Overbury Stud has released the fees for its Flat roster, with Ardad (Ire) remaining at £12,500 in 2024 while the fee for Golden Horn (GB) has been increased to £10,000 (from £8,000) on the back of a season in which he was represented by the G2 Queen's Vase winner Gregory (GB) and G2 British Champions Long Distance Cup winner Trawlerman (GB).
Golden Horn, who covered 173 mares this spring, stood his first season at Overbury Stud in 2023, having moved from Dalham Hall Stud after his purchase by Jayne McGivern. His fellow new recruit was Caturra (Ire), a son of Mehmas (Ire), who has been cut to £5,000 from an opening fee of £6,500. He covered a book of 110 mares in his first season.
Caturra's fellow Flying Childers winner Ardad has 101 juveniles to run in 2024. His current crop of foals numbers 144 and he covered a further 154 mares in 2023, his increased numbers being a result of a successful first crop of runners åwhich included the treble Group 1 winner Perfect Power (Ire).
Simon Sweeting, manager of Overbury Stud, said, “We are very lucky to have such popular stallions who are achieving plenty and yet have even more to look forward to. Ardad's young stock from his excellent 2022 book of mares includes many quite outstanding individuals, and so many breeders have bred back to him to get more of the same. These big books he's had really do stand him in great stead. Meanwhile, Golden Horn has had a really tremendous year: nine Stakes winners, five at Group level – he's outperforming many stallions at far higher fees.”
The fees for Overbury's other stallions, Jack Hobbs (GB), Frontiersman (GB) and Schiaparelli (Ger), will be set later in the year.
The winds of change have blown through Overbury Stud in the last year. Gone is the stalwart of the British National Hunt ranks, Kaya Tara (GB), who died in retirement in December at the age of 28. Last summer the Gloucestershire farm had welcomed the horse that many will hope could be his replacement, Golden Horn (GB), bought from Anthony Oppenheimer by Jayne McGivern as his burgeoning National Hunt statistics caught many an eye. Then, at the other end of the spectrum, in came Caturra (Ire) last autumn, the first son of Mehmas (Ire) to stand in Britain and, judging by early demand, a welcome addition to the more commercial end of the stallion ranks in the UK.
“The response has been tremendous,” says Overbury Stud's Simon Sweeting, who may well be giving serious consideration to installing a revolving door on the covering barn. “He has got some super mares. His owner, Saeed bin Mohammed Al Qassimi, has really got behind him and he's bought some lovely mares, especially for him. And obviously he is determined that he succeeds, like we all are. But we've got some tremendous support from people that I would consider to be really good breeders. Nick Bradley is sending at least six mares, Fiona Denniff is supporting him, Whatton Manor Stud, Richard Kent, Paul Shanahan has a share in him. Byerley Stud and Houghton Bloodstock are also sending a lot. Good, sensible breeders who produce winners have got behind him, so hopefully that's going to give him a chance.”
The saying goes that if something ain't broke, don't fix it, and for the team at Overbury, it was well worth taking a chance on Caturra so soon after the early success of Ardad (Ire), who was Britain's leading first-season sire in 2021, and whose stand-out son, the treble Group 1 winner Perfect Power (Ire), has recently joined Darley's team of stallions at Dalham Hall Stud.
It is easy to join the dots: Ardad, Caturra, and Perfect Power were all bred by Tally-Ho Stud, where Ardad's sire Kodiac (GB) has stood with distinction for years, and which is also home to Mehmas. Furthermore, both Ardad and Caturra won the G2 Flying Childers S. Ironically, this was also the race that was seemingly at the mercy of Cotai Glory (GB) when he jinked and unseated George Baker. Seven years later, Cotai Glory, who also stands at Tally-Ho Stud, edged out Ardad to be the leading freshman sire of Europe.
“It's extraordinary how Tally-Ho keep producing horses like this, but they do. And we're very lucky to be the beneficiaries further down the line,” admits Sweeting.
This week scientists at University College Dublin and PlusVital have published research which has identified genes associated with stress in the racehorse, and it serves as a timely reminder as to the importance of that magical ingredient in a horse's make-up which is every bit as important as ability: temperament. This is a trait which has often been spoken about in regard to Mehmas himself, who was famously so laidback as an early juvenile in his days with breeze-up pinhooker Roger Marley that he barely paid the son of Acclamation (GB) any attention–until he started galloping.
Caturra hails from the second crop of Mehmas and, according to his former trainer Clive Cox, and now to Sweeting, he appears to have adopted a similar no-nonsense approach to life.
“He's absolutely brilliant. He really is just a very straightforward horse,” Sweeting says. “He enjoys the routine. He's very relaxed about the way that we do things with him, seeing a lot of the other horses like mares and foals in the same yard as him, and the other stallions. He's quite happy and relaxed out in the paddock, and he's taken to the covering tremendously. He's everything, in fact, that Clive Cox said he would be. He does what you want, as he did when he was in training.”
