset that rival’s momentum when reclaiming the leading rider title in 2019. Nevertheless, he is fully respectful of Moore, who holds the post-war record of nine winners in a single Royal Ascot meeting and who had topped the table eight times in the last 10 years. “I think it will be a lot tougher this year,” Dettori added. “Ryan Moore always sets the standard, as he is guaranteed four or five winners and you have to match him or get more.”

It is impossible to focus on Ascot without honing in on Dettori and his rides on day one offer a real insight into his current status as the world’s number one jockey. In the G1 Queen Anne S., he teams up with Godolphin on the strongly-fancied John Gosden-trained 4-year-old filly Terebellum (Ire) (Sea the Stars {Ire}) and if she is successful she will be his first Royal winner in the royal blue since Tha’ir (Ire) (New Approach {Ire}) in the 2012 Listed Chesham S. Just over an hour later, he dons the Michael Tabor silks on Ballydoyle’s Arthur’s Kingdom (Ire) (Camelot {GB}) in the King Edward VII. Commanding these two bookings harmoniously, he is the man in deserved demand at the very apex of his sport. He even sports the colours of one-time employer Al Shaqab Racing for the ride on Wasmya (Fr) (Toronado {Ire}) in the G2 Duke of Cambridge S.

The unexposed Daarik and Mutamaasik (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) kick off a big day for Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s operation in the Buckingham Palace, the seven-furlong handicap which was shed from the meeting in 2015 but is revived to cater for the category which has lost so many opportunities in recent weeks. The Queen Anne sees a trio racing in the royal blue-and-white headed by the Marcus Tregoning-trained 2019 G3 Greenham S. winner Mohaather (GB) (Showcasing {GB}), while in the Duke of Cambridge the Gosden-trained Nazeef (GB) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}) is looking likely to start favourite after her impressive June 3 Listed Snowdrop Fillies’ S. success at Kempton. Of the latter, Gosden said, “She is back on grass, but she is a lovely, game filly that is improving all the time. I thought she was very impressive the other day. If she can transfer that level of form to the Duke of Cambridge, I expect her to run another big race.”

It is the King’s Stand that those connected to Shadwell await with the keenest interest as, despite being twice denied by the now-retired Blue Point (Ire) (Shamardal) in the past two years, Battaash is the clear standard-setter this time. Again handed his favoured post position towards the extremes of the field, drawn 10 of 11, the 6-year-old fireball can enjoy relative racing freedom with all options open to Jim Crowley. Next door in nine is the high-class 3-year-old filly Liberty Beach (GB) (Cable Bay {Ire}), who looked like a true five-furlong specialist when just lasting the extra distance of the June 7 Listed Cecil Frail Fillies’ S. at Haydock. Whether John Quinn’s G3 Molecomb S. winner can keep tabs on the favourite is another matter, but she at least offers some opposition to the division leader alongside another Northern-based sprinting filly in Glass Slippers (GB) (Dream Ahead). Bearstone Stud’s lightly-raced homebred may not have reached her ceiling and as the three-length winner of the G1 Prix de l’Abbaye in which Battaash was a notable flop, she commands respect.

Battaash’s trainer Charlie Hills is relishing Tuesday’s opportunity for the star of his stable. “We have a good team and they are very happy with him–we’ve had no hold-ups and I couldn’t be more pleased with him,” he said. “I’m very excited with his work and he has definitely shown me he’s as good as he was last year. He’s put in some fantastic performances in his career and when he’s on song he’s fantastic to see. The Abbaye run was on bad ground and we had a really terrible draw, but otherwise he’s been pretty much consistent throughout his career. He’s run two great races at Ascot beaten for stamina by a very good horse and if Blue Point hadn’t been there he’d already have won two of these.”

Glass Slippers’s trainer Kevin Ryan is not daunted by the task ahead of the 4-year-old filly and said, “She’s a high-class filly and has done fantastic from three to four. In a normal year, she’d have had a run before but I’m not worried that she hasn’t. She travelled great in the Abbaye and put it to bed very quickly.” Liberty Beach’s jockey Jason Hart, who is looking for a dream first Royal winner, said of the year-younger filly, “She won well at Haydock, but was a bit free early doors. She’s got a lot of natural pace, so the boss has decided to drop her back to five.”

