Recorder To Stand In Ireland After Sumbe Switch

Recorder (GB) has changed hands and will now stand at Longford House Stud in Ireland after transferring from Sumbe in France. 

The move will see Recorder join Melbourne Cup winner Rekindling (GB), Rajsaman (Fr) and more at the County Tipperary stud. 

Recorder raced just three times in a career that did not extend beyond a juvenile campaign. But it was a successful one to the extent that he carried the Queen's colours to victory in the G3 Acomb S. at York for trainer William Haggas. 

He has sired four black-type performers all told, including Enola and Hot Queen, and stood in his final season in France at a fee of €3,000.

Sumbe Tweeted on Saturday, “Fair winds and following seas to Recorder who is leaving us after six great years of service at Haras de Montfort to stand in Ireland. 

“Our gratitude goes to all the breeders who have supported him over the years and to the Royal Studs for their extended trust. So long, champ!”

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Menuisier Hoping Heartache Can Continue Wonderful Story

Eric Clapton has already inadvertently provided owner Chris Wright and trainer David Menuisier with one Group 1-winning filly in the form of Wonderful Tonight (Fr) (Le Havre {Ire}) and now it's up to The Eagles. 

Former record company boss Wright has a long history of naming his horses after song titles, and when it came to the half-sister to the multiple group winner, the selection of Heartache Tonight (Fr) (Recorder {GB}) seemed fitting. There may well have been a little heartache involved, too, as at the time she was signed up as a private purchase at Arqana's October Yearling Sale, her elder-sister had only recently exited stage left, her season and career curtailed by injury. By that stage, however, Wonderful Tonight had already won the G1 Prix Vermeille and G1 QIPCO British Champion Fillies & Mares S., as well as the G2 Hardwicke S at Royal Ascot and the G2 Lillie Langtry S. at Goodwood, her local track.

Now in her place at Menuisier's Sussex stable is her three-year-old sibling, who on Friday will become her trainer's first runner in a British Classic. Like Menuisier, Heartache Tonight was born and bred in France, but they have both migrated across the Channel. Despite Britain now being the filly's permanent base, she has raced solely in her native country in her three starts to date. 

By the Sumbe sire Recorder, a son of Galileo (Ire) bred by Her Late Majesty the Queen, Heartache Tonight is out of the Montjeu (Ire) mare Salvation (GB) and was herself bred by Sylvain Vidal, the former head of Haras de Montfort & Preaux, where the Sumbe stallions reside. 

Menuisier demonstrates his trademark sangfroid when it comes to lining up at Epsom. “We're keeping our feet on the ground,” he says. 

“The main plan has always been and will still remain the autumn for this filly. She will have a break after this and she will be trained for the Arc. If she's not good enough we can bring her back. That said, I wouldn't run [in the Oaks] if I didn't think she has a chance, but I personally feel no pressure about Friday.”

No box-walking for the trainer, then, and he is justified in his belief that his filly, who runs in the colours of Chris Wright in partnership with Andy MacDonald, deserves her place in the line-up. 

Heartache Tonight was the easy winner of her sole start at two, which came on heavy turf and over nine furlongs at Lonchamp. She returned to Paris in April for the G3 Prix Cleopatre, in which she was beaten just over a length when third behind Crown Princesse (Fr) and Elusive Princess (Fr). All three were pitched straight into Group 1 company for their next start in the Prix Saint-Alary and finished second, third and fourth behind Jannah Rose (Ire), with a length and a half separating the quartet. 

“I think that the two trials she ran in were interesting races and they came across as being of a good level,” says Menuisier. “When we ran in the Cleopatre, she was the only filly making her seasonal debut in the race and it was only her second race ever. We don't train on turf here, we train on wood chip, so it was her second time on the grass and I thought she ran a strong race.

“She was always going to need the run. A furlong and a half out she looked like she was getting swamped but then she had a little breather and picked up again, so that was a really good performance.”

He continues, “We decided to aim high and I said at the time that we would only run in the Saint-Alary on soft ground, because I think that she would have lacked a little pace to have won over 1m2f on good ground. 

“It was a bit of a stop-and-start race, but it was the same again, and when they quickened, she looked like she was getting swamped again, but then she picked up and rallied and was only beaten a length and a half. The second and the third were the fillies who finished just in front of her in the Cleopatre, so the form repeated itself and the filly gained experience. She was really green at Saint-Cloud but she's learning all the time and we feel at home that she has improved more since the Group 1 than she did between the Group 3 and the Group 1. So, we'll see.”

