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Twenty Years On: Recalling Galileo’s Classic Season

This time twenty years ago, Galileo (Ire) was a once-raced winning maiden gradually being honed to full fitness on the Ballydoyle gallops ahead of his Classic season. That debut outing at Leopardstown on Oct. 28, 2000, had started with the young son of Sadler's Wells and the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe heroine Urban Sea as evens favourite and ended, after a mile on heavy ground, with him 14 lengths clear of the Aga Khan's Taraza (Ire).

We've all seen 2-year-olds burn brightly in their maidens only to fizzle out when put to the sword in Classic trials. History, of course, relates that this would not be the case for Galileo. Born to be a champion, he more than fulfilled that birthright on the racecourse, making the diverse challenges of Epsom and the Curragh look like Sunday afternoon strolls before being involved in two epic battles with the outstanding older horse of the time, Fantastic Light, at Ascot and Leopardstown.

Despite all the prowess displayed by the colt, those involved with him throughout his racing days could not have dared to imagine the level of success that would follow in his stud career. Or could they?

Aidan O'Brien, who trained Galileo for John and Sue Magnier and Michael and Doreen Tabor, is the man that knew the young horse best. He says, “Unusually with him, before he came to Ballydoyle the world was thought of him and I suppose that was because he is out of an Arc winner and he's by Sadler's Wells. Sue named him Galileo very early.”

There's no shortage of Ballydoyle horses with portentous names but it wasn't just Galileo's breeding that led his owners and trainer to dream that his destiny was written in the stars. Though medium-sized and not obviously physically imposing, the athleticism of the colt made an instant impression.

“He didn't walk, he prowled,” O'Brien continues. “It was a very unusual thing with a horse. Horses usually come up to walk but when he used to walk, he would get down to walk. When you'd ask him to go forward the first thing that would go out and down was his head. Most horses when you ask them to go forward, up goes the head and they walk up, but he used to walk forward and walk out. His walking stride was so long and there was so much power from his front and back, so I suppose the lads had him as a king before he came here.”

Just last week St Mark's Basilica (Fr) (Siyouni {Fr})—himself out of a mare by Galileo—was confirmed as the eleventh champion 2-year-old produced by Aidan O'Brien in his 28-year training career. Galileo, having just had that one outing, wasn't one of them, but he would soon atone for his later start.

“We got him ready a few times to run but there was a bit of coughing in the yard that season,” O'Brien recalls. “We thought he was going to be our Dewhurst horse but we never got him out, so he ran in a maiden at Leopardstown, Michael Kinane rode him and he won by 12 or 14 lengths. Everything about him was always very different but obviously we would never have expected what happened to happen.”

Galileo's road to the Classics was altogether smoother, navigated initially alongside another son of Sadler's Wells, Milan (GB), who would go on to win the St Leger.

“He did everything with Milan and went everywhere with him until we saw what Milan was,” says their trainer.

Indeed, Milan was runner-up to Galileo in the Ballysax S. on their first outing of the season, with subsequent four-time Irish St Leger winner Vinnie Roe (Ire) completing a classy trifecta. Galileo's final tune-up for Epsom came in the Derrinstown Stud Derby Trial, the third run of his life and the third time that the horse with the big walk and bigger reputation would line up as favourite.

By the time Derby Day 2001 dawned, Sadler's Wells had already been champion sire ten times. Though his list of Oaks winners by that stage featured Salsabil (GB), Intrepidity (GB) and Moonshell (Ire), and Entrepreneur (GB) and King Of Kings (Ire) had both won the 2000 Guineas, there was a glaring omission from the great stallion's stud record: Epsom's blue riband. Galileo delivered not just his sire's first victory in the Derby but also the first of eight—and counting—for his trainer.

“I remember walking the track with Michael before the Derby and he said what he was going to do, and exactly where he was going to ride him and where he was going to have him at full stretch,” says O'Brien. “It was incredible really, he just turned in and [Michael] had him balanced and slowly let him go, and I remember that his stride just opened up and started getting longer and longer. He pulled up full of running, he didn't look anywhere near empty at the line.”

Galileo's three-and-a-half-length victory over Ballymacoll Stud's 2000 Guineas winner Golan (Ire) made him odds-on to bring up the Derby double back on his home turf at the Curragh. This he did with ease, his four-length victory delivering another first, this time for Kinane, who won his 'home' Derby at his 18th attempt. Galileo may have got noticeably warm at the start, but it was no sweat for Kinane throughout the Irish Derby as he unleashed his cruising mount two furlongs from home before easing him ahead of the line.