Ballydoyle’s meeting gets underway with Circus Maximus (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) in the Queen Anne, where he bids to emulate the 2010 winner Canford Cliffs (Ire) and the following year’s hero Frankel (GB) in adding this to his G1 St James’s Palace S. success a year previously. Also successful in the G1 Prix du Moulin de Longchamp in September, he will be bringing up Royal Ascot winner number 71 for his stable if proving as effective over this straight mile. “We’re very happy with him,” O’Brien said. “We would have liked to have given him a run before, but he’s in good form. He’s a lazy worker who has physically done well and we think the tempo of mile races suits him better than further as he concentrates a bit more when running a bit stronger. We tried different things with him last season, but we are looking forward to keeping him at a mile this year.”

With a record eight successes in the Queen Anne behind them, it is safe to say that whatever Godolphin target at the contest has to be respected. It was therefore necessary to take extra heed last week when the decision was made by John Gosden to point the aforementioned Terebellum at the race following her success in the G2 Dahlia S. over 10 furlongs at Newmarket last Saturday. Campaigned solely at that trip so far, last year’s G2 Prix de la Nonette winner is a perfect fit for this race which favours those who stay further than a mile. “Terebellum won well at Newmarket and has a lot of speed. I think a straight, stiff mile will suit her and she has been in great form since the Dahlia Stakes,” commented her trainer, who is looking to record a first winner at the meeting with one from this operation.

Sir Michael Stoute remains the winningmost trainer for this year at least, with his tally of 81 nigh-on impossible for Aidan O’Brien to equal in just five days. His best chances seem to come in the Duke of Cambridge, which he won in 2010 and 2014. Both ‘TDN Rising Star’ Jubiloso (GB) (Shamardal) and Queen Power (Ire) (Shamardal) have solid claims, with the former finishing third in the G1 Coronation S. here last year and the latter a promising second to Terebellum in the Dahlia.

Teddy Grimthorpe, racing manager for owner-breeder Khalid Abdullah, is looking forward to seeing Jubiloso back on the track. “She ran a super third in the Coronation and we thought we were set up for a real bumper year with her, but she had a few niggling little feet problems. She’s come back and wintered well. She’s a very strong-bodied filly and we’re hopeful. Prince Khalid kept her in training in the hope of targeting these type of races. I think she will be competitive.”

For all the thrill of witnessing these great and potentially great thoroughbreds in flight once more, there is undeniably a shadow over the 2020 renewal. Trainer Mark Johnston, a perennial winner at the meeting over the past 25 years with 45 successes in total, feels it more than most as he actually contracted COVID-19 in the Spring and was one of the fortunates to come through the ordeal unscathed. “It is hard to feel it is as special this year,” he commented. “It is not the same. Weird is the word. My team will be depleted in numbers, as I am simply not going to throw darts at a board this year like I might do when it is the usual Royal Ascot.”

Nick Smith, director of racing and public affairs at the track, is putting the situation in a historical context. “We’ve had Black Ascot [in 1910], the year of Foot and Mouth and all the challenges that presented, as well as moving the Royal meeting to York, but it’s fair to see we’ve never seen anything quite like this,” he said. “It’s certainly a bit strange, but we’re now embracing the situation we’re in and getting excited about the week ahead.”

There will be no pre-racing parade and no flag-waving and hat-lifting. What there will be is an enhanced global watching audience in their homes due to the new partnership with HBA Media. As soon as the stalls burst open for the Buckingham Palace at 1:15 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time, that familiar outpouring of magic will still be there for the ultimate five-day-long distraction for all.

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Predictably Painful Market Opens New Cycle

These, as we all recognize, are unprecedented times. Only the foolhardy would forecast the duration, or future direction, of the tempest we suddenly find ourselves trying to navigate. Even so, one thing seems nearly guaranteed. There are people out there, whose most critical resources are not merely financial but sooner measured in intrepidity and acuity, who will turn out to have sown a great harvest during these times of famine.

Because that’s the other side of the same coin that made the current crisis as inevitable as it was impossible to foresee. As a system theoretically predicated on something that is simply impossible–perennial growth–capitalism relies, in practice, on cycles of growth and recession. Even these may not be very sustainable, if repeatedly taking the extreme form of “boom” and “bust.” But if society as a whole cannot easily absorb so bumpy a ride, the great individual fortunes will often be made by riding (along with Shakespeare’s Brutus) that “tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.”

