Aidan O'Brien and Ryan Moore sugarcoated a wonderful Longines Irish Champions Weekend by bagging the G1 Irish St Leger with the Moyglare Stud-owned Kyprios (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}).
Sent to post a warm favourite at odds of 8-11, Kyprios found generously on the front end to hold off the determined challenge of Hamish (GB) (Motivator {GB}) and win by less than a length.
Kyprios has gone from strength to strength this season, with his Irish St Leger success coming off the back of top level triumphs in the Gold Cup at Ascot and the Goodwood Cup.
Search For A Song (Ire), a sister of the winner and a former dual Irish St Leger winner herself, ran a gallant race in third to lead home a one-three for Moyglare on an afternoon that the stud celebrated the 50th running of the Moyglare Stud S.
But the day belonged to Kyprios. He may not do anything fancy but his win on Sunday stretched his unbeaten record this season to five and O'Brien hailed him as everything you want in a stayer.
The champion trainer said, “He's very tough. He's very relaxed. He's always only in the gear that you want. Ryan gave him a great ride.
“He's a horse that gets a trip but he's a lot of class and he's very relaxed, which is a massive help. It helps him to get the trip. He's very brave, very clear-winded, good mover and a great mind. It's a pleasure to have him.”
On future plans, O'Brien added, “It'll depend on what everyone will want to do with him and it was great Eva was here to see him today. He's very easy to deal with and it leaves him with a lot of options.
“He was extra lazy today. Maybe it was the soft ground that made him a little bit more laboured. He could go back to a mile and a half but obviously we would love to have him around for the Gold Cup for the coming years. He is a unique horse really.
“We'll see what everybody thinks and what way the ground is going to be (in ParisLongchamp for the Arc). He is only four and for a stayer he's very young. As we saw today, he only does the minimum so it's very hard to know what's in there really.”
Pedigree Notes
Kyprios hails from an outstanding Moyglare family. Polished Gem (Ire) (Danehill), the dam of Kyprios and Search For A Song, has also produced a G1 Prince Of Wales's S. winner in Free Eagle (Ire) as well as five other black-type horses.
Observations on the European Racing Scene turns the spotlight on the best European races of the day, highlighting well-pedigreed horses early in their careers, horses of note returning to action and young runners that achieved notable results in the sales ring. Thursday's Observations features a daughter of Breeders' Cup heroine Dank (GB) (Dansili {GB}).
2.50 Salisbury, Mdn, £24,000, 2yo, f, 6f 213yT DOOM (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) is the fourth foal out of the GI Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf and GI Beverly D. S. heroine Dank (GB) (Dansili {GB}), who is also a half to the top-level scorers Eagle Mountain (GB) (Rock Of Gibraltar {Ire}) and Sulk (Ire) (Selkirk). James Wigan's April-foaled homebred debuts for the William Haggas stable in this valuable Bob McCreery Memorial British EBF Quidhampton Maiden Fillies' S. which has a habit of playing host to future pattern-race winners.
3.10 Haydock, Novice, £10,000, 2yo, c/g, 7f 212yT CASTLE WAY (GB) (Almanzor {Fr}) shaped with abundant promise when second in a Newmarket maiden last month and is arguably the one to take out of that race which has hosted Motivator (GB), Frankel (GB), Roaring Lion and Coroebus (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) in the past. Godolphin's Charlie Appleby-trained 425,000gns Book 1 graduate and half-brother to the high-class multiple Group 1-winning Palace Pier (GB) (Kingman {GB}) encounters a William Haggas-trained newcomer in Garden Route (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), a son of the G1 S A Nursery winner Cloth Of Cloud (SAf) (Captain Al {SAf}) from the family of Artie Schiller (El Prado {Ire}) who represents Magnier/Shanahan/Nagle/Kantor.