With the Breeders' Cup Classic, over ten furlongs on the dirt, nominated as Galileo's unorthodox end-of-season target as early as midsummer, the colt nevertheless remained at a mile and a half for arguably the best performance of his life. The regard in which the Derby winner was held was evident in the fact that he was chalked up as as the odds-on favourite for the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth S. ahead of Godolphin's 5-year-old Fantastic Light, who arrived at Ascot on the back of wins in the G1 Tattersalls Gold Cup and G1 Prince of Wales's S.

In its Racehorses of 2001 annual, Timeform noted, “On a sweltering afternoon and before a record crowd of 38,410, Ascot, it seemed to some, was to be the scene not of a contest but of a coronation.”

'The King', as he had long been regarded by his co-breeders at Coolmore, was crowned. Galileo joined an elite group of horses to have won the Derby, Irish Derby and King George, adding his name to the illustrious sextet of Nijinsky, Grundy (GB), The Minstrel, Troy (GB), Shergar (GB) and Generous (Ire).

This sixth consecutive victory would prove to be Galileo's last but his following race, back to ten furlongs and again up against Fantastic Light in the Irish Champion S., would go down as one of the most memorable duels of the modern era. Once their respective pacemakers had cried enough, the Leopardstown straight was there for the taking, royal blue and dark blue locked in battle as Fantastic Light, getting first run up the rail when Galileo was forced wide around Give The Slip (GB), maintained his advantage to the line by a rapidly diminishing head.

“I think it's harder than we realise for the 3-year olds going up against the older horses in the summer,” says O'Brien. “A 3-year old against a 4-year old is very tough but a 3-year old against a 5-year old is even tougher. I think they need every bit of it [the weight allowance] and it's only the very good ones who can do it. Age at that stage—from three to four, four to five—age is an awful advantage, that toughness and the foundation. Really 3-year-olds are only babies, especially those middle-distance horses at that stage.”

With Galileo apparently never considered to be given the chance to emulate his mother's Arc victory, America beckoned, but not for the potentially easier and more obvious target of the Breeders' Cup Turf. Galileo became the greatest to gallop around Southwell's fibresand during an away day in preparation for his trip to Belmont Park for the Breeders' Cup Classic, a race which would see him take on the previous year's winner Tiznow and Arc winner Sakhee. Just a nose separated that pair at the wire with Galileo battling home in vain to take sixth.

“With the benefit of hindsight it was an unrealistic target to ask him to do that after having such a tough season and racing against the older horses, but it was the belief that was in him, the belief that everyone had in him, that we thought it could be possible that it could happen,” O'Brien reflects.

Timeform noted that Galileo returned from the race with swollen eyes and sore heels and his trainer recalls the effect the dirt kickback had on him.

He says, “I remember when he came in, he was after trying so hard he was almost crying. He was so genuine.”

If that at the time felt an inauspicious end to Galileo's career, in truth it was only the beginning of something far greater. His phenomenal run at stud continues apace: with 12 champion sire titles he is closing in on his own outstanding sire's record of 14. He has already surpassed Sadler's Wells's tally of Group 1 winners and last year set a new record of 85, passing another Coolmore great, Danehill, when Peaceful (Ire) won the Irish 1000 Guineas. Moreover, the Derby winner of 20 years ago is now the most successful Derby sire of all time, with Serpentine (Ire) becoming his fifth winner of the Epsom Classic in 2020.

Galileo's success is far from restricted to his own former stable but he has had an extraordinary influence on the fortunes of Ballydoyle as well as the rampant training career of Aidan O'Brien, with whose name he will forever be entangled. That his own athletic genes have been imparted so successfully is beyond question but the trainer knows that preparing racehorses goes beyond just getting them fit. Young Thoroughbreds must be mentally equipped to deal with the challenge and it is in this sphere which Galileo's own natural blend of talent and fortitude gives his offspring an edge.

“The mental attitude is vital. That's what makes them different to others,” says the man who has trained more of Galileo's stock than any other. “You can't see it physically when you see a Galileo, because it's in their mind, but when you start working them and galloping them, then you see it. It's that will to win and that absolute genuineness. It's the way they move and that action which makes them get down and gallop and it doesn't allow them to give up. Most horses when they're starting to get tired, they come back and curl up, but Galileos, their movement and their determination doesn't allow them to do that. It's very rare and I think that's why his influence will continue for a long, long time.”

