Tag: Epsom

Hammer Blow as Hukum Ruled Out For Season With Leg Fracture

Owen Burrows has been dealt a hammer blow with the news that brilliant G1 Coronation Cup winner Hukum (Ire) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) will miss the rest of the season after fracturing his hind leg. 

Hukum made the breakthrough at the highest level when storming to Coronation Cup glory at Epsom on Friday and now his racing career hangs in the balance. 

For Burrows, Friday's win also represented a memorable first at Group 1 level, with the trainer describing the success as “massive” at the time. 

However, just three days after Hukum's greatest day on a racecourse, Angus Gold, racing manager for owners Shadwell Estate, revealed the 5-year-old may never grace the track again.

He said, “He's got a fracture in his hind leg so we've had to put some screws in it. Obviously he'll be out for the rest of this year. It's a shame as he'd just won his first Group 1 with a career-best.

“We haven't got as far as deciding if he will return to training as it's early days. From one point of view he just seemed to be hitting his best form so with that in mind you'd say yes, but at the same time he'll be a back-end 5-year-old this year.”

Gold added, “We haven't had a chance to discuss that and won't make a rushed decision as he'll be in his box for a bit. We'll make a decision on that later in the year.”

“It's a real shame, sadly, especially for Owen as Friday was a huge result for him, but you've got to take the rough with the smooth.”

 

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Strawberry Fields Forever

“The Derby is a different game,” breeder Gary Robinson told TDN's Alayna Cullen on camera last week, and he now knows that for sure, for his Strawberry Fields Stud just outside Newmarket can proudly boast of being the birthplace of the Derby winner Desert Crown (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}).

While most of Robinson's team from the farm travelled to Epsom to watch their graduate's crowning moment, the stud owner himself took a leaf out of The Queen's book and watched the race at home from the comfort of his own sofa.

As the horse's trainer Sir Michael Stoute received three cheers from the Epsom crowd so delighted to see him back in the winner's circle he first visited on Derby day with Shergar (GB) 41 years ago, Robinson said via telephone, “I'm going to the pub now to tell everyone I don't do handicaps.”

He added, “I stayed at home with my daughter and her partner and it was just so exciting to watch. I wasn't a bit nervous, I have nerves of steel.”

The breeder said that he had believed in the horse from the start, and indeed he had employed a bold marketing approach when offering Desert Crown during Book 2 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale, with an advert including the strapline, “A future Classic winner?”

It worked, as Richard Brown of Blandford Bloodstock went to 280,000gns to purchase the half-brother to Hong Kong Group 3 winner Flying Thunder (GB) (Archipenko) for owner Saeed Suhail.

Robinson can now remove that question mark, with Desert Crown having freewheeled around Tattenham Corner and down the hill to a sixth Derby success for Stoute and a second for Suhail, who also owned the 2004 winner Kris Kin (Kris S.), as well as 2000 Guineas winner King's Best (Kingmambo).

“When I sold him I said to people, 'do yourself a favour and buy something for the weekend'. I always knew he was going to be a Classic winner,” Robinson said with a laugh. “But joking apart he was a lovely horse and he went to a fantastic stable.”

Desert Crown's Juddmonte-bred granddam Foreign Language (Distant View) is a half-sister to Binche (GB) (Woodman), whose four stakes-winning offspring for Prince Khalid Abdullah include the Group 1 winners Proviso (GB) (Dansili {GB}) and Byword (GB) (Peintre Celebre).

“We're not breeding sprinters, we've gone for Classic types if we can,” Robinson added. “We're in to the end.”

Those are words that Julian Dollar of Newsells Park Stud would doubtless be pleased to hear more often from breeders of varying sizes, and indeed Robinson has returned to that particular well twice, as Desert Crown's dam Desert Berry (GB) (Green Desert) has a full-brother to the Derby winner at foot and is now back in foal to him. The well-bred Nathaniel, a Group 1 winner at 10 and 12 furlongs and one of the stud's three resident stallions, has had dwindling support from Flat breeders despite producing one of the standout performers of the modern era, Enable (GB), from his first crop. The 14-year-old son of Galileo (Ire) has been busy this season but an increasing number of mares sent to him in Royston are from the National Hunt sector.