The trick, as after the financial crisis of 2008, will be catching that tide. For the moment, some degree of trauma seems inevitable for a market that ultimately trades–among end-users, at least–in luxury goods.

Setting aside the March Sale in the same ring, a surreal episode even as the pandemic took hold, the postponed 2-Year-Old Spring Sale at OBS last week was the first real measure of the initial shock. Here was an auction that had registered records in gross, average and median for three years running and now faced an onrushing train (containing no overseas passengers, obviously).

Year-on-year comparison, in the accompanying table, is of limited value because of the accommodation this time of a small but valuable group of refugees from Fasig-Tipton’s cancelled sale at Gulfstream. These realized eight of the sale’s top 10 prices.

Taking these and other supplementary entries out of the equation, the core catalog naturally suffered rather deeper losses than those registered on the surface. The gross for the whole sale shrank by 19.8% and the average by 14.4%. Without the Gulfstream transfusion, however, the core market would have shed around one-third of its 2019 value; and the average would have been down by around a quarter.

Some, no doubt, would settle for even so severe a bump in the road, compared with the kind of abyss that has been opening up in the industry’s collective imagination. Regardless, the fact is that even the core of last week’s catalog can’t be sensibly compared with the equivalent sale in 2019.

Across all North American juvenile auctions last year, 30.2% of the animals catalogued were scratched; last week, 40.8% failed to make the ring. While vetting was presumably at a higher premium than ever, the principal driver for this jump in defections was surely the number of private sales preceding the sale. Pragmatic consignors had been receiving scouting missions from trusted clientele all spring. And while private deals doubtless accounted for the very numerous no-shows in the supplementary catalog, they may also have contributed to loss of impetus in the core market. (Certain elite stallions were conspicuously reduced in their representation through the sale.)

Remember, also, that the earlier auctions usually leave vendors the option of regrouping at Timonium. This time, of course, there was no such safety net. Though itself postponed, the Fasig-Tipton Midatlantic Sale is only days away.

If anyone is equal to tough decisions on a horse’s value, it’s the guys who present a 2-year-old for sale. They know that 10 seconds of theater can sometimes be too unforgiving a window to demonstrate the true potential of a horse. Often, if retaining sufficient faith and nerve, they will cling to the wreckage and find partners to prove a higher value on the track. This time round, however, many surely felt obliged to write off a project altogether. Despite the depressed values, the clearance rate held up at 80.1%, virtually identical to last year.

Nor, as such, would a juvenile auction necessarily be the most reliable litmus test for the wider market. These represent the end of a cycle, already comprising serial visits to the ring: as a yearling, weanling, even in utero. Throughout that process, values depend heavily on the confidence of pinhookers. The industry’s morale, to that extent, is nearly self-fulfilling.

But the cost of the raw materials has been rising steeply in recent years. So yes, the North American juvenile market last year passed $200 million for the first time ever, with the average transaction up 8.5%. But the typical yearling, the previous fall, had cost pinhookers nearly 30% more than had been the case only two years before.

Now, in contrast, we may have the kind of environment in which fresh cycles of investment can begin. If you’re a talented young pinhooker, you probably won’t need quite such a head for heights to test the water now.

In the end, last week’s sale was a nettle that had to be grasped by a few unlucky vendors and consignors on behalf of the whole industry. If the usual complaints about polarisation were shriller than ever, then that’s hardly surprising. If anything, the fact that there was still competition for the better horses is more important than a predictable expansion of no-man’s-land.

In 2009, the average at this sale shed 15%. But since the tremors on Wall Street were already being felt the previous year, it may be more pertinent to record that the average between the 2007 and 2009 sales slumped by 23.5%. Conceivably this crisis, being more abrupt, may have compressed its impact in corresponding fashion.