Of Galileo's contribution to Coolmore and Ballydoyle over the last two decades, he adds, “It's incredible really, and to have that for John, Sue, Michael and Doreen, it was incredible. I suppose what made it very different was because they had called it all the way with him. John was so sure about his pedigree and the way he was bred, and John and Michael had it in their heads, the mares that were going to suit him, even before it happened really. It's incredible the amount of individual Group 1 winners by him that we've had, from six furlongs to two-and-a-half miles.”

In Galileo's Classic season, O'Brien also trained Imagine (Ire) to win the Oaks, the filly leading home a 1-2-3 for Sadler's Wells, while Galileo's erstwhile workmate Milan went on to win the St Leger. Of course, with Galileo, Sadler's Wells is only one half of a heady combination. His dam Urban Sea already looked a special broodmare by the time he won the Derby and her extraordinary development into a true blue hen has been aided especially by Galileo's half-brother, Sea The Stars (Ire), whose superior racing versatility saw him win the Guineas as well as the Derby and retire in a blaze of glory following the Arc. When discussions turn to the best racehorses of the recent era, opinion is usually divided between Sea The Stars and Galileo's own masterpiece, the outstanding Frankel (GB).

Inevitably, though, the son will always be measured against the father in the pantheon of champion sires and Galileo will not be found wanting.

“I don't think anyone could have believed that there was ever going to be another horse even anywhere close to Sadler's Wells,” says O'Brien.

For we fortunate followers of breeding and racing in the 21st century, it has been a privilege to watch history in the making.

The post Twenty Years On: Recalling Galileo’s Classic Season appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Bloodlines Presented By Diamond B Farm’s Rowayton: The Unlikely Path Of Charmaine’s Mia

Not many daughters of the little-recognized stallion Chati (by the Nearco stallion Amerigo) ever found themselves in the book of the great Irish-based stallion Sadler's Wells (by Northern Dancer), who was the leading sire in England and Ireland for more than a generation.

I suspect the only daughter of Chati bred to the keystone of Coolmore was Gossiping, a foal of 1981 who is the fourth dam of Charmaine's Mia, the winner of the Grade 3 Las Cienegas Stakes at Santa Anita on Jan. 9, when she ran the six furlongs in 1:07.81.

That swift time is listed as a new course record. While a sprint record might seem peculiar for a descendant of the great European classic sire, Gossiping was the third foal from the fine producer Minstinguette (Boldnesian) and was a year younger than her half-sister, European highweight sprinter Committed (Hagley).

A winner of 13 races from 22 starts, including a trio of Group 1 sprints in Europe, Committed was a racehorse of a very high order. Her half-sister was notably different, winning only a single race from 19 starts. Nonetheless, Gossiping was a half-sister to the great mare, and as Minstinguette produced two more stakes winners and a stakes-placed performer during her distinguished career as a broodmare, Gossiping was clearly a desirable broodmare.

She was, moreover, as big a success at stud as she had been disappointing on the racetrack. Gossiping's second foal was Idle Talk (Assert), who ran third in the Oaks Trial in England; her fourth foal was Musicale (The Minstrel), who won six of eight starts, including a quartet of G3 stakes at two and three; and the mare's sixth named foal was Grapevine (Sadler's Wells), who finished second in the Cheshire Oaks.

Grapevine's year-older full-sister was Wild Rumour, who was a winner from four starts. She produced Sadler's Trick, a stakes-placed racer by champion Favorite Trick among her seven winners, and the second dam of Charmaine's Mia was an unplaced daughter of Metropolitan Handicap winner Honour and Glory named Sadler's Charm. This mare produced two winners from 10 foals, but one of those winners was the Bernstein mare Charming Vixen, who was successful in the 2011 Kentucky Cup Juvenile Fillies.

Charmaine's Mia is the first foal of Charming Vixen, and the 5-year-old has won five races from 26 starts, earning $232,976. Victory in the Las Cienegas made Charmaine's Mia the 30th stakes winner and ninth graded winner for her sire, the War Front stallion The Factor.

Josh Stevens signed for Charming Vixen as a broodmare prospect at the 2014 Keeneland January sale on behalf of Gunpowder Farm (Tom Keithley and Erica deVinney).

Stevens said, “Charming Vixen was a solid prospect, and we gave $80,000 for her. I was working for Margaux at the time and signed it that way, as agent. The mare was a pretty mare, and when we bought Charming Vixen, the owners were hoping to reinvigorate [the Round Table-line stallion] K One King and also breed something that was commercially viable.”

Bred in Kentucky by Gunpowder Farm, Charmaine's Mia had a rocky reception at sales. She was a $40,000 RNA as a weanling, then sold for $4,000 at the 2017 Keeneland September sale; that price placed the filly in the bottom decile among yearlings by her sire, whose 63 yearlings averaged $47,922 that year.