“I feel a bit of vindication,” said Dollar as he left Epsom on Saturday. “People have started to doubt him and that has made me question if we can stand him at Newsells Park Stud as he is not fashionable enough.”

He continued, “The owner/breeders who should be supporting him have not been supporting him as much, but he has proven himself over and over again. He's had Enable, and now this horse, who looks seriously exciting, but it's not just them, he's had a French Oaks winner and plenty of other good horses.

“I can't change things and we all know how the market is but it does frustrate me when some horses get so hyped and Nathaniel doesn't get the respect he deserves. But we are governed by the market, and that is just the way it is.”

Prior to Saturday, Nathaniel's five other Group/Grade 1 winners were all fillies: the Classic winners Enable and Channel (Ire), along with last season's Nassau S. victrix Lady Bowthorpe (GB), God Given (GB), and the former French-trained Mutamakina (GB), who won the EP Taylor S. at Woodbine.

Dollar added, “A day like today makes me feel like it's a bit of a two fingers up to the market and to the sales houses who won't take a Nathaniel. I'm overwhelmingly proud of him and it is my privilege to work alongside him. He has three mares left to cover today, and another three tomorrow, and probably three the day after that given the type of mares he is covering these days.

“This is a fantastic day for the breeders. I saw the team from Strawberry Field Stud and had a glass of champagne with them. They are all delighted and so they should be. It's what we all still want to do, to breed a Derby winner.”

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Derby Glory For Desert Crown

There were stage-managed fireworks exploding from Epsom's stands minutes before the 243rd staging of the G1 Cazoo Derby In Memory of Lester Piggott, but the real pyrotechnics were provided on the grass by Saeed Suhail's superb Desert Crown (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}–Desert Berry {GB}, by Green Desert) as he proved a class apart in this special edition. Sent off the 5-2 favourite for a race which looked deep both numerically and in terms of talent and promise, the unbeaten TDN Rising Star marked the occasion with a performance to place alongside the best of recent times as he provided Sir Michael Stoute with a momentous sixth Blue Riband. Always cruising ominously under an admirably cool Richard Kingscote in mid-division staying wide out of trouble, the bay was let loose approaching two out and sprinted to the lead to win without being fully extended by 2 1/2 lengths from the 150-1 longshot Hoo Ya Mal (GB) (Territories {Ire}). As there had been on Friday, there was a hard-luck story as the race's clear second-best colt Westover (GB) (Frankel {GB}) got out of a traffic jam to storm home and finish a head back in third. It had been a dozen years since the 76-year-old Stoute had enjoyed Epsom glory, but the man who is officially the oldest trainer to win the Blue Riband had remained philosophical during the lean spell. “You realise your chances lessen, but I wasn't paranoid about it,” he said. “You just hope one would come along, and it did.”

If some had come to expect a slight demise in the fortunes of Newmarket's Knight, whose recent personal trials have served to put this sport into context, then the dramatic arrival of Desert Crown and his year-older stablemate Bay Bridge (GB) (New Bay {GB}) have put such thoughts firmly to the side. Freemason Lodge is abuzz once more, much as the neighbouring Warren Place had been at the start of the last decade, and in this Derby hero the establishment now boasts a totem to generate fear and awe in all as the season progresses. This was as far from a surprise as it gets in racing, as anybody who is more than a casual observer of racing would have known that Desert Crown's impressive display in the Dante on his seasonal debut and second career start off an interrupted preparation was only for starters. Only the yard's last Derby winner Workforce (GB) had come here with the audacity to win with such little race experience under his belt and it is worth remembering that he had been beaten 3 1/4 lengths by Cape Blanco (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) at York prior to his seven-length rout on the Downs.

There was never a stage during Saturday's race that the blue-and-yellow first put into Epsom folklore by Kris Kin did not catch the eye, with Changingoftheguard (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) merely providing the target up ahead. Despite the presence of the likes of Stone Age (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), Star of India (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) and Westover around him, the overwhelming feeling watching it all unfold was that nothing could go quick enough to take him out of his remarkable comfort zone. Kingscote took a sit for several yards passing three out with Ryan Moore struggling to make a fist of it even at that point on Ballydoyle's number one and there were echoes of Eddery on El Gran Senor. This time, there was no Secreto looming and not even a worthy competitor to hand and so it was left to Desert Crown to come home alone and allow connections a two-furlong-long spell to soak in the moment.

