The Weekly Wrap | Horse Racing Free Tips

The Weekly Wrap: Love Abounds

Before we go any further, let’s just make one thing clear: for all the excitement of Saturday and the fact that the Oaks and the Derby were even able to take place this year, let’s not lose our heads and start to think that they should in future take place on the same day in July. They should not. This is an extraordinary year for one big reason beyond our control and it should remain just that.

Right, where were we? Ah, Epsom.

I’ll go to my grave failing to understand why all the world doesn’t love horseracing. For a so-called ‘magnificent triviality’ it doesn’t half get the blood pumping, the emotions soaring and the brain churning before and beyond the great races. And we saw two great races on the Epsom Downs on Saturday, one with a result as thrilling as it was expected and the other as thrilling as it was unexpected.

Love (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) really did look like she could spend the season conquering all as she swept down the Epsom helter-skelter in a new race record of 2.34:06, narrowly beating the record of Enable three years earlier. Love sets the standard for what looks an exciting crop of 3-year-old fillies this year.

It took Serpentine (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) roughly a third of a second more to cover the same course and once the shock subsided from his audacious front-running victory it was hard not to view this as anything other than an excellent result. Most of all, of course, for his 30-year-old jockey Emmet McNamara, who, before Saturday had won two group races, both for his boss Aidan O’Brien, and has now added his name to the roll of honour on which all Flat jockeys long to be included.

It could of course be argued that without the delay to the Classic season, Serpentine would not even have run in the Derby. He had won a Curragh maiden just seven days earlier on his third racecourse appearance, three hours before his stable-mate Santiago (Ire) (Authorized {Ire}) landed the Irish Derby. His breeding, however, gives him every right to have been considered a potential Derby winner, with his dam Remember When (Ire) (Danehill Dancer {Ire}) and her sibling Dylan Thomas (Ire) (Danehill) both having knocked on the door at Epsom.

It’s a topsy-turvy year, and ordinarily we would expect to see the Derby winner next in the Irish Derby or, even better for those of a more commercial mindset, the Eclipse, lest he be filed instantly under the ‘future National Hunt sire’ label. Both of those options are impossible this year but wouldn’t it be something to see Love and Serpentine take on each other, as well as Enable (GB) and possibly Ghaiyyath (Ire), in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth S. on July 25? What a shot in the arm that would be for a great race which has somehow, inexplicably, lost its lustre of late.

Together Alone
An initial thought as Serpentine flashed by the famous winning post more than five lengths ahead of the chasing pack was ‘what more can be said about those over-achievers Aidan O’Brien and Galileo?’ Appropriately, it was Galileo himself who first caused O’Brien’s name to be etched on the list alongside a Derby winner. From the 19 horses to have won the race since then, another seven have been trained by him, while Galileo has now featured as the sire of five Derby winners (and grandsire of one). Together and alone, they are record-breakers in myriad ways and we are fortunate to be alive to witness what will forever be regarded as a significant chapter in the history of racing and breeding.

A new chapter was started the following day at Chantilly when the former Aidan O’Brien trainee Fancy Blue (Ire) became the first Classic winner for her new trainer and Aidan’s son Donnacha. Last season the filly had been one of the winners which had helped the 21-year-old secure his second champion jockey title in Ireland before hanging up his boots to join his father and his elder brother Joseph in the training ranks.

There was an echo of another Derby winner in Fancy Blue, who is out of a full-sister to the late and often overlooked High Chaparral (Ire) (Sadler’s Wells), who gave Aidan O’Brien his second Derby victory the year after Galileo. There has been more focus though on the filly’s sire, Deep Impact (Jpn), who can very much be viewed as the Galileo of Japan and who died almost a year ago at only 17. His legacy will also be long-lasting and it is starting to creep into Europe via his Classic-winning stallion sons Saxon Warrior (Jpn)—out of a Group 1-winning daughter of Galileo—and Study Of Man (Fr), a grandson of Miesque.