Clark Shepherd was a partner in the consigning agency, Allied Bloodstock, and he recalled the filly, saying, “When we presented her at the sales, she was kind of small, and The Factor wasn't strong in the marketplace at that time. That combination, with a physical that wasn't appealing to the market, put a formidable cap on the filly's commercial place in the sale.”

Fortunately, racehorses aren't the same as sales horses, and sometimes those who are not tall keep growing; some who are immature progress to strength; and some who are last at the sales are first at the finish. Stakes-placed in the Catch a Glimpse Stakes at two, Charmaine's Mia has clearly left her sales appraisal far behind.

After purchasing Charming Vixen, Stevens left Margaux to become the racing manager for Gunpowder Farm and now is an independent bloodstock agent. He said, “Gunpowder Farms had a couple of really good years at the racetrack with horses like Divisidero and others, and this is the kind of racehorse that Gunpowder was trying to breed.”

Charming Vixen's second foal is Boatloadofnerve (Magician), who is a winner from eight starts, and that now-4-year-old filly sold as a yearling for $1,100 at 2018 Keeneland September sale.

At the 2017 Keeneland November sale, Charming Vixen herself sold for $20,000 in foal to Hit it a Bomb. The buyer was KOID, and Charming Vixen produced a bay filly of 2018 in Korea that has since been named Charming Boom. The mare has been barren the last two years.

Charming Boom was unplaced in her first two starts, both late last year at two. Considering this family, however, progress at three would be a reasonable expectation.

The post Bloodlines Presented By Diamond B Farm’s Rowayton: The Unlikely Path Of Charmaine’s Mia appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Noughts and Crosses Behind a Dream Mare

Now I do realise that I am in a minority of one here. But while everyone else seems to perceive some unique alchemy between Galileo (Ire) and Danehill, to me the number of good horses obtained by that cross is pretty much as you should expect when one breed-shaping stallion is mated with the daughters of another. After all, their dams will in turn have been well-bred and/or accomplished runners, simply to have gained access to an elite sire. If we call this “selective breeding”, we are surely flattering ourselves.

That said, it’s easy to acknowledge an elementary logic in combining the trademark influences of their respective sires; in reuniting the crucial division of Northern Dancer’s legacy between Sadler’s Wells stamina and Danzig speed. Seeking the best of both worlds, speed that can be carried Classic distances, is the simplest grail of all. It seldom works out, mind you, and hardly ever to the epoch-making degree we saw in Frankel (GB) (Galileo {Ire}), the ultimate template for the cross.

Regardless, there’s no arguing with the dividends achieved by John Magnier and his partners in Coolmore, who found themselves with paddocks full of Danehill mares just as Galileo was on the rise. And the model was eagerly adopted elsewhere.

The cross was back in focus last Saturday, after Ballydoyle’s historic GI FanDuel Breeders’ Cup Mile clean sweep. The winner, to general astonishment, was Order Of Australia (Ire)–by Galileo’s son Australia (GB) out of a mare from the very last crop of Danehill. And runner-up Circus Maximus (Ire) is by Galileo himself out of a Danehill Dancer (Ire) mare. Third (and fastest) to finish, Lope Y Fernandez (Ire), represented a different sire-line but completed a distaff trifecta for Danehill and his daughters, as a son of Lope De Vega (Ire) out of a Dansili (GB) mare.

All three, unusually for Ballydoyle, were the work of breeders other than Coolmore, entering the stable either through partnership or auction purchase. Lope Y Fernandez, bred by SF Bloodstock, was recruited as a €900,000 Arqana August yearling; while Circus Maximus (Ire) was bred by co-owners Flaxman Stables. But the winner himself attested to the mastery of his supervision in a fashion still more instructive, perhaps, than this unprecedented Breeders’ Cup 1-2-3.

For Order Of Australia is a half-brother to Iridessa (Ire) (Ruler Of The World), who won her fourth elite prize in the GI Filly and Mare Turf at Santa Anita last year. And both were bred by Aidan O’Brien and his wife Annemarie, herself a remarkable horsewoman, from a mare that cost just 14,000gns. (In the case of Iridessa, of course, their accomplishments extended to having also bred and raised the trainer, their son Joseph.)

Senta’s Dream (GB) was presumably added to the O’Briens’ Whisperview Trading broodmare band primarily because, as just noted, she belonged to that final crop of Danehill. (Along with the likes of Peeping Fawn, Holy Roman Emperor (Ire) and Duke Of Marmalade (Ire)… Gosh, the champ really was still in his pomp!)