“He was very good today,” Kingscote stated humbly in the aftermath of his career-defining moment. “It was very smooth–he took all the preliminaries professionally, but then every time I've sat on him he has been very calm and today was no exception. I was hung out a little wide, but he was very comfortable and really well-balanced, changed leads over the road and off he went into top gear. The others weren't able to take him along and he has a good deal about him. At York, he took time to wind up but today was much more solid and alert. He's got gears and a lot of class, so I can't pigeon-hole him in terms of distance–at the two pole it was all over. It took guts for the connections to stick by me and let me ride. I'm not a champion jockey, not Ryan Moore, so that takes a lot for them not to look elsewhere.”

Stoute was quick to pay tribute to the rider. “I've been impressed with Richard since the time he got involved with us and I was very confident he would do the job today,” he said. “He's a deep thinker with beautiful hands and is calm.” Racing's most famous septuagenarian admitted to an aura of calm himself as he watched a sixth Derby victory unfold. “I was comfortable from the time he got to the top of the hill and he came down it very smoothly–he has a lot of talent and a good mind, which is very important,” he said.

“We were very hopeful after York that he might win the Derby. His performance delighted me as he had it won a long way out,” his handler added. “From an early stage, he was having little niggles and that is why he didn't run until the backend last year. There was nothing serious–he was maturing and developing and that was causing a few little problems with niggles. Shergar was very special and he hasn't quite reached that stage, but he has potential.” Of future plans, he said, “I think you have to just go home and see how they take it and we will just try and get it right and see how his recovery is. These good horses have good acceleration and he won the Dante over a mile and a quarter, so I think 10 or 12 will be no problem.”

The 2022 Derby's most significant footnote was the misfortune of Juddmonte's G3 Sandown Classic Trial winner Westover, who was stopped just as he was winding up heading to two out. As the gap between Stone Age and West Wind Blows (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}) shut, the route to the inside was taken by the slaloming outsider Hoo Ya Mal and Rob Hornby had to wait several seconds to angle wide and unleash his mount's closing effort. When it came, it was impressive as he ate up an abundance of lengths and it was no surprise to hear connections mention the St Leger afterwards.

“He ran an amazing race and showed his quality and what an exciting horse he is to look forward to,” Westover's jockey Rob Hornby said. “Full credit to Sir Michael Stoute, who produced the winner beautifully and to Richard. Ryan and Richard were drawing me into it and he brought himself into a real nice position and warmed into it well, but when the gap was there he wasn't quite quick enough to get in. It got quite messy and I had to check and check again, but he really powered home and galloped through the line very strongly.”

“Epsom is tough and as Frankie said yesterday, you'd love to be beaten fair and square but he didn't really have a clear run,” Hornby added. “A lot goes into these days–it's a big team effort and it didn't go our way, but he's a hell of a horse. I'm gutted, but we'll pick ourselves up and go again–how he took the preliminaries, travelled in the race and hit the line makes me excited about what a future he is going to have. He stays very well and is relaxing nicely, so he's going to keep improving.”

For Ahmad Al Shaikh, a runner-up finish at big odds in the Derby was again the end result of the decision to pitch one of the race's apparent fringe players into the fray. This was a significant upgrade on Hoo Ya Mal's third in the G3 Craven S. and distant second in the Listed Newmarket S., but it was no fluke over the furthest trip he has raced and he was duly able to emulate the 2020 runner-up Khalifa Sat (Ire) (Free Eagle {Ire}). It is beginning to feel like Green Team Racing are genuinely lucky around here and trainer Andrew Balding, who also saddled the fourth-placed Masekela (Ire) (El Kabeir) at 66-1, was quick to put all the credit at the owner's door. “I have Ahmad Al Shaikh to thank entirely, because I didn't want to run in the race but he insisted,” he explained. “At the end of the day, he made a very good argument that if the horse who was supplemented won it we'd think where would we have finished, so it was great decision. He just got the trip and has a lot of class, while Andrea [Atzeni] said that Masekela needs further which surprised me.”

