Tag: Brazil

Dual Grade III Winner First Captain to Brazil

MGSW First Captain (Curlin-America, by A.P. Indy) has been retired and will stand the 2024 Southern Hemisphere season at Stud Eternamente Rio in Brazil, according to Turf Diario. The 6-year-old, who arrived in Brazil Feb. 9, was acquired by a partnership that includes Stud Enternamente Rio, Stud Red Rafa and Stud H e R.

Bred by Bobby Flay, who also campaigned GSW America, the colt brought $1.5 million at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Select Sale in 2019. Flay retained a piece of the colt, who was ultimately raced by a partnership including West Point Thoroughbreds, Siena Farm and Woodford Racing. Trained by Shug McGaughey, the chestnut won his first three career starts, including the GIII Dwyer S. and subsequently added an allowance win at Gulfstream and the GIII Pimlico Special S. later in the 2022 season. He also finished second in the GII Suburban S. and third in the GI Jockey Club Gold Cup. He retired with five wins from 11 career starts and earnings of $662,100.

 

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54-Year-Old McCullagh Says ‘Fire Still In The Belly’ After Big-Race Win At Galway

They say the Galway Festival has an unrelenting ability to provide a springboard for young jockeys. Ride a winner at the Galway Festival on terrestrial television and it's worth 10 around the country tracks. 

Think of the baby-faced Colin Keane storming to Topaz Mile glory aboard Brendan Brackan (Ire) (Big Bad Bob {Ire}) for his boss Ger Lyons back in 2013 as a five-pound claimer. 

Just last week, we had local boy Danny Gilligan earning the plaudits for his front-running masterclass aboard Gordon Elliott's Ash Tree Meadow (Fr) (Bonbon Rose (Fr) in the Plate. Another star of the future, for sure.

But this year's meeting also provided a much needed boon for one of the elder statesmen of the weighing room, Niall McCullagh, who propelled himself back into the spotlight with an ice-cool victory aboard Brazil (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) in a premier handicap on Friday night. 

At 54 years of age, McCullagh is the oldest jockey still operating in Ireland and victory aboard Brazil quashed any talk of retirement. 

“I'm still on a high, to tell the truth,” McCullagh said on Wednesday. “I suppose you don't realise how much it means until you go and have a big winner like that. There was a lot of emotion involved. I got a great kick out of it and it just shows you that it still matters, it still means a lot and the fire is still in the belly.”

McCullagh added, “Things have been slower this year. It's getting tougher but I've been a bit more selective as well in that I'm not going racing to ride something with no chance or for a horse or trainer I don't know something about. I'm a lot busier in the mornings than in the afternoons but I like being busy.”

To illustrate McCullagh's point, it wasn't until the end of July that he tasted his first winners of the season, and they came in rather fortuitous fashion. 

After Rory Cleary was stood down to ride at Down Royal last Friday week, McCullagh came in to partner Golden Spangle (Ire) (Dawn Approach {Ire}) and Eastern Legend (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}) to victory for Jim Bolger. It was from there that things snowballed into Galway. 

“If you told me last Friday week that I'd ride two winners for Jim Bolger at Down Royal and then ride the winner of a premier handicap at Galway for JP McManus and Paudie Roche, I'd have laughed. It just goes to show you that this is a great game but you have to keep going. You have to keep trying and grafting and, if you do, it will turn. All you need is a bit of luck.”

He added, “A few times this year, I wondered if I would keep going. It came to Derby weekend at the Curragh and I didn't have many rides. I got one horse placed for Donal Kinsella and I got a good kick out of that–when I get a horse to run well it's a great feeling and then you're hoping that maybe there will be a next day. 

“But, when you have the few winners, it makes all the hard graft worthwhile and makes you feel better about yourself. When you had been going well, riding thirty and forty winners, when you're back down struggling to get a ride, you have to deal with the devaluation. I've a strong mind and have dealt with it. You have to remember as well, it's evolution, and just like in nature, the auld stags get pushed out to the periphery by the young stags.”

But even the young stags would have been proud of that ride you gave Brazil, Niall?

“Well that proved to myself more than anyone else that, if I have the horse, I'm fit enough and strong enough to be able to get the job done. Listen, I gave Brazil a good ride and I'm not afraid to say it. It all worked out and I will be in good humour now for a month!”

It is the progress of one particular young rider, his son Scott, that has particularly pleased McCullagh this year. Scott has partnered five winners all told and has struck up a good relationship with Jessica Harrington. 

McCullagh commented, “It's great. We sit close together in the weighroom and we both have Dave Fox as our valet. It's a great feeling to be heading out to ride in a race with your son. I'm competitive but he's even more competitive than me. It's special riding alongside him. That's why I am enjoying the last few years of my career so much. Let's face it, I'm 54, so I don't have long left. 

“But I'm proud as a kitten these days as my daughter graduated with first class honours in business in law from Maynooth University, so she got all of the brains. I'm very lucky that the two kids are going great because that gives me great pleasure.”