Stepping up to the mile and a half of the Oaks test, rather than remaining at the shorter distance for the Prix de Diane, especially now that the ground has dried out significantly, will suit Heartache Tonight, according to her trainer. 

“I think she wants 1m4f to compete at the top level. It's great to go and run in France but every time it is a long journey. We're only 45 minutes from Epsom so it's perfect to run here.”

It is only natural to draw comparisons between half-sisters, especially when they emanate from the same stable, but Menuisier outlines one key difference in the make-up of Heartache Tonight.

He says, “This filly is very similar to her sister in many ways. She has a strong temperament but she is so much easier to train than Wonderful Tonight. This one is pretty bombproof, and I'd be surprised if she was fazed by the preliminaries. When she ran at Longchamp, she stayed in Chantilly and travelled over to the racecourse in the morning, and it was quite busy at the track and the stables were packed but she didn't turn a hair. She was sleeping flat out in her box before the race. She has the constitution to go to war in the big races.”

Menuisier adds, “It's a fantastic story for everybody really. What is the chance of having two sisters competing at Group 1 level, especially when you buy them at the sales? It's pretty exceptional.”

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Mishriff Takes Up The Mantle at Sumbe

In the stallion yard at Sumbe's Haras de Montfort, the reputation of the late Le Havre (Ire) casts a long, figurative shadow. He was of course not the only stallion on the roster, but he was the first, back in the days when the farm was launched under its original guise of Haras de la Cauviniere, and he became one of France's most important stallions, given plenty of respect from breeders father afield in Europe and Japan.

Le Havre is hard to replace, but in the season after his death, Sumbe could hardly have a more alluring new arrival than Prince AA Faisal's Mishriff (Ire). Like Le Havre, he won the Prix du Jockey Club, a race with a tall reputation when one considers the winners who progressed successfully to the stallion ranks: think Darshaan (GB), Bering (GB), Peintre Celebre, Hernando (Fr), Montjeu (Ire), Shamardal, Lope De Vega (Ire), and New Bay (GB), with Study Of Man (Ire), Sottsass (Fr) and St Mark's Basilica (Fr) to follow.

 

 

Mishriff's immediate male line is formed of three different Guineas winners in three countries: Make Believe (GB), Makfi (GB) and Dubawi (Ire), and this is surely the first time that the latter, the newly crowned champion sire in Britain and Ireland, features as the great grandsire of a stallion. Underneath, the lineage of Sumbe's treble Group 1 winner is no less impressive. With the great Rafha (GB) (Riverman) as his third dam, this is a family which includes two stalwarts of the Irish scene, the half-brothers Invincible Spirit (Ire) and Kodiac (GB). It is their half-sister, the G3 Princess Royal S. winner Acts Of Grace (Bahri) who is Mishriff's grand-dam, and his mother is the winning Raven's Pass mare Contradict (GB), who has already produced three black-type horses, including Listed winner Orbaan (GB) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}) and G3 Craven S. runner-up Momkin (Ire) (Bated Breath {GB}).

Prince Faisal, who has carefully cultivated this family over generations, also raced Mishriff's sire Make Believe, a 180,000gns purchase as a foal from breeder Simon Hope of Aston Mullins Stud. His support of that Ballylinch Stud resident with a member of his signature family has resulted in Make Believe's best offspring to date, and the prince will surely put his breeding clout behind Mishriff, too, along with Sumbe's Nurlan Bizakov, who has a significant broodmare band of his own spread across his studs, which include Haras du Mezeray and Hesmonds Stud in England. 

“Mishriff was a one-of-a-kind horse,” says Sumbe's Mathieu Le Forestier. “He won a [French] Derby and there are only a handful of Derby winners each year, but even fewer go on to become superstars and be consistent and repeat their form in the long run, which he did.”

And that really gets right to the crux of the matter. Mishriff will be six by the time he covers his first mare. In his 21 starts he won seven times. Just three of those appearances were made in his juvenile season, in the manner in which his trainer John Gosden often introduces his Classic prospects, and he won his maiden in November at Nottingham by ten lengths. His Saudi ownership meant that he had a slightly less orthodox Classic preparation than would ordinarily be the case for a Newmarket-based three-year-old. In February of 2020 he was flown to Riyadh for the inaugural Saudi Cup meeting and finished second in the Saudi Derby. 