In fact it was one of Study Of Man’s relations, the fellow Niarchos-bred Alpine Star (Ire), who was so narrowly beaten by Fancy Blue on Sunday in the Prix de Diane after emphatically winning the G1 Coronation S. at Ascot only just over a fortnight earlier. Her sire Sea The Moon (Ger) stands alongside Study Of Man at Lanwades and both should be given serious consideration by breeders with Classic aspirations but without pockets deep enough for Galileo or Dubawi (Ire).

Millennium Marker
While we will look back and view these early decades of the 21^st century as the time of Galileo, the horse named to usher in a new era, Dubai Millennium, is remembered through a now flourishing male line which could so easily have withered and died.

Dubawi was of course a member of the first and only crop of the ill-fated Dubai Millennium. The winner of the Irish 2000 Guineas, Dubawi was then represented in his first crop by Makfi (GB), who won the 2000 Guineas. Make Believe (GB), from Makfi’s first crop, reinforced the line and in turn won the Poule d’Essai des Poulains. He now has a first-crop Classic winner of his own in the Prix du Jockey Club hero Mishriff (GB).

Thirty years earlier, Mishriff’s owner-breeder Prince A A Faisal, had enjoyed Classic success at Chantilly with the Prix de Diane winner Rafha (GB) (Kris {GB}), who is the colt’s third dam. His claims to a future stallion career are further enhanced by two of Rafha’s sons, the successful sires Kodiac (GB) (Danehill) and Invincible Spirit (Ire) (Green Desert).

Make Believe, a three-parts-brother to dual Grade I winner Dubawi Heights (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}), raced in Prince Faisal’s colours but had been bought by him as a foal for 180,000gns from his breeder Simon Hope of Aston Mullins Stud. The prince had also purchased Make Believe’s contemporary, rising freshman sire Belardo (Ire) (Lope De Vega {Ire}), as a yearling at Arqana for €100,000 and the pair ended their careers with two Group 1 victories apiece.

Belardo also did his sire a huge favour by becoming his first Group 1 winner in the Dewhurst S., and, though bred by Ballylinch Stud where Lope De Vega stands, he is now at Kildangan Stud after Godolphin bought into him during his racing career.

Make Believe instead stands at Ballylinch, which is now part of a powerful partnership behind the young stallion.

“Prince Faisal kept a third of Make Believe and on occasion in the first few years we have sent half the broodmare band to him,’ says Ted Voute, who manages the prince’s bloodstock at Eydon Hall Farm, the former base of Gerald Leigh’s successful breeding operation.

“He has ten mares and he tends to keep the average age of the broodmare band quite low. Gerald Leigh was the same way, he often sold mares that were 10 or 12.”

Mishriff’s dam, the winning 10-year-old Raven’s Pass mare Contradict (GB), has had a breeding career of highs and lows. Her first three foals are all black-type earners and in the following three seasons she has failed to produce any offspring.

Voute says, “Contradict is now in foal to Frankel (GB) and we have had a bit of bad luck with her because she would get in foal and then reabsorb before 42 days. We are past that stage now this year so we are hopeful but she will hold on to this one.”

Prince Faisal’s good week may not yet be over as he has TDN Rising Star Seventh Kingdom (GB) (Frankel {GB}), another great grandson of Rafha, entered for Saturday’s G2 Superlative S.

“We might be shooting a bit high with him, but you could have said that we were doing that on Sunday also,” Voute adds of the 2-year-old colt. “He’s not a horse that puts in scintillating work so when he won well first time out we were slightly caught off guard.”

While Mishriff and Seventh Kingdom are both homebreds, their breeder has not been averse to racing other people’s stock, as illustrated by Belardo and Make Believe, and he has enjoyed notable success with his select purchases.