While necessarily only part-time breeders, horse people as devoted and inspired as the O’Briens could never treat Whisperview as a mere pastime. With their access to so many different stallions “made” by Aidan, their customary professionalism has duly reaped many dividends besides Senta’s Dream. With Annemarie’s late father, the hugely respected Joe Crowley, the O’Briens co-bred Danehill’s record-breaking son Rock Of Gibraltar (Ire); and have since produced such Group 1 winners as Kingbarns (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), Beethoven (Ire) (Oratorio {Ire}) and the Fastnet Rock (Aus) pair Intricately (Ire) and Qualify (Ire). But the way they have realised the potential latent in Senta’s Dream represents a new peak.

The Breeders’ Cup is in the mare’s blood, as she is one of just two foals–and the only daughter–delivered by Starine (Fr) (Mendocino), who preceded Iridessa on the Filly and Mare Turf roll of honour by 17 years. Starine, however, had such a plain pedigree that Bobby Frankel was unable to find an owner when he imported her from France, and ended up racing her in the silks of one R.J. Frankel. He had the last laugh, cashing her in for $1 million to Newsells Park Stud at the Keeneland November Sale straight after the Breeders’ Cup.

Starine was all that salvaged her sire from oblivion. A son of Theatrical (Ire), Mendocino did win a small stakes race in France for owner-breeder Allen Paulson but his eligibility for stud presumably rested on the fact that his dam was by Caro (Ire) out of a half-sister to Exclusive Native. As a result, the mating that produced Starine did yield one conspicuous feature in a 3×3 presence for Caro, whose son Kaldoun (Fr) had sired her dam. But by the time Starine won at Arlington Park, her sire had mustered 61 foals across eight crops and just half a dozen other winners. Nor was there the least distinction in the past two or three generations of Starine’s maternal family.

Yet by the time the yearling Senta’s Dream was sent to Deauville in August, the death of both her illustrious parents had made her appear worth retaining at €300,000. After failing to make the track, however, her first foals made little impact either in the ring or at the races and she was culled as a 9-year-old for 14,000gns, the docket signed by BBA Ireland, at the Tattersalls December Sale of 2013.

Her new owners were quick to turn around her fortunes. Even the Equiano (Fr) filly she was carrying at the time was processed as a yearling for €92,000. (Now six, Tisa River (Ire) resurfaces as lot 1680 in the forthcoming Tattersalls December Sale.) And while Senta’s Dream appears to have missed the following year, her 2015 assignment with Ruler Of The World would give that luckless stallion–who suffered an untimely injury during his first covering season–the outstanding achievement to date, in Iridessa, of a career he is now pursuing in France.

Her next foal was Order Of Australia. He has clearly been well regarded all along, tried in the G1 Irish Derby and G1 Prix du Jockey Club when still a maiden. But the inspiration that he was not getting home, and should be dropped to a turning mile, would have eluded most of us after subsequent wins at 10 and 12 furlongs.

He was given his debut at the backend, remember, over a mile in heavy ground at Naas. But he travelled with high energy in a very different environment last Saturday and, while plainly well served by a jockey in electric form, looks absolutely entitled to consolidate his reinvention next year.

This feels like a key moment in the career of his young sire, whose Group 1 breakthrough had come just a few weeks previously when Galileo Chrome (Ire)–himself out of a Dansili mare–met the gruelling demands of the G1 St Leger. That Australia should impart that kind of stamina was unsurprising, as a Derby winner famously by a Derby winner out of Oaks winner Ouija Board (GB) (Cape Cross) (Ire); and, indeed, his only previous crop had produced the Leger runner-up in Sir Ron Priestley (GB).

But let’s not forget that Australia was beaten under a length by Night Of Thunder (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) and Kingman (GB) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}) in the G1 2000 Guineas. Or that he outpaced The Grey Gatsby (Ire) (Mastercraftsman {Ire}) over 10 furlongs on fast ground in the G1 Juddmonte International. As a 2-year-old, moreover, he had thrashed subsequent Group 1 winner Free Eagle (Ire) (High Chaparral {Ire}) by six lengths at Leopardstown.

Sure enough, two of Australia’s first juveniles were denied Group 1 prizes only by a neck apiece: Broome (Ire) in the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere, and Sydney Opera House (Ire) in the Criterium de Saint-Cloud. The latter race obviously represents an extreme test for a youngster, but at least Australia was quickly proving that he could produce an eligible Classic type at an accessible fee. Broome, indeed, failed by just half a length to emulate his sire and grandsire at Epsom, having taken the Ballysax-Derrinstown route often reserved at Ballydoyle for the “anointed” colt of the crop.