Brazil may have postponed any talk of retirement but McCullagh knows better than most that he can't go on forever. Just what he plans to turn his hand after riding, however, is even less certain than where his next big winner might come from. 

He said, “I have been asking myself that question for the past 10 years. I can't find anything else that I want to do so, while I am able to continue riding, I will. I will worry about life after retirement when it comes. 

“I just know that, one day, I'll be driving to the races and I'll say, 'today is the day.' I don't know when that will be. It could be this year or next year, I'm just not sure. I still have a few things I'd like to accomplish in my career. There are a few races I need to win.”

He added, “I ride out for Mick Halford and Tracey Collins, Johnny Murtagh, Ken Condon and I ride a lot of work for Jessica Harrington. They seem to appreciate the feedback and I feel like I am part of the team. They all try to give me rides whenever they can but they have their own owners to try and keep happy as well. I am happy enough to pitch up whenever they need me.”

You could say that things have turned full circle for McCullagh, who burst onto the scene at Galway as a young seven-pound claimer back in 1988, and there is no danger of him failing to soak up his latest moment in the spotlight there.

“Galway is where I got going back in 1988 by winning the McDonogh Handicap as a seven-pound claimer aboard Feverstown for Paddy Mullins. Every year, a young lad seems to announce himself at Galway, and young Danny Gilligan and Jack Kearney did that this year. 

“I don't know what it is but everyone seems to watch Galway. It's just an iconic meeting and I've never had so many texts and congratulations for winning aboard Brazil. Everyone I meet, the well wishes have been unreal. You could ride a winner anywhere else and they wouldn't know anything about it but Galway is different.”

 

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Ivar All Set for Next Chapter in Argentina

Argentinian champion and U.S. Grade I winner Ivar (Brz) (Agnes Gold {Jpn}) is preparing for his Southern Hemisphere homecoming next month, when he will take up stud duty at Haras Carampangue in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The 7-year-old, who was campaigned by Kentucky-based Bonne Chance Farm and its South American partner Stud RDI, began quarantine shortly after his second-place finish in the GI Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational S. and will depart for his new home at the end of April, leaving him plenty of time to adapt to his second career before the breeding season begins in August.

While the Southern Hemisphere breeding season is still months away, breeders in Argentina are already eager to send their mares to millionaire Ivar. Bonne Chance Farm CEO Alberto Figueiredo estimated that the new stallion will breed around 140 mares in his first season.

“All the good breeders and important names in the industry in Argentina are interested,” Figueiredo said. “There is general excitement about the horse. When you are in the stallion business, you have to pray that everything keeps going as you hope, but at least we are providing him with the best support he can have.”

Ivar's breeder and co-owner Stud Rio Dois Irmaos (Stud RDI) has retained a 55% ownership share in the stallion, but the syndicate also includes Haras Carampangue–the farm where he will stand–as well as Haras Abolengo, Gran Muneca, San Benito, La Nora and Santa Maria de Araras.

Haras Carampangue is home to four other stallions including 2013 GI Frank E. Kilroe Mile S. winner Suggestive Boy (Easing Along) and 2013 GI Hollywood Derby victor Seek Again (Speightstown).

Argentinian breeders are already more than familiar with Ivar from his undefeated 2-year-old season there in 2019, where he claimed two Group 1 victories and was named champion 2-year-old colt before shipping to the U.S. Under the tutelage of Paulo Lobo, Ivar was a winner in his second start in North America and then claimed the GI Turf Mile S. at Keeneland four months later. He ran third the following season in the GI Breeders' Cup Mile and last year, won the Jonathan B. Schuster Memorial S. and placed in two additional Grade I competitions.

Following his second-place finish in the GI Pegasus Turf in January, the decision was made for Ivar to retire. Figueiredo said that, had the horse won the Pegasus, they might have considered a trip to the Saudi Cup or keeping him in training for one last Keeneland spring meet, but ultimately they chose to give Ivar plenty of time to get through quarantine and let down before the fall breeding season.

Ivar wins the 2020 GI Turf Mile S. at Keeneland | Coady

“He ran in 11 Grade I races in his career and was so competitive, so we needed to look toward his second career,” he explained. “Since his first race in Argentina, he showed that he had a ton of potential and that he was a freak. He was a different horse. He won on the dirt and the turf and he ran until he was a 6-year-old, so he showed versatility, durability and soundness. He ran in three Breeders' Cups in a row. He was a tough boy.”

Figueiredo said that a stud fee is not yet set for Ivar's first year, but noted that he believes there is a good space in the Argentinian market for a stallion with his credentials. Ivar's sire Agnes Gold, a son of Sunday Silence who stood in Japan and Florida before making his mark in Brazil as a three-time leading sire, passed away in 2019.