5.37 ParisLongchamp, Debutantes, €27,000, 2yo, f, 8fT CHASING THE SUN (GB) (Galileo {Ire}) was a €600,000 purchase at the Arqana Deauville August Yearling Sale by virtue of the fact that she is a half-sister to the G3 Prix de Lieurey winner and G1 Poule d'Essai des Pouliches and G1 Prix du Moulin de Longchamp-placed Wind Chimes (GB) (Mastercraftsman {Ire}). Stepping out in the Qatar Racing silks who own 50% in partnership with Ecurie Des Monceaux, the Andre Fabre-trained chestnut encounters a pair of Wertheimer newcomers in the Carlos Laffon-Parias-trained Carvana (GB) (Siyouni {Fr}), a half-sister to the G1 Prix Saint-Alary heroine Queen's Jewel (GB) (Pivotal {GB}), and Kovattack (Fr) (War Front), a Christophe Ferland-trained daughter of the G1 Prix Vermeille winner Galikova (Fr) (Galileo {Ire}).
1.20 Curragh, Mdn, €16,500, 2yo, c/g, 8fT GULF OF MEXICO (IRE) (Galileo {Ire}) debuts for Ballydoyle in the maiden won by Saxon Warrior (Jpn) and Mogul (GB) (Galileo {Ire}) in recent times and, at 1.1 million gns was the joint-second highest-priced colt at the Book 1 Sale in October alongside stablemate Age Of Kings (Ire) (Kingman {GB}). A son of the G2 Queen Mary S. winner and G1 Cheveley Park S. runner-up Anthem Alexander (Ire) (Starspangledbanner {Aus}), the May-foaled bay encounters experienced opposition including his stable's eye-catching course maiden runner-up Cairo (Ire) (Quality Road), a relative of Galileo's Gustav Klimt (Ire); and Qatar Racing's Warrior Lion (GB) (Roaring Lion), a Joseph O'Brien-trained son of the group 3-placed Stroll Patrol (GB) (Mount Nelson {GB}) who was second to another Ballydoyle juvenile in Denmark (GB) (Camelot {GB}) on debut at Naas at the start of the month.
I guess the whole point is that ours is a world apart, a sanctuary from the cares of the “real” one. But it still feels unnerving, to see a new cycle of the sales calendar open with such blithe indifference to a wider consensus that the global economy is scrabbling along the top of a precipice.
Both Saratoga and Deauville benefit from a heady atmosphere that might easily induce a perilous incaution when a yearling stands there shimmering on a sale rostrum. But it was ever thus, and the market at both Fasig-Tipton and Arqana exhibited remarkable buoyancy when measured against historic standards.
We know that bloodstock tends to lag somewhat behind other indices of recession, and conceivably this will prove to be some final, decadent flourish before the bulls start to draw in their horns. But it may also turn out, as when bloodstock showed such startling resilience during the pandemic, that the outlook simply looks different to the affluent elite on whom our industry so candidly depends. Inflation may be a bolting mustang; there may be wars and rumors of wars; political discourse may be ever more acrimoniously polarized. None of it seems to matter to these guys.
To be fair, in certain states American investors can increasingly entertain the possibility that their racetrack programs can aspire to something vaguely resembling viability–even if some benighted horsemen appear masochistically determined to erode that equation with their stubborn litigations. But the parallel strength of the market over the water suggests that a lot of people must also be animated by less tangible dividends.
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That being so, we must always remember how destructive to our sport is the contamination of bad publicity. No shortage of that, of course, in an average week–and this one has been no different. Equally, however, we must acknowledge our debt to those priceless horses and horsemen that do succeed in capturing the public imagination; to those that intrigue outsiders, and inspire them to enter and contribute to our community, whether as fans and handicappers or as buyers of seven-figure yearlings. And it's also been a week, either side of the ocean, that has magnified those positives.
First and foremost, we have had a fresh reminder of the captivating grandeur within the compass of the Thoroughbred. Raised in distance for the first time, Baaeed (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) also raised his game anew to reach a pantheon lately shared, on European turf, perhaps only by his sire and Frankel (GB) (Galileo {Ire}).