With the maturing of his stock, Australia has advanced annually within his intake: fourth in the prizemoney table with his first juveniles; third last year; and looking booked for second this time round, with a class-high five Group 1 performers, plus a tally of seven Group winners shared only by Kingman.

Despite having managed more or less to “lie up” with Kingman and No Nay Never–whose precocious achievements have sent their fees through the roof–Australia had been eased from an opening €50,000 to €27,500 for 2020. As such, especially in the current environment, a fee of €25,000 for 2021 represents a pretty solid “hold”.

Whatever the future holds for Australia, the fact is that Senta’s Dream has consecutively given two stallions their outstanding achiever to date. So perhaps the most exciting aspect of her story is the stunning debut of her latest juvenile, whose sire Camelot (GB) had been getting on very nicely without her. Santa Barbara (Ire), again registered in the regular Coolmore surnames plus Mrs. A.M. O’Brien, looked some prospect when outclassing 17 maidens at The Curragh in September.

No Galileo over Danehill here, obviously, with Camelot representing the Montjeu (Ire) branch of the Sadler’s Wells hegemony. (Actually Camelot instead introduces extra Danehill, as sire of his second dam.) Sometimes it really does seem as though we’re all simply seeking a proxy for Sadler’s Wells-Danzig. In the case of Australia himself, for instance, Galileo combines with the alternative route to Danzig, Ouija Board being by a son of Green Desert.

And the thing is that stretching a nick this far dismisses, for no intelligible reason, a ton of other good stuff in the vicinity. In the case of Santa Barbara, for instance, a lot of “Special” stuff. Camelot’s damsire Kingmambo was out of Nureyev’s peerless daughter Miesque; Mendocino was by Nureyev’s son Theatrical; and Nureyev’s mother Special also produced the dam of Sadler’s Wells.

Before her acquisition by the O’Briens, Senta’s Dream was tried with a son of Sadler’s Wells, High Chaparral (Ire), and a son of Montjeu, Motivator (GB), with dismal results. The simpler the breeding “formula”, the more it resembles a “system”, the more wary we should be. The only rule is that there are no rules. (Think Mendocino.)

In planning matings, I feel we should really only seek balance, in terms of type; and depth, in terms of pedigree. When people talk about nicks between entire sire-lines, often branded by patriarchs who have meanwhile receded into a third or fourth generation, I never understand why they feel able to discard so many other genetic strands with an equal footprint.

True, a wider reading of this cross soon takes us to the same kind of place anyway. Galileo and Danehill are both grandsons of Northern Dancer but Danehill brings that extra shot of Natalma into the equation, Northern Dancer’s dam also being granddam of Danehill’s mother Razyana. And Razyana is out of Buckpasser mare, just like Galileo’s damsire Miswaki.

In fact, if you think about it, there’s an awful lot of broodmare power behind this cross: a lot of stallions whose dams also produced other top-class horses. Danehill’s damsire His Majesty, for instance, was a sibling to Graustark and Bowl Of Flowers; Urban Sea gave us Sea The Stars as well as Galileo; and Sadler’s Wells, as just noted, was out of Nureyev’s half-sister.

In the end, we’re all trying to get to the middle of the same maze. You can use electric shears, if you like; or navigate from the stars. There are always umpteen factors in play. But perhaps none is more important than how a horse is raised, broken and trained. And, in the case of Senta’s Dream, to that extent you’re talking about a daily accretion of genius.

The post Noughts and Crosses Behind a Dream Mare appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Taking Stock: Sires and Racing Environments

The advent of Twitter over the last decade or so has made racing results quickly accessible to fans and observers anywhere in the world, so much so that it seems that a greater number of people in the U.S. are more familiar with European racing than ever before. Back when I was a kid, we’d have to wait for the Blood-Horse magazine to arrive in the mail to scan the 10-day old European results in the agate type in the back pages. Now, we get a video of a race on Twitter minutes after the finish, and you’ve got quite a few people on the platform discussing those races with as much passion and knowledge as they do racing here. Moreover, these European visuals have exposed more Americans to the glaring differences in racing environments between here and there.

To begin with, the top European races are contested on turf instead of dirt. And more importantly, there’s a greater variation in distances, courses, and racing styles over there, as the videos of the one-mile G1 Sussex S. on Wednesday from the U.K. and the two-mile G1 Goodwood Cup a day earlier from the same venue pointedly illustrated. There are no Grade l races in this country at two miles, and neither are there Grade l races at five furlongs here as there are in Europe, where 12 furlongs is considered a “middle distance” and the cadence of races is markedly slower earlier, no matter the distances–which are clearly delineated at sprints at five and six furlongs, mile events, 10-13 furlong races, and extreme staying events at a mile and three-quarters up to two-and-a-half miles.