Voute explains, “We don’t really have a [buying] strategy. We’d bought [G2 Prix Greffulhe winner] Ocovango (GB) a few years before that and we got lucky with him. Every now and then when the mood takes him, Prince Faisal will say ‘if you’re in Deauville go and have a look at this one’. He’s always going through the catalogues and the photos online and he usually has his own shortlist. In the case of Belardo he had asked me to go to see a Lawman (Fr) and I didn’t like that colt but I told him I had seen a nice Lope De Vega colt, so that’s how we bought him. At the foal sales when he bought Make Believe we’d made a shortlist of ten with Hugo Merry, because when I am selling I don’t like to sell and buy at the same time. The prince came up from London and we showed him the ten and we were beaten on the first two, a Teofilo (Ire) and a New Approach (Ire), both bought by John Ferguson. So then we took all the Darley horses off the list and the only one left was the Makfi and, lo and behold, that was Make Believe. We took him back to Eydon—all the horses are raised there, and Belardo came back there after the yearling sale. Mishriff of course was also there. There’s a very prolific colts’ paddock called Culworth Road East, in which Gerald Leigh had Barathea (Ire) and Markofdistinction (GB), and we’ve kept the tradition of raising our colts in this massive 30-acre field.”

As for Mishriff’s future stud prospects, Voute adds, “It’s a real stallions’ family now. When the prince sold Invincible Spirit and Kodiac he kept very few shares in both of them and I think perhaps he regretted that, so he kept a good bit of Make Believe and he also kept breeding rights in Belardo. I imagine he will now keep a good part of Mishriff when the time comes for him to go to stud and that will help when he hands over to his sons as they will have an operation that can cover its own costs.”

For Ballylinch Stud, the good news did not end with Mishriff this weekend as Lope De Vega, who is enjoying another typically fruitful season, was represented by the G2 Lancashire Oaks winner Manuela De Vega (Ire). Furthermore, the stud’s freshman stallion and fellow French Classic winner New Bay (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) is starting to make his presence felt. Since June 12, he has been represented by four winners and, in a manner reminiscent of last year’s freshman champion and fellow son of Dubawi, Night Of Thunder (Ire), it is his strike-rate at this stage which is the remarkable factor as those winners have come from just seven runners.

In turn, Night Of Thunder has continued his ascent and currently heads the second-crop sires’ list with seven black-type winners including a first Classic winner of his own, the G2 Oaks d’Italia winner Auyantepui (GB). The unbeaten filly was bred by Massimo Parri, head of the Italian TBA and owner of Allevamento Le Gi in Tuscany. Trained until now by Nicolo Simondi, Auyantepui’s recent 50% purchase by Australian-based OTI Racing means that she will transfer to the Chantilly stable of first-season Italian trainer Mario Baratti, a former assistant to Marco Botti and Pascal Bary.

Adaay On The Hunt
Goken (Fr) has been the leader of the European first-season sires’ competition since flagfall, and his first winner, Livachope (Fr), duly became his first group winner last week when extending her unbeaten record to three in the G3 Prix du Bois, leading home her paternal half-sister Axdavali (Fr).

With ten individual winners on the board, the son of Kendargent (Fr) is only one ahead of Whitsbury Manor Stud’s Adaay (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}), who is the sire of Twaasol (GB), winner of the Woodcote S. at Epsom, and Doctor Strange, who took third in Sunday’s G3 Premio Primi Passi.

Kodiac and his half-brother Invincible Spirit account for five of the top 11 stallions in the table, including Prince Of Lir (Ire) and Kodi Bear (Ire) by the former, and Invincible Spirit’s sons Territories (Ire) and Shalaa (Ire).

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The Weekly Wrap: Long May They Run

It has been quite a week for the old boys. Continuing a fine season, Way To Paris (GB) (Champs Elysees {GB}) finally notched a deserved Group 1 victory for himself and his trainer Andrea Marcialis in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud. At seven, he is a year younger than the sprinting duo of Limato (Ire) (Tagula {Ire}) and Judicial (Ire)

(Iffraaj {GB}) who respectively recorded their 14^th and 15^th victories in Group 3 contests at Newmarket and Newcastle on Saturday.