Ivar was one of the first top-level performers to bring attention to Bonne Chance Farm, which is located off Pisgah Pike in Versailles and was founded by Brazilian businessman Gilberto Sayao Da Silva. Silva is a partner in Stud RDI, a breeding and racing operation established in 2008 with locations in Brazil and Argentina. In 2015, he launched Bonne Chance as his own boutique commercial farm in Kentucky.

Bonne Chance Bloodstock Manager Leah Alessandroni spoke on the significance of Ivar carrying the farm's silks to Grade I success so soon after the operation was off its feet.

“To have a horse like Ivar come up here and do what he did, holding his own against some of the best in the world on the turf and really showing up at the biggest stage every time, it's kind of hard to quantify what that means for a young organization like us. It's definitely something that we're thankful for every day and the significance is not lost on us.”

Of course Ivar is not the only success story of South American-breds performing at the top of the game in the U.S. for the Bonne Chance and Stud RDI partnership. Top performers include In Love (Brz), a gelding son of Agnes Gold who followed Ivar to victory in the GI Keeneland Turf Mile S. in 2021, and Imperador (Arg) (Treasure Beach {GB}), winner of the 2021 GII Calumet Turf Cup S. Now back at Stud RDI, Imperador bred over 80 mares in his first book and is expecting his first foals to hit the ground this year.

“There is a pipeline of these outstanding racehorses coming from the programs in Brazil and Argentina,” Alessandroni said of the Stud RDI operation. “The program that they've built there is so underappreciated on a global scale. When you look at the numbers and what they've done in South America with groups of horses that arguably aren't as respected as much as they should be, they have kind of forced people to look at the South American product and respect it.”

“To have even a little bit of that influence through Bonne Chance is awesome,” she continued. “I feel like we're sleeping on a giant because I'm so excited to see the future for Ivar as a stallion, but also for the future of the partnership of Stud RDI and Bonne Chance.”


At Bonne Chance, Ivar's dam May Be Now (Smart Strike) is creating her own pipeline of future broodmares for the Kentucky operation. Her 2-year-old Open Heart, a May-foaled daughter of Yoshida, was retained by the farm and is in the early stages of training under Paulo Lobo.

This year she produced a filly by Uncle Mo. Alessandroni said that they will take a few months to let the Mar. 11-foaled filly develop before deciding if she would be pointed toward the racetrack or the sales ring.

“She definitely favors Uncle Mo, which is one of the reasons why we bred the mare to him because we were looking for that type. She's a good mover out in the field and is a very quality filly. We're really excited about her.”

May Be Now was acquired as a yearling by Stud RDI and was a Group 2 winner in Brazil. She spent her first few years as a broodmare there before returning to the U.S. shortly after producing Ivar. She was sold in foal to Hard Spun in 2017, but was bought back by Bonne Chance as Ivar was making a name for himself.

In a few years, the team at Bonne Chance hopes to be represented by sons and daughters of Ivar. Because Southern Hemisphere horses are at a disadvantage early in their racing career as they are born in the later months of the year, Figueiredo said that Stud RDI's Ivar babies will likely race as 2-year-olds in Argentina and those that show promise will ship to the U.S. after their juvenile season.

“We would be really excited by that,” Figueiredo said enthusiastically.

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Leading Global Sire Put It Back Dies In Brazil At 23

Put It Back, who was a multiple Grade/Group 1 sire in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, has died at age 23, the South American publication Turf Diario reports.

The son of Honour and Glory stood at Haras Santa Maria de Araras in Bagé, Brazil, where he had become a pillar of the country's stallion ranks.

Racing as a Florida homebred for Hobeau Farm and for trainer Allen Jerkens, Put It Back won seven of five starts, highlighted by victories in the Grade 2 Riva Ridge Stakes and the listed Best Turn Stakes.

He retired to stud at Bridlewood Farm in Florida, and he was a frequent shuttle stallion to Brazil for a decade until taking permanent residence in South America in 2013. He was named Brazil's leading sire in 2014.

Put It Back has sired 17 crops of racing age, with 883 winners and combined progeny earnings of more than $48.6 million.

His biggest star in either hemisphere succeeded in both hemispheres. Bal a Bali was named Brazil's Horse of the Year in 2014 after winning four Group 1 races in his native country. He was then purchased by Rick Porter's Fox Hill Farm and brought to the U.S., where he became a top turf miler and notched victories in the G1 Shoemaker Mile Stakes and Frank E. Kilroe Mile Stakes.

His other Northern Hemisphere runners of note include Canadian champion Noholdingback Bear, and Grade 1 winner In Summation and Jessica Is Back.

Put It Back's South American year-end award winners are plentiful, including Brazilian champions Beach Ball, Billy Girl, Desejado Put, Requebra, Billion Dollar, Skypilot, English Major, Nitido, and Garbo Talks. He also sired Uruguayan Horse of the Year Fitzgerald and champion Elliott Ness. The stallion even had a notable Japanese runner in Group 3 winner Black Bar Spin.

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