In contrast, almost all top races here seem to hover within a narrow band of seven-to-nine furlongs over dirt ovals and are contested frenetically from the start. Also, 12-furlong horses here are considered “stayers” or “plodders,” and though we do have a graded turf program that caters to horses over 10-12 furlongs, many of whom are ex-European imports, the winners of those races are rarely sought after as stallion prospects like our nine-furlong dirt runners and 10-furlong Gl Kentucky Derby winners.

Epsom Derbys

This disconnect between the racing environments of the U.S. and Europe has been particularly pronounced since 2000, though the trend was evident in the 1990s, and it’s directly related to the types of stallions that find favor here versus there. Since North American-based Northern Dancer exploded in Europe with Nijinsky in 1970, Europeans, particularly Coolmore, have collected his sons, and Coolmore hit the mother lode with the 1984 G1 Irish 2000 Guineas winner Sadler’s Wells, whose sons Galileo (Ire), a G1 Epsom Derby and Irish Derby winner, and Montjeu (Ire), winner of the G1 Irish Derby and Prix du Jockey-Club (French Derby) back when it was still run over a mile and a half, have dominated European Classics during the same time frame that N. American-bred influence was waning in Europe.

In fact, it may come as a surprise to some on Twitter who ardently follow European racing nowadays–many of whom I’d hazard a guess are younger than 50–that N. American-breds at one time ran roughshod over some of Europe’s greatest races, including the Epsom Derby. During the 1970s, for example, Nijinsky (Northern Dancer), Mill Reef (Never Bend), Roberto (Hail to Reason), Empery (Vaguely Noble {Ire}), and The Minstrel (Northern Dancer) won the prestigious mile-and-a-half Classic, followed in the 1980s by Henbit (Hawaii {SAf}), Golden Fleece (Nijinsky), Teenoso (Youth), Secreto (Northern Dancer), Shahrastani (Nijinsky), and Nashwan (Blushing Groom {Fr}). Things slowed a bit in the 1990s, with Erhaab (Chief’s Crown), Lammtarra (Nijinsky), and Benny the Dip (Silver Hawk), and by the aughts the Americans were limited to just Kris Kin (Kris S.), who won the Blue Riband in 2003. Since then, Galileo and Montjeu have between them accounted for nine European-bred winners of the race, while their sons New Approach (Ire) (Galileo) and Pour Moi (Ire) (Montjeu) have sired two others.

Northern Dancer’s son Danzig also established a foothold in Europe that remains strong through today. North Light (Ire), the winner of the Epsom Derby the year after Kris Kin, was by Danehill, an outstanding and influential son of Danzig; and two other winners since then, Sea the Stars (Ire) and Golden Horn (GB), were by Cape Cross (Ire), a son of the Danzig sprinter Green Desert; and Sea the Stars sired Harzand (Ire), giving the Danzig line four winners of the Classic since 2003. Though Danzig’s European presence is primarily based around milers and sprinters to Sadler’s Wells’s main influence in the mile-and-a-half races, you’ll note that Cape Cross and Sea the Stars have made this branch of Danzig into players at European middle distances, and Sea the Stars has even ventured farther into extreme-stamina territory.

In total since the last U.S.-bred winner of the Epsom Derby in 2003, the Northern Dancer line through Sadler’s Wells and Danzig has accounted for 15 of the 17 winners, with only Sir Percy (GB) (Mark of Esteem {Ire}, who traces to Mill Reef) and Workforce (GB) (King’s Best, a son of the Mr. Prospector horse Kingmambo) breaking up the monopoly.

Of course, there are many other branches of Northern Dancer that have had success through the decades and are still successful in Europe, but Sadler’s Wells and Danzig are the stars, and they’ve combined successfully in pedigrees, back and forth, to keep the Northern Dancer locomotive hurtling forwards. Frankel (GB) (Galileo), the top young sire in Europe and his 22-year-old sire’s heir apparent, is from a Danehill mare and is a product of the Sadler’s Wells/Danzig cross.

The pedigree of this year’s Irish Derby winner Santiago (Ire) (Authorized {Ire}), who was third in the Goodwood Cup on Tuesday, employs this same cross, but with even more doses of Northern Dancer: his sire is by Montjeu and his dam’s sire is Cape Cross, which is Sadler’s Wells/Danzig, but in between and around them in his first five generations are the top Northern Dancer sires Lyphard and Nureyev, along with another dose of Danzig, making Santiago 4x5x5x5x5 to Northern Dancer and 4×4 to Danzig. There’s no question European pedigrees are getting saturated with Northern Dancer blood, but so far with little ill effect.