Then of course there’s the redoubtable Caspian Prince (Ire), who ran his 101^st race that same day, chalking up his 20^th win at odds of 28/1. The biggest head-scratcher is how this remarkable 11-year-old, by Dylan Thomas (Ire) out of the unraced Crystal Gaze (Ire) (Rainbow Quest), has ended up winning the majority of his races over five furlongs. Now in his tenth season in training, Caspian Prince was an inspired purchase at 11,000gns at the Tattersalls December Yearling Sale and yet another credit to the skills of bloodstock agent Gill Richardson, whose bang-for-buck ratio with the horses she selects is as good as any out there. The horse has had seven different trainers in his career, with his highest-profile success coming for Tony Coyle when Caspian Prince beat Judicial’s half-sister, the dual Group 1 winner Marsha (Ire) (Acclamation {GB}), in the G2 Friarstown Stud Sapphire S. almost three years ago.

The Italian Way
Way To Paris may have the perfect name and sire to win a Group 1 in the Parisian suburbs, but both he and his connections have their roots firmly planted in Italy. Bred by Franca Vittadini’s Grundy Bloodstock, he races in the colours of nonagenarian Paolo Ferrario and is trained in Chantilly by Italian ex-pat Andrea Marcialis. Moreover, Way To Paris’s dam Grey Way (Cozzene), from whom he inherits his grey coat, was herself the winner of the G2 Premio Lydia Tesio among her five victories on Italian soil. Twelve years prior to Way To Paris, who was born when Grey Way was 20, the mare had produced the dual G1 Premio Presidente della Repubblica winner Distant Way (Distant View), who later served his time at stud in Italy.

Champs Elysees, a perfectly capable Flat stallion who was massively popular with the jumps brigade in the three seasons he stood at Castle Hyde Stud, died in 2018, the year his daughter Billesdon Brook (GB) won the 1000 Guineas. The brother to Dansili (GB) and Cacique (GB) also featured among the Italian group-race winners over the weekend via his German-bred and -trained son Durance (Ger), who beat French raider Royal Julius (GB) (Royal Applause {GB}) by a neck to land the G2 Gran Premio di Milano for owner-breeder Gestut Ebbesloh.

The other group race on Sunday’s card at San Siro, the G3 Premio Carlo Vittadini, is named in honour of the father of Way To Paris’s breeder, who was himself the owner of the outstanding triple Classic winner of 1975, Grundy (GB) (Great Nephew {GB}). It brought up a double not just for German runners but also for sons of Hasili (GB) as the race was won by the Juddmonte-bred Runnymede (GB), (Dansili {GB}}, who is now trained by Sarah Steinberg for Stall Salzburg having been bought for 75,000gns at Tattersalls in February 2019.

A further feather in the cap for Italian breeding over the weekend came in Ireland, where Speak In Colours (GB) (Excelebration {Ire}) recorded his sixth triumph in the G2 Weatherbys Ireland Greenlands S. Bred by Paolo and Emma Agostini, the 5-year-old raced initially in their Scuderia Archi Romani silks at two when trained by Marco Botti (who also trained his sire). Following his win in the listed Doncaster S. at two, Speak In Colours was sold to Chantal Regalado-Gonzalez and transferred to Joseph O’Brien, subsequently adding another four stakes victories to his record.

The Derby Cross
The main event of the weekend, the Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby, produced the novel result of a Coolmore-owned winner whose sire and damsire both stood as Darley stallions. However much the Irish Derby’s reputation regrettably continues to be devalued, there is much to like about the newest name on the roll of honour, Santiago (Ire) (Authorized {Ire}), not least his ability to have bounced back so soon after winning the G2 Queen’s Vase at Royal Ascot.

Then there is his pedigree, and the fact that his fifth dam, Allegretta (GB), also pops up in the backgrounds of plenty of top-class horses, most notably as the grandam of Galileo (Ire) and Sea The Stars (Ire).

Santiago’s Classic victory further embellishes the late Cape Cross’s record as a broodmare sire, a position he also occupies in the pedigrees of Derby winners Australia (GB) (Galileo {Ire}) and Masar (Ire) (New Approach {Ire}), Japanese Derby winner Logi Universe (Jpn) (Neo Universe {Jpn}), South Australian Derby winner Russian Camelot (Ire) (Camelot {GB}), G1 Zabeel Classic winners Authentic Paddy (NZ) (Howbaddouwantit) and Consensus (NZ) (Postponed), and six-time Group 1 winner Laurens (Fr) (Siyouni {Fr}).