He continues, “He's getting more than his fair share of mares in foal. It's obviously the slower part of the season, so he is not under pressure. But he's getting them in foal with great regularity. So we are really pleased with the early results. He's very virile, and he's got a great libido.”
Sweeting adds, “Temperament is obviously such an important thing because, I keep saying it to people: if the trainers like them, then you've got half a chance. But if the trainers don't like them, if they haven't got a good attitude, they can very quickly turn against them and then you are sunk before you even start.”
Caturra is out of the Sleeping Indian (GB) mare Shoshoni Wind (GB), a decent handicapper over five and six furlongs, with three wins to her name and a runner-up finish in the Listed Empress S. at Newmarket. Though he has predominantly speed influences close up in his pedigree, the four-year-old's third dam, Pat Or Else (GB) (Alzao), is a half-sister to the St Leger and Gold Cup winner Classic Cliche (Ire) (Salse) and to Yorkshire Oaks and Prix Vermeille victrix My Emma (GB) (Marju {Ire}). With around 115 mares currently booked to him, Caturra clearly will be given a good chance to try to emulate the start made by his own sire in Ireland, and by his fellow Overbury resident, Ardad, whose popularity continues with 145 mares booked in to date.
“We did wonder when we started him how Caturra would impact on Ardad or vice versa,” Sweeting says. “But actually they're in two different brackets. One is proven and one is not. And they are two very different things for breeders to pick out and reasons for them to use either one.
“Caturra at the moment is a good level below [Ardad] in price, although a very similar type of horse at the start. But Ardad, he just feels very established now, and particularly having another stakes winner at the weekend, he just feels like he's done it and people can rely on him. You know you're going to get a good-looking horse, you know you've got the potential of a racehorse, and you know that people are going to like them at the sales. Whereas Caturra, you're paying a lot less money, but of course he has to prove himself, so they are in two different places in the market.”
While the two young sprint stallions are clearly going to be kept busy this covering season, busier still will be the Derby and Arc winner Golden Horn. He is listed as having covered 152 mares in his final year at Darley, and his book will be just as full this time around, with the Cheltenham Festival winner Concertista (Fr) (Nathaniel {Ire}) among a line-up of smart jumping mares to be paying him a visit.
“He is going to be busier than all of the others,” Sweeting notes. “We're lucky. We've got a great covering team. We've got a good system and it works pretty well. It is a busy time of year but I am certainly not going to complain about that. When you've got three or four horseboxes there, three times a day, it's a good sign.”
One of the hardest parts of being an animal owner is knowing that our beloved companions are likely to die before us. The death of a famous racehorse provides a different kind of gut punch but it is no less palpable for racing tragics – and within that group I include most TDN readers.
To love this sport, it is inevitable that certain horses, usually unconnected to us and varied in their levels of greatness, have particular resonance in our lives. For me, Kayf Tara (GB) was one of them, and in his day he was just about as great as they come.
Born at Meon Valley Stud the year after his brother Opera House (GB) won three of the best Group 1 races of the British summer, it was no surprise that Kayf Tara also ended up in Sheikh Mohammed's ownership. But there was no guarantee that he would end up as good, despite the fact that he was by Sadler's Wells and a member of Reprocolor (GB)'s burgeoning family.
The form book now relates that he dazzled in a different way, in all the major staying races, but with a profile that would always make him a hard sell at stud, to Flat breeders at least. It was to the good fortune of British National Hunt breeding that Kayf Tara's retirement coincided with Simon Sweeting taking on Overbury Stud with a mind to starting up a stallion business of his own. Sweeting's own good luck came in the form of Sheikh Mohammed deciding to send him the horse to stand among the Cotswold hills in proper jumping territory. That luck endured as his owner continued to rebuff offers for the horse from across the Irish Sea as his prowess in that sphere started to become apparent.
Not all breeders loved Kayf Tara instantly though. They criticised his hind leg, and the fact that he remained lithe and a little angular throughout his life perhaps didn't help his cause, but I loved the fact that you could always see the racehorse within, the supreme athlete that he once was.
In Kayf Tara's early days at Overbury, Sweeting, a former assistant to Henry Cecil, would ride him around the farm. I became a little closer to one of my favourites when I went to work for Darley in 2003. Sure, I had Singspiel (Ire), Machiavellian and Fantastic Light to gaze upon at Dalham Hall but the equine rock star I really wanted to hang out with was Kayf Tara, so I found various excuses for trips to Overbury from Newmarket. Even after moving on from Darley, I never really moved on from Kayf Tara, and Simon and his wife Lara have had to put up with umpteen visits from me over the years, occasionally with a mare in tow, usually with a camera over my shoulder, always with a detour to the biggest box in the corner of their lovely main yard to pay my respects to the stud's most important resident.