Someone as tediously insistent as me, on the importance of a transatlantic cross-pollination, is hardly going to neglect the opportunity to highlight the way Baaeed's pedigree combines gene pools that have since become disastrously bisected. No fewer than 11 of the 16 contributors to this grass titan's fourth generation were bred in North America. Mr. Prospector is sire not only of Baaeed's fourth dam; but also of his damsire, Kingmambo; and of Miswaki, whose daughter Urban Sea gave us Sea The Stars. And look who's here, as sire of the third dam: the great enigma himself, Arazi!
Galileo, half-brother of Sea the Stars, sire of leading stallion Frankel (GB) | Emma Berry
Sea The Stars, specifically, combines two transatlantic cocktails. Start with his sire Cape Cross (Ire). He's by Green Desert, himself a son of Danzig out of a daughter of Sir Ivor and Courtly Dee; and out of Park Appeal (Ire), whose genes (by Ahonoora (GB) out of a Balidar (GB) mare) are no less evocative of a completely different world. As for Urban Sea, the epoch-making dam of Sea The Stars (and Galileo, of course), she similarly blends a classic American brand (Miswaki was by Mr. Prospector out of a Buckpasser mare) with a mare whose parents both channelled doughty German blood.
Much the same kind of thing happens along Baaeed's bottom line. That Mr. Prospector fourth dam we just mentioned, for instance, is actually out of the British matriarch Height Of Fashion (GB), who was by Bustino (GB) and saturated with other indigenous influences. So, really, can anyone look at Baaeed's pedigree and still understand why most breeders, either side of the Atlantic, no longer want to mix turf and dirt lines?
So much for Baaeed's past. As far as his future is concerned, we must naturally yield to the judgement of those who have brought him this far with such skill. But it must be said that the horse stands in danger of leaving us with the same wistfulness as did Frankel, who similarly spent most of his career beating up proven inferiors at a mile before stepping up in trip only in his penultimate start–and in the same York race that Baaeed won this week. The plan has long been to remain in step with Frankel by also bowing out over 10 furlongs at Ascot, but the door is apparently still ajar to going to the Arc instead.
In declining to run either at Longchamp or at the Breeders' Cup, Frankel was left exposed to the charge that he never went looking for trouble. Suspecting him to be one of the best of all time, everyone was comparing him to specters past–yet he never measured himself against plenty of good ones then alive and well, and available for racetrack competition.
The fact is that Baaeed finished the new trip at York ravenously, and is a full-brother to a Group 1 winner at 12f (and Group winner at 14f). So let's hope that the desire to preserve his immaculate record does not discourage connections of another great horse from exploring the full range of his brilliance.
If a sporting gamble happened to misfire, it wouldn't take a cent off his value. In terms of his legacy, he has nothing to lose and much to gain. And, as we've been saying, there's a wider consideration–one might almost say, a wider obligation–to make this game as engrossing as we can; to showcase charisma, and retrieve the news agenda from the bad guys.
Happily, that is just what is happening at Saratoga this summer, with D. Wayne Lukas back on center stage Saturday with his latest Classic winner squaring up for her decider with Nest (Curlin). Last week we highlighted the way Lukas appears to be reversing the ageing process, as a rejuvenated force in the sales ring as well as on the racetrack. He promptly produced another exciting juvenile in Bourbon Bash (City Of Light), who won his second start by eight lengths and looks eligible to extend his trainer's record of eight wins in the GI Hopeful S.
This is the first foal out of a stakes-winning Violence mare named Buy Sell Hold. Sell or hold is an adequate conundrum for most people right now, trying to read the alarming runes in less singular markets. How long our own marketplace can remain insulated by such unquantifiable factors as horses like Baaeed, and horsemen like Lukas, remains to be seen. But history tells us that we will find out soon enough.