Santiago’s dam Wadyhatta (GB) was bought from Shadwell at Arqana’s Summer Sale when carrying Santiago for €275,000. Sheikh Hamdan has himself enjoyed plenty of success with the family over the years, notably through Tamayuz (GB) (Nayef), a half-brother to Santiago’s grandam Thamarat (GB) (Anabaa).

The 2007 Derby winner Authorized will probably end up being best remembered as the sire of dual Grand National winner Tiger Roll (Ire) and, like so many sons of Montjeu (Ire), he has had decent success with his jumpers, which include Nichols Canyon (GB) and Goshen (Fr). But Authorized is also a Flat sire of some note, his chief earner being the evergreen Hartnell (GB) who, like Santiago, won the Queen’s Vase before he was exported to Australia.

Authorized served 12 seasons at Darley’s British, Irish and French wings before being sold to stand in Turkey for the Turkish Jockey Club for the 2020 season.

Fairy’s Story
In a good week for former Derby winners, the 2014 hero Australia (GB) was represented by a third group win for his first-crop son Buckhurst (Ire) in the G3 Alleged S., as well as a runner-up finish for 3-year-old daughter Cayenne Pepper (Ire) in the G1 Pretty Polly S.

An interesting runner of Australia’s on the pedigree front was Saturday’s Hamilton maiden winner King Fairy (Ire). Trained by William Haggas, he was making his second start in the colours of his breeder, the Tsui family’s Sunderland Holdings, and the 3-year-old colt is inbred 3×3 to their Arc winner and brilliant broodmare Urban Sea (Miswaki) through his grandsires, the half-brothers Galileo (Ire) and Sea The Stars (Ire).

King Fairy’s dam My Fairy (Ire) was unraced but is a sister to My Titania (Ire), who was Sea The Stars’s first group winner back in 2013. The family has also been kind to Haggas who trained another of the mare’s half-siblings, the triple Group 2 winner Muthmir (Ire) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}).

Rude Awakening
The international barriers are slowly lifting and Thursday saw the first English runners in French group races this season. The prizes for both contests were duly smuggled back across the Channel by Hughie Morrison and Charlie Appleby after last year’s G2 Dante S. winner Telecaster (GB) (New Approach {GB}) ran out the easy winner of the G3 La Coupe followed by the triumph of Space Blues (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) in the G3 Prix de la Porte Maillot.

Following a run of solely domestic contests since racing resumed in France on May 11, these interlopers were clearly not welcomed by all. The next day’s Jour de Galop bore the front-page headline ‘Rude Britainnia’ and went on to grumble about ‘Des Anglais sans pitie’.

But really the only rude thing about the day’s racing was the start time: the Weekly Wrapper was still mucking out when Telecaster romped home at 8.40am Newmarket time. The French don’t usually like to let racing interrupt lunch, let alone breakfast.

More Joy For Darley Matriarch
Eastern World (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) has an awful lot to live up to in following his high-flying siblings onto the racecourse but the 3-year-old looks set to uphold the family honour following his comfortable maiden win at Newmarket on Sunday.

At the very least he has kept a clean sheet for his dam, the celebrated Darley mare Eastern Joy (GB) (Dubai Destination). Eastern World is her sixth winner from as many runners and all those who have gone before him—all by Darley sires—have notched black-type victories. Heading the list is the Dubai World Cup winner Thunder Snow (Ire) (Helmet {Aus}) and he is followed, in ratings order, by Always Smile (Ire) (Cape Cross {Ire}), Ihtimal (Ire) (Shamardal), Winter Lightning (Ire) (Shamardal) and First Victory (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}).

Great Heavens
As we look ahead to the most exciting weekend of action since racing returned, with the Derby, Oaks, Eclipse, Prix du Jockey Club and Prix de Diane all being staged within two days, we must first acknowledge the welcome return of the great mare Magical (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), who extended her Group 1 record to five wins with significant ease in Sunday’s Alwasmiyah Pretty Polly S. at an almost deserted Curragh.