Stradivarius (Ire), who won the Goodwood Cup for the fourth consecutive year and is the premier stayer in Europe in races up to two-and-a-half miles, is by Sea the Stars, who happens to be a half-brother to Galileo, and is inbred 5x4x5 to Northern Dancer through Danzig, Sadler’s Wells, and Lyphard. Stradivarius’s pedigree illustrates how a branch of the Danzig line evolved gradually from speed to stamina through the generations in the sequence of Green Desert to Cape Cross to Sea the Stars, and it did so only because the racing environment in Europe allowed it the opportunity. This isn’t an option in America, where to succeed as a sire requires consistent high-class speed in the seven-to-nine-furlong Grade l dirt races, with occasional strikes in the Classics at up to a mile and three-sixteenths, a mile and a quarter, and a mile and a half.

Mohaather (GB) (Showcasing {GB}), the winner of the one-mile Sussex S. on Wednesday, is also a member of the Green Desert branch of Danzig as Stradivarius is, but his sire is by Oasis Dream (GB) (Green Desert), who tends to get more sprinter-milers and stays truer to the ethos of Danzig.

The Sussex was notable for another reason, too. In the beaten field were two American-bred Classic winners this year. Third-place finisher Siskin (First Defence), undefeated in five starts entering the race, won the G1 Irish 2000 Guineas, and Kameko (Kitten’s Joy), fourth, had won the G1 2000 Guineas. The duo were the first American-bred European Classic winners since Senga (Blame) won the G1 Prix de Diane (French Oaks) in 2017–and she was, I believe, the first since Arctic Cosmos (North Light) won the G1 St. Leger in 2010–and are harbingers that American-breds might once again start to have an impact on the European Classics, particularly as a newer generation of American owners are getting more smitten with the idea of racing in Europe.

American Sires

Kitten’s Joy is that rare American-based turf sire who’s succeeded against the odds, but he came up through the all-weather era and benefited from a subsequent increase in turf racing to lead the N. American general sire list in 2013. Since then, he’s attracted some European patronage and has had a string of European successes, led by the late European champion and Group 1 winner Roaring Lion and including others such as champion and Group 1 winner Hawkbill, French Group 2 winner Taareef, and current Irish Group 3 winner Crossfirehurricane in addition to Kameko.

War Front, one of Danzig’s last sons, is another with a sparkling track record in Europe, where he’s been particularly effective with his juveniles and at sprint and mile distances. He’s been bred to quite a few Galileo mares by Coolmore and is probably sitting on a Guineas winner down the line.

Aside from them, however, there aren’t too many other American-based sires that are sought after in Europe, but that might change.

Siskin’s pedigree offers the first clue. First Defence (Unbridled’s Song), a Grade l winner at seven furlongs on dirt, is now at stud in Saudi Arabia, but Siskin’s breakthrough in a European Classic was the first for the Unbridled line, which has been so effective on American dirt but nowhere near so on European turf. Siskin’s success now suggests new hope for the line, and that bodes well for Coolmore’s Triple Crown winner American Pharoah (Pioneerof the Nile), who’s from the same line by way of Empire Maker (Unbridled) instead of Unbridled’s Song (Unbridled).

So far, American Pharoah is showing a distinct penchant for the turf. From his first crop of 3-year-olds he’s represented by nine black-type winners and six group/graded winners, most of them on turf. He didn’t come up with a first-crop European Classic winner this spring and summer–neither did Northern Dancer; Nijinsky was in his second crop–but American Pharoah does have a dirt colt in Japan who’s eligible for the Kentucky Derby in the fall.

Coolmore stands American Pharoah in Kentucky. The Irish-based farm has actually bet heavily on two American Triple Crown winners, the other being Justify (Scat Daddy)–the two best American 3-year-old champions since Sunday Silence.

Sunday Silence, based in Japan, and Northern Dancer were two Derby/Preakness winners who changed the face of racing in Japan and Europe, respectively, and left sons to continue their work. American Pharoah and Justify, both of whom were even more accomplished in the grueling Triple Crown than them, will be given their own chances to succeed in Europe. Perhaps the European climate will be just right for them, especially with Montjeu gone, Galileo aging, and voids opening for another infusion of American blood.

Sid Fernando is president and CEO of Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc., originator of the Werk Nick Rating and eNicks.

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