David Probert said of the runner-up, “Second in the Derby is massive for me and it hasn't really sunk in yet. I looked up about a furlong out and I could see Richard was only really teasing me, which was quite heartbreaking in a way. Obviously he was trying a mile and a half for the first time and he'd never run at this level, so it was all about keeping a lid on him and getting him to relax. He got into a very good rhythm the whole way around and we got a nice position and then hunted our way up the inside. It opened up quite nicely and his last furlong was his best. He saw it out really well and there are better things to come.”

This was a first Derby victory for Nathaniel, fittingly a year on from that of his great rival Frankel, and a huge moment for the Teversham-based Strawberry Fields Stud. Sold for 280,000 guineas at Tattersalls October Book 2, Desert Crown boasts a group-winning half-brother in the G3 Premier Cup scorer Archie McKellar (GB) (Archipenko) but little of major note close up in his pedigree. Where the alchemy comes in is via the dam Desert Berry's own second dam, Juddmonte's listed scorer and group-placed Binary (GB) (Rainbow Quest) who was responsible for the Scandinavian champion Binary File (Nureyev) and, more importantly, the top producer Binche (Woodman). She was responsible for the G1 Prince of Wales's S. hero Byword (GB) (Peintre Celebre), the four-times top-level scorer Proviso (GB) (Dansili {GB}) and the G2 Prix Eugene Adam winner Finche (GB) (Frankel {GB}). Also connected to another multiple grade I winner in Wandesta (GB) (Nashwan), Desert Berry's 2-year-old filly is by Al Kazeem (GB) while she also has a yearling colt by Study of Man (Ire).

Saturday, Epsom, Britain
CAZOO DERBY-G1, £1,604,000, Epsom, 6-4, 3yo, 12f 6yT, 2:36.38, gd.
1–DESERT CROWN (GB), 128, c, 3, by Nathaniel (Ire)
     1st Dam: Desert Berry (GB), by Green Desert
     2nd Dam: Foreign Language, by Distant View
     3rd Dam: Binary (GB), by Rainbow Quest
1ST GROUP 1 WIN. (280,000gns Ylg '20 TATOCT). O-Saeed Suhail; B-Strawberry Fields Stud (GB); T-Sir Michael Stoute; J-Richard Kingscote. £909,628. Lifetime Record: 3-3-0-0, $1,264,597. *1/2 to Archie McKellar (GB) (Archipenko), GSW-HK, $513,497. Werk Nick Rating: A+. Click for the eNicks report & 5-cross pedigree.
2–Hoo Ya Mal (GB), 128, c, 3, Territories (Ire)–Sensationally (GB), by Montjeu (Ire).
1ST G1 BLACK TYPE. (40,000gns Ylg '20 TATOCT). O-Ahmad Al Shaikh; B-Meon Valley Stud (GB); T-Andrew Balding. £344,860.
3–Westover (GB), 128, c, 3, Frankel (GB)–Mirabilis, by Lear Fan.
1ST G1 BLACK TYPE. O-Juddmonte; B-Juddmonte Farms Ltd (GB); T-Ralph Beckett. £172,590.
Margins: 2HF, HD, 5HF. Odds: 2.50, 150.00, 25.00.
Also Ran: Masekela (Ire), Changingoftheguard (Ire), Stone Age (Ire), Nahanni (GB), Nations Pride (Ire), West Wind Blows (Ire), El Habeeb (Ire), Grand Alliance (Ire), Piz Badile (Ire), Star of India (Ire), Glory Daze (Ire), Sonny Liston (Ire), Royal Patronage (Fr), Walk of Stars (GB). Click for the free Equineline.com catalogue-style pedigree.

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O’Brien Reaches New High With Tuesday On Friday  

EPSOM, UK–Just when we thought there was nothing new to say in praise of Aidan O'Brien, up he jumps to break a 159-year-old record for the number of British Classic winners by a trainer.