In a more normal season, we might have been expecting her to line up again at Sandown on Sunday to try to reverse the 2019 placings with Enable (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}) in the Coral-Eclipse. As it is, she had a pretty easy hit-out for her seasonal debut and we may see her next instead in the ‘King George’ at Ascot, where she completed her magnificent four-year-old season with victory in the G1 QIPCO Champion S.

Magical’s celebrated dam Halfway to Heaven (Ire) (Pivotal {GB}) was not the only mare of that name to have produced a top-flight winner of the weekend. This is where country suffixes come in handy. Halfway To Heaven (SAf), a daughter of Jet Master (SAf), is the dam of Sheikh Hamdan’s Hawwaam (SAf) (Silvano {Ger}), who won Saturday’s GI Premier’s Champions Challenge at Turffontein, his second Grade 1 victory of the month and, like Magical, fifth in total.

The Irish Halfway To Heaven had already produced a multiple Group 1 winner in Rhododendron (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) but her South African namesake has her matched there, too, as her 5-year-old son Rainbow Bridge (SAF) (Ideal World) is also a dual Grade I winner in South Africa.

And finally…
Well done to the BHA for persuading the government to allow owners to return to the racecourse in time for a belated Derby day. A well-timed decision indeed.

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The Weekly Wrap: By Royal Acclaim

Back in April, when major sporting events across the world were being cancelled left, right and centre, the management team at the Queen’s racecourse took the decision that, if racing had resumed in time, Royal Ascot would go ahead behind closed doors. The announcement was met with incredulity in some quarters, particularly by those keen to blame the spread of coronavirus on the Cheltenham Festival, but thank goodness Ascot stuck to its resolve to go ahead, even in extraordinary circumstances.

Of course the meeting lost some of its lustre, just as the Classics have done so far, with none of the pomp and circumstance which usually accompanies the racing, but the racing is, after all, what Ascot is really about. The extended fixture, with its extra six races, provided plenty of stories that were heartwarming enough to have us believing that all is right with the world again. Well, almost.

A Burst of Applause
For no better reason than the fact that the horse who has been my beloved daily companion for the last 14 years is a son of Royal Applause (GB) I’ve always had a soft spot for the 1997 G1 Haydock Sprint Cup winner. At 27, Royal Applause is living in retirement at the Royal Studs, an appropriate venue for a sire who played a significant role in the paternal line of seven of the 36 winners at Royal Ascot.

By the final day the old boy was represented in his own right, when his 7-year-old son Chiefofchiefs (GB) gave trainer Charlie Fellowes his second winner of the meeting in the Silver Wokingham. Ahead of that, however, the stallion most responsible for the blossoming of this line in recent years, Dark Angel (Ire), had provided one of the most explosive winners of the week in the sprint star Battaash (Ire), as well as Art Power (Ire) and Mountain Angel (Ire). The last-naned and Battaash are both 6-year-olds and represent one of Dark Angel’s great strengths as a stallion in the apparent durability of his stock.

Dark Angel’s sire Acclamation (GB) of course deserves plenty of credit. Runner-up to Choisir (Aus) in the G2 King’s Stand S. of 2003, the 21-year-old’s top-rated performer is Equiano (Fr), the dual winner of that same race after its upgrading to Group 1 status. Equiano in turn is the sire of Equilateral (GB), who chased home Battaash in the King’s Stand this year, while another of Acclamation’s sons, Harbour Watch (Ire), made a posthumous contribution through the thrilling G2 King Edward VII S. victory of Pyledriver (GB), who may now be a rare Derby runner for this sireline.

There are now at least nine sons of Dark Angel at stud in Europe, and two of those also provided winners at Ascot. The G1 Commonwealth Cup winner Golden Horde (Ire) lives in the stable once occupied by his sire Lethal Force (Ire) at Clive Cox’s Lambourn yard. He brought further fitting success for that stable on Friday when becoming the first Group 1 winner for his sire, who moved from Cheveley Park Stud to Haras de Grandcamp for the 2020 covering season.

Furthermore, Mickley Stud’s Heeraat (Ire) got the ball rolling for a hugely successful week for his former owner Sheikh Hamdan when his son Motakhayyel (GB) won the opening race of the meeting in the Shadwell blue and white.