We all know what happened next. With the Covid pandemic wreaking havoc on the early days of the European Flat season, Mishriff made a delayed reappearance back at his home course in early June, winning the Listed Newmarket S., setting him up perfectly for his success in the Prix du Jockey Club, which was run in early July. A second French raid that summer saw him add the G2 Prix Guillaume d'Ornano to his record. More was to come.

“His breakthrough was when he was four,” says Le Forestier. “He went on a winning streak starting in February in the Saudi Cup on the dirt over nine furlongs. And he won three weeks later in Dubai, over 12 furlongs on the turf [in the Sheema Classic]. And after the stint in the Middle East, he came back to win the Juddmonte International in the summer by six lengths, which was a stunning performance, and it was very important to be able to win a Group 1 on British soil.”

That season also included being runner-up to Adayar (Ire) in the G1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth S. after a rather over-exuberant performance in the Eclipse, in which he was third of four on ground he perhaps didn't appreciate. However, he came close to winning that same contest this season when beaten only a neck by Vadeni (Fr) having been hampered in his run. He couldn't add to his tally of wins in his final season of training, but in six Group 1 starts this summer and autumn he was only out of the first four once, closing out his career with a fourth in the Breeders' Cup Turf.

Le Forestier continues, “Mishriff arrived soon after the Breeders' Cup and he's settled in well. He's a very nice, quiet horse, a little bit manly in the yard.

“Of course, we will send him a number of mares ourselves, and Prince Faisal will as well. So he'll have good support from his owners.”

Mishriff joins a young roster at Sumbe. Recorder (GB), a son of the Galileo bred and owned by the late Queen Elizabeth II stands alongside De Treville (GB), the Oasis Dream (GB) half-brother to Too Darn Hot (GB), whose first-crop runners in 2022 included the TDN Rising Star Gain It (Fr). The line-up is completed by G1 Commonwealth Cup winner Golden Horde (Ire), who will have his first yearlings at the sale in 2023. 

Though Le Havre was lost to a tumour in March, his influence will be felt for some time to come. At the Tattersalls December Mares Sale his Group 3-winning daughter Ville De Grace (GB) sold for 2,000,000gns to Lordship Stud, while later that same week at Arqana, a Le Havre weanling half-sister to the dual Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe winner Treve was sold to Juddmonte. With the Yoshida family also having bought Le Havre's first two Classic winners, Avenir Certain (Fr) and La Cressonniere (Fr), his legacy as a broodmare sire is gaining momentum internationally, while one of his sons, Motamarris (Fr), stood his first season at Haras du Mazet this year.

“Losing Le Havre at age 16 was a big loss. It was not expected so soon,” says Le Forestier. “It's not easy to find a replacement for such a horse, so they've been looking carefully, making bids here and there, trying to find the right one. And eventually they made a decision on Mishriff and we are very thankful that we could reach this agreement so that Mishriff could come to France.”

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Le Havre Remains At €40,000 As Sumbe Announce Fees

Nurlan's Bizakov's Sumbe operation has announced its stallion fees for 2022, with flagship sire Le Havre (Ire) remaining at €40,000 and Golden Horde (Ire), who covered his first book of mares this year, being reduced to €8,000 from €10,000.

“Le Havre, the sire of 45 stakes winners, had another stellar year in 2021 and we feel very fortunate to stand such a high-class stallion,” said Sumbe's Mathieu Alex, who indicated that Bizakov has supported Golden Horde, a Group 1-winning son of Lethal Force (Ire), with 20 of his best mares.

He added, “Next year looks particularly exciting with the first foals of Golden Horde arriving. We have a lot of faith in this high-class athlete, who was a Group 1 winner at Royal Ascot and a Group winner at two. Golden Horde is a beautiful horse and breeders love him when they see him. We have supported him with very good mares and will continue to do so. We really appreciate all the support and thank the breeders for their commitment.”

The Normandy-based Sumbe roster also includes Her Majesty the Queen's Recorder (GB), a group-winning son of Galileo (Ire), and the well-bred Treville (GB), an Oasis Dream (GB) half-brother to champion juvenile Too Darn Hot (GB) out of the stellar racemare Dar Re Mi (GB). Recorder will stand at €4,000, while De Treville, who has joined Sumbe since Bizakov's purchase of Haras du Mezeray in March, is priced at €2,500.

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