I know I'm not the only one who thinks of him as that. Simon, Jo, Dan, and all the team there will feel his absence the most and have no doubts as to his importance in establishing Overbury Stud as a stallion farm of note. Breeders great and small have been helped by Kayf Tara, one of the few British jump stallions who could lure mares from Ireland. Regrettably, the only foal I have ever had die at birth was by him. Superstition and utter stupidity prevented me from sending the mare back that season.
As his reputation as a stallion grew and more people started taking him seriously, every major winner by Kayf Tara somehow felt like a small personal triumph, however stupid it may sound. I cheered for them as if I owned them myself, and none more loudly than the wonderful Carruthers, bred by one of the greatest human heroes of the turf, Lord Oaksey. Clearly I played no part in Kayf Tara's success: that is all his own and down to the people who worked alongside him throughout his 20 years of active service at Overbury. I just didn't want to hear a bad word about him, and soon enough there wasn't.
It was an immense privilege to be able to see him so frequently throughout his decades at Overbury Stud, especially one last time in September. New boy Golden Horn (GB) was supposed to be the star of the show that day at a special parade to introduce him to breeders, but there was always one brighter star there while Kayf Tara lived and the old boy drew an appreciative round of applause as he too had his moment in the spotlight, even in retirement.
That Kayf Tara should have gone quietly at such an advanced age, in the first proper cold snap of winter, on a beautiful bright morning in the paddock that has been his home for so many a year is the way we should wish for all horses to leave, even though we wish they never had to leave us at all.
Kayf Tara (GB), who was three times crowned champion stayer on the Flat before forging a successful career as a National Hunt stallion, has died at Overbury Stud at the age of 28.
An announcement made by the Gloucestershire-based stud on Thursday stated that Kayf Tara “died peacefully in his paddock this morning following the routine he'd had since arriving at Overbury Stud”. He had been retired from covering duties in 2020 as his fertility waned.
Kayf Tara's first ever winner was noteworthy for being in the Listed Ballymacoll Stud S., a recognised Oaks trial, when Ruby Wine (GB) broke her maiden in that race for James Eustace and owner/breeder Rachel Wilson. However, it was in the world of jump racing that the son of Sadler's Wells really carved his reputation as a stallion, heading the sires' table in Britain a record 11 times.
His list of Grade 1 winners over fences and hurdles includes the King George hero and Horse of the Year Thistlecrack (GB), Queen Mother Champion Chase winner Special Tiara (GB), Edwulf (GB), Planet Of Sound (GB), Identity Thief (Ire), Tea For Two (GB), and the Overbury-bred Thyme Hill (GB). His current star performer and winner of last Saturday's G1 Tingle Creek Chase is Edwardstone (GB), bred by Robert Abrey and Ian Thurtle, and trained by Alan King to win nine of his 21 starts to date, including the G1 Arkle Trophy at the Cheltenham Festival.
A son of Colorspin (GB) (High Top {GB}) whose dam Reprocolor (GB) (Jimmy Reppin {GB}) was one of the outstanding foundation mares of the Weinfeld family's Meon Valley Stud, Kayf Tara was offered for sale by his breeder at the Tattersalls Houghton Sale of 1995, and was bought for 210,000gns by Darley Stud Management. He was sent into training initially with Sir Michael Stoute, who also trained his full-brother Opera House (GB) to win the G1 Coronation Cup, G1 Eclipse, and G1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth S. in the maroon-and-white colours of Sheikh Mohammed.
Having broken his maiden for Stoute as a 3-year-old at Ascot, Kayf Tara was later transferred to Godolphin and Saeed Bin Suroor. He became the pre-eminent stayer of his generation, twice winning the G1 Gold Cup at Royal Ascot and the G1 Irish St Leger, as well as posting victories in the G2 Goodwood Cup, G2 Yorkshire Cup, G2 Prix Vicomtesse Vigier and G2 Prix Kergorlay.
Paying tribute to the first stallion he stood on taking up the reins at Overbury Stud in 2000, Simon Sweeting said, “This is a very sad day for all of us at Overbury. Kayf Tara really put us on the map and I feel incredibly fortunate to have been with him through every step of what transpired to be an extraordinary career as a jump stallion, in which he won more championships than any other British National Hunt sire in history.
“I remain immensely grateful to Sheikh Mohammed and the Darley team for entrusting him to us. He's been such a great servant to the National Hunt game and to Overbury Stud, where he was looked after for most of his time by Dan Matty. We will miss him terribly.”
Darley's director of stallions Sam Bullard added, “We are all very grateful to Simon Sweeting and his team at Overbury for taking such great care of Kayf Tara for all these years, and we are very proud of the enormous contribution he has made to National Hunt racing and breeding in Britain and beyond during that time.”