Either way, it will doubtless feel like a long way home. Looking back to 2008, the worry is that the bloodstock market–though greatly favored by all those cash steroids injected into the economy–took much longer to filter the benefits than did mainstream indices. The Dow Jones lost 33.8% in 2008, but recovered 18.8% the following year and maintained solid gains annually until 2015. The United States GDP, similarly, haemorrhaged 2.5% in 2009 but rebounded 2.6%in 2010 and maintained a decade of growth. North American bloodstock, in contrast, lost 21.2% in 2008; 32.2% in 2009; and another 6.5%, even on those compound losses, in 2010. It was not until 2011 (up 18.2%) and 2013 (up a crazy 27.9%, and even then only in tandem with the biggest spike in the Dow Jones) that its own recession levelled out.

Whether our business will again ride the slipstream of recovery in this very different crisis remains to be seen. But let’s just give a moment’s attention, and due credit, to the dollars and cents banked by the big winner in whatever kind of market may be left to us.

It’s obviously an unlucky time to be launching a stallion. Having recently reiterated a personal regard for the horse, however, it was gratifying to see Not This Time consolidating his brisk start on the track–and a precocity that had not been widely anticipated, in a son of Giant’s Causeway–with a knockout sale. From 23 members of his debut crop catalogued, it was a rare distinction to get as many as 21 into the ring; staggering, to find a new home for all but one (a colt who got as far as $95,000 without reaching his reserve); and spectacular, to top two of the four sessions. As a $12,500 stallion, Not This Time baked a cake of rare consistency for a $205,400 average; and then applied the icing in the $1.35 million filly who led the whole sale.

At the best of times, of course, many a good horse will slip through the cracks. Browsing the returns, it looks as though a reluctant farewell must have been said to several youngsters that showed all due gusto under tack and still failed to gain traction. Equally, someone out there will have taken home a foundation mare, or maybe a game-changing stallion, for little money: a tide taken at the flood.

After all, we’re dealing with a guess laid upon a guess. Who can say how the global economy will look, even in a few months’ time? For now, it’s about laying duckboards across the mudflats and keeping as balanced as possible.

The last big shock to the system was caused by financial institutions squeezing its functionality to breaking point (i.e. precisely because of that pressure towards constant growth). The origins of this crisis, plainly, are more extraneous. But you could argue that the post-2008 recovery, and subsequent surge, in turn saw boundaries being pushed, whether in fiscal, political and regulatory terms.

Certainly the instruments used to stimulate growth were all about liquidity–nugatory interest rates, quantitative easing, etc.–and much medication was still being prescribed long after the patient came out of intensive care. That was always going to leave governments short of options, in the event of a relapse. So it remains to be seen how they get back on an even keel, after suddenly being forced into lavish paternalist interventions to stem the catastrophe of a global economic shutdown.

What we do know, in our business, is that the post-2008 therapies were especially congenial for the affluent and that some of them played up their winnings in our business. Then they landed a bunch of tax breaks. The bull run continued breathlessly. It seemed like it would go on forever. After each record-breaking sale, it felt like a moral duty to remind everyone what happened to the “unsinkable” ship. But you might as well go round the Churchill infield on Derby day with a sandwich board, urging repentance, for the end is nigh.

By the same logic, however, it is an equal imperative now to urge everyone not to panic; to keep the faith; to know that the value now available in the marketplace will someday generate the next boom.

As we’ve noted, last week’s market was really centred on the current appetite for a racehorse. We’ll have a better idea of what lies ahead when the pinhookers show what they have left–whether literally, in their coffers, or simply in terms of confidence–at the yearling and weanling sales.

Meanwhile here’s something for them all to ponder. Because one of the problems of the bull run was that it inverted the whole premise of commercial breeding. It made the sales ring, not the racetrack, the key to far too many matings. If it takes a market crash to correct that, well, for the long-term sake of the breed, that might even be a price worth paying.

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Sole Volante To Wheel Back In 10 Days For Belmont Stakes

Following a strong performance in an allowance race last Wednesday at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla., Sole Volante will run back in just 10 days to start in the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes, reports the Daily Racing Form. To be run this Saturday at Belmont Park in Elmont, N.Y., the Belmont will be the first leg of the 2020 Triple Crown due to sweeping schedule changes caused by the worldwide coronavirus pandemic.

Sole Volante, a 3-year-old son of Karakontie trained by Patrick Biancone, won the Grade 3 Sam F. Davis Stakes back in February before finishing second to King Guillermo in the G2 Tampa Bay Derby. The late-running colt is owned by Reeves Thoroughbred Racing and Andie Biancone.