Dark Angel has two sons with first-crop runners this season: Tara Stud’s Estidhkaar (Ire), who has already sired three winners, and Markaz (Ire), the full-brother to the brilliant mare Mecca’s Angel (Ire) who is at Derrinstown and got off the mark with his first winner on Sunday.

Success For O’Callaghan Clan
Bred by Gay and Annette O’Callaghan’s Yeomanstown Stud, Dark Angel returned there for his stud career but this was not the only O’Callaghan-owned stud to have plenty to celebrate during Royal Ascot. Gay’s brother Tony owns Tally-Ho Stud with his wife Anne and sons Roger and Henry, and the farm’s flagship stallion Kodiac (GB) enjoyed a terrific finale to Ascot with three group winners on Saturday.

The Tally-Ho Stud-bred Campanelle (Ire) started the treble with her victory in the G2 Queen Mary S. for Wesley Ward, who trains the Tattersalls October Book 1 graduate for Barbara Banke.

A juvenile Group 2 double was completed by the outsider Nando Parrado (GB), who was bred by Anita Wigan and again showcased the talents of Clive Cox and Adam Kirby in winning the G2 Coventry S. At 150/1, the colt became the longest-priced winner in the history of the Royal Meeting and if his victory surprised many, his trainer wasn’t one of them.

“Nando Parrado is a proper horse and we loved him from the start,” Cox said. “This was always the plan, it was just a sideways step on his first run. He came home and thrived from there, and then when the rain came earlier in the week, I knew he would be better on good or slower ground than quicker ground.”

Nando Parrado runs in the colours of Marie McCartan, who, with husband Paul, owns Ballyphilip Stud. The couple had already been represented as winning breeders at Royal Ascot through Battaash, and they have enjoyed a particularly fruitful association with Cox over the years. The trainer bought subsequent dual Group 1 winner Xtension (Ire) (Xaar {GB}) from Ballyphilip as a yearling for €15,000 in 2008 and, seven years later, he returned to the same source to spend £44,000 on a Dark Angel colt who would become known as Harry Angel (Ire) and go on to win the G1 July Cup and G1 Haydock Sprint Cup.

Kodiac’s memorable day was completed by Hello Youmzain’s victory in the G1 Diamond Jubilee S., giving young jockey Kevin Stott both his first Group 1 win and his first victory at Royal Ascot. Like London buses, Stott and trainer Kevin Ryan struck again in the very next race when Hey Jonesy (Ire) (Excelebration {Ire}) stuck his nose out to win the Wokingham. The 4-year-old Hello Youmzain, who races for the partnership of France’s Haras d’Etreham and New Zealand’s Cambridge Stud, quite clearly already has a dual-hemisphere stallion career mapped out for him.

Roger O’Callaghan, who will offer three Kodiac 2-year-olds among an eight-strong Tally-Ho Stud draft for this week’s Tattersalls Ascot and Craven Breeze-up Sale, said of Saturday’s results, “It was mighty, unreal. It was beyond our expectations really, and I am also delighted for Joe Foley and for Yeomanstown, it was a great week for the Irish stallion industry.”

Fine And Dandy
As noted by O’Callaghan above, the joy for Ireland’s independently owned studs didn’t end with the O’Callaghan family. Joe Foley enjoyed a juvenile group-race double on Friday for his Ballyhane Stud stallions through The Lir Jet (Ire) and Dandalla (Ire), representing the first-season sire Prince Of Lir (Ire)—himself a former winner of the G2 Norfolk S.—and the established Dandy Man (Ire).

The Lir Jet, who was bought by Qatar Bloodstock after his debut win at Yarmouth, might be considered to be the one who got away for the Tattersalls Ascot Breeze-up Sale, which makes a belated appearance this week.

Foley bought the colt as a foal from his breeder Donal Boylan for €9,500 and then sold him for £8,000 at the Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale to breeze-up pinhooker Robson Aguiar. With the sales season delayed amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Aguiar took the sensible decision to do a deal with Nick Bell which enabled The Lir Jet to make the most of his precocity by racing from the Newmarket stable of Bell’s father Michael. Now, while many of his fellow sales entries are breezing on the Rowley Mile on Monday ahead of Thursday’s sale, The Lir Jet is already a Group 2 winner who has given an important boost to his young sire.