It took the previous record-holder John Scott 36 years to amass his 40, and O'Brien has reached his tally of 41 in just 23. After an opening brace in 1998, when King Of Kings (Ire) won the 2000 Guineas and Shahtoush (Ire) gave the trainer the first of his 10 Oaks victories, the Ballydoyle maestro had to wait another three years before bagging another Classic in the UK, but what came next was the horse who would change the course of modern-day Thoroughbred breeding.

In 2001, Galileo (Ire) cruised to glory in the Derby–bringing about an important first for his extraordinary sire Sadler's Wells as well as his trainer. His own exploits at stud have been well documented in the intervening years, and just within his own former stable, 17 of O'Brien's British Classic wins have been recorded by sons and daughters of Galileo. He only relinquished the champion sire's crown last year for the first time in 11 successive seasons (12 in total) to his son Frankel (GB), considered by many to be the horse of a lifetime.

Galileo's death last year at the age of 23 of course brings about a gradual closing of a truly vital era of bloodstock for those of us who have been fortunate enough to live through his supremacy. But his name continues to loom large, in racecards, in racing's history books and now, deservedly, in British racing's Hall Of Fame, into which he was the most recent inductee just last week. In the post-Oaks press conference sat MV Magnier, Michael Tabor, and Aidan O'Brien, three names intrinsically linked to the great horse who fittingly helped to push his trainer to a new benchmark courtesy of his daughter Tuesday (Ire).

“I can't even put it into words how much this horse has meant to us,” said Magnier in tribute to Galileo. “He has changed a lot of people's lives. It's not just us, he has affected a lot of people.

“I remember my father saying that Sadler's Wells's record was never, ever going to be repeated and couldn't be bettered, but Galileo has managed to do that. Those Galileo mares, they are so tough, and for everything he has done we have a lot to be grateful for.”

Magnier was also not stinting in his praise of O'Brien. He said as the trainer walked into the press conference, “I was hoping he was not going to hear me say this but he is an incredible man. All that he has achieved to date is incredible. He works harder than anybody I've ever met in my life and he deserves everything he gets.”

Tabor agreed. “It is just a work ethic which is non-stop,” he said. “I guess it's like baking a cake. You need every ingredient to make it a cake that you really want, and if you are lacking any ingredient then it's going to be ok but you are not going to reach the pinnacle.

“And I do feel that every ingredient, from what John Magnier has built that over the years, has made Ballydoyle the place it is, so that it has every facility possible to get the best out of those pedigrees. And don't forget that John selected Aidan when he was just another trainer, but he could see what he was achieving from nothing, and he made the appointment and it has been a success story ever since.”

Tabor added, “As I say, you need all the ingredients, and the pedigrees are so important, there's no question about that.”

Tuesday's pedigree is already eminently familiar to those who have been following the Classic scene in recent years, for she follows her sister Minding (Ire) in winning the Oaks. That great filly had already won the 1000 Guineas and been beaten a head into second in the Irish 1000 Guineas when she triumphed at Epsom, and, having gone up the distance scale, dropped back down during her 3-year-old season to add the Pretty Polly, the Nassau and the Queen Elizabeth II S. to her incredible year. Last year another sister, Empress Josephine (Ire), won the Irish 1000 Guineas, while Tuesday, a rare June foal, has also placed in both Guineas en route to her own Classic success.

“Today is her birthday,” said Magnier of Tuesday, who is a full four months younger than the eldest filly in the Oaks, Rogue Millennium (GB). “And the biggest thing that you can take from that is that we are just going to keep covering mares for a lot longer. She's a very nice filly and all of that but she is only three today and she has just won an Oaks. I think people are just thinking too much towards the sales-ring but this just goes to show you that you can keep covering your mares [later in the season].”

O'Brien added ominously, “She's not three until today and she's [won] after running in two Guineas already. It's very hard to quantify but it's quite possible that there's a lot more to come from her.”

So speaks the man who, at 52, can still be regarded as something of a precocious talent himself. He may already have rewritten the record books, but it is safe to assume that there is still also plenty more to come from Aidan O'Brien, perhaps even as soon as Derby day.

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