Wednesday's allowance race saw Sole Volante fall back to the rear of the field, as much as 10 lengths off the pace, then close around the outside with a sustained bid and cross the wire a comfortable 3/4-length winner.

“His energy level is very high, very good,” Biancone said. “We gave him a prep for the Belmont, and he came out of it the way I was expecting. The only way you cannot win a race is if you don't run.”

Sole Volante will ship to New York on a Tuesday flight out of South Florida.

‘Very Competitive’: Two Highest-Earning Minnesota-Breds Meet Again In Wednesday’s 10,000 Lakes

The two Minnesota-bred Thoroughbreds with the highest career earnings, Mr. Jagermeister and Hot Shot Kid, will face off in the 10,000 Lakes Stakes Wednesday at Canterbury Park, racing six furlongs for a purse of $50,000. The 5-year-old Mr. Jagermeister, winner of 11 of 23 starts and $578,627 in purses, and 6-year-old Hot Shot Kid, who won five stakes, including the 10,000 Lakes, at the Shakopee, Minn. racetrack in 2019 and has amassed $545,404 in purses from 29 career starts, meet for the first time since the 2018 running of this same stake race.

That year Mr. Jagermeister got the best of it finishing 8 1/2 lengths in front of second-place Hot Shot Kid. He then went on to win three additional stakes that summer before being named the Canterbury horse of the meet, an honor bestowed on Hot Shot Kid last year.

“This is going to be a very exciting race; a very competitive race,” Mr. Jagermeister's trainer and co-owner Valorie Lund said. Leandro Goncalves has the mount. “[Mr. Jagermeister] is ready,” Lund said, but questions the prohibitively favored 2 to 5 morning line hung on her horse. “I've watched Hot Shot Kid training both here and at Oaklawn. He looks great,” she said.

Mac Robertson, perennial leading trainer at Canterbury Park and conditioner of Hot Shot Kid, is also quick to acknowledge the competition.

“Mr. Jagermeister is very good,” Robertson said, speaking Sunday from Delaware Park where he is preparing his East Coast string. He intended to run Hot Shot Kid at Keeneland but when that meet was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he changed plans and entered at Oaklawn where Hot Shot Kid ran a distant tenth in a sprint. Robertson has named last year's leading jockey Francisco Arietta to ride. He also entered Cinco Star in the five-horse field.

The 10,000 Lakes is the second race on an 11-race program that begins at 4:30 p.m., while the co-featured $50,000 Lady Slipper Stakes is the sixth. Robertson and Lund are also represented in the Lady Slipper. Robertson will run 7-year-old Honey's Sox Appeal and Ready to Runaway. Lund has entered Firstmate, a 5-year-old mare previously trained by Joe Sharp, for owners Barry and Joni Butzow of Eden Prairie, Minn. They must beat Lady Slipper defending champion Ari Gia and trainer Jose Silva, Jr.

“I'm tickled to have her,” Lund said of Firstmate. “There is a ton of speed in the race. I like the outside [post position] draw.” Firstmate recorded the fastest four furlong workout of the morning on June 10 in preparation. “She did it so easy,” Lund said.

Robertson has a very strong hand in the Lady Slipper. “I wouldn't trade my two for any of them,” he said. Honey's Sox Appeal is a multiple stakes winner who Robertson said “was in a brutally tough race at Oaklawn and she didn't run that bad.”

Ready to Runaway, claimed for $25,000, subsequently won three consecutive stakes last year at Canterbury. She raced three times at Oaklawn this spring with two third-place and one second-place finish, earning speed figures better than last year.

“She's never run a bad race really,” Robertson said. Not one to be without a plan, he considered potential strategy for Wednesday while examining the field. “We'll probably send one and take one back. This is a really good race.” He also entered Clickbait, but she will be a scratch and is reentered for Thursday. The field includes 2017 Minnesota Oaks winner Double Bee Sting and Pinup Girl, winner of the 2018 Lady Slipper.

Racing resumes Tuesday and runs through Thursday with first post at 4:30 p.m. each afternoon. More information is available at www.canterburypark.com .

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