“The warm, fuzzy feeling hasn’t worn off yet,” Foley said on Sunday. “The Lir Jet had no lookers at the yearling sale except for Robson. I’ve bought two good breezers from Robson for Clipper Logistics in recent years, so I admire and respect him. I strongly encouraged him to buy the colt last year at Doncaster and Robson, to his credit, told me in February this year that he was a stakes horse at least. Then he kept improving his prediction as the months passed and he told me six weeks ago that he was a group horse for sure and a very good horse. Robson is obviously a very switched-on fella and I’m delighted for him that he has proven to be correct.”

He continued, “When Sheikh Fahad’s team were thinking of buying him they contacted me and asked what I thought of him and I gave them some encouragement to go ahead a buy him. The nice irony is that they also bought Extortionist from Dandy Man’s first crop and he won the Windsor Castle and was a fantastic fillip in Dandy Man’s first season, and I’m really pleased for Sheikh Fahad, David Redvers and Oisin Murphy that they have now had this success with The Lir Jet.”

Foley added,” It’s also fantastic for his breeder Donal Boylan. I’ve never met him as he’s based in Hong Kong but he’s a really nice man and keeps his mares with Brian O’Neill at Rockton Stud. [The Lir Jet’s dam] Paper Dreams was the first mare he ever sent to me.”

Credit Due To Crowley And King
While there were many performances of merit throughout the meeting at which Frankie Dettori and John Gosden topped the leading jockey and trainer lists, two men who deserve special mention both first made their names in the National Hunt division but are very much at home at Flat racing’s top table.

We have an interview with Jim Crowley running later in the week in TDN but his six winners for his boss Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum must be noted here as they put him on level-pegging with the more flamboyant Dettori. It would actually be hard to think of a more unassuming member of the weighing-room than Crowley, who rode over jumps before turning to the Flat more than 10 years ago. In 2016 he was crowned champion jockey, a month before he was signed up as number one rider to Sheikh Hamdan. In fact, three of the jockey’s Royal Ascot winners were provided by two of his former jumps weighing-room colleagues, Roger Varian and Owen Burrows, who celebrated his first win at the meeting with Shadwell’s Hukum (Ire) (Sea The Stars {Ire}).

Alan King would be more readily identified as a National Hunt trainer but he has long had notable success with his Flat runners and his team of five sent up the M4 from his Barbury Castle base to Ascot included three winners and a runner-up. King won the closing race on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday with the dual-purpose performers Coeur De Lion (GB) (Pour Moi {Ire}), Scarlet Dragon (GB) (Sir Percy {GB}) and Who Dares Wins (Ire) (Jeremy). The last two named, both owned by Henry Ponsonby Racing, provided first victories at the meeting for Hollie Doyle and Tom Marquand, two of the rising stars of the weighing-room.

For the second time in the week, the late and much missed Kevin Mercer was brought to mind when the admirable Scarlet Dragon won his eighth race. Like Pyledriver, he was bred at the Mercer family’s Usk Valley Stud, where Pyledriver’s dam La Pyle previously boarded for Mercer’s friends and fellow breeders Roger Devlin and Guy and Hugh Leach. The trio has enjoyed extraordinary success with their first homebred, whose mating was advised by Mercer, and with Pyledriver heading towards Epsom for the Derby the fun may have only just begun.

Stradivarius A National Treasure
We started this column with speed and we’ll end with the star stayer, Bjorn Nielsen’s mighty Stradivarius (Ire), who is more than deserving of having the last word dedicated to him.

His fourth consecutive Royal Ascot triumph was the highlight of a good week for his sire Sea The Stars (Ire), who was also represented by Hukum (GB) and the impressive G2 Hardwicke S. winner Fanny Logan (GB) as well as featuring as grandsire of Alpine Star (Ire), who became the first Group 1 winner for her sire Sea The Moon (Ger) in the Coronation S.

With three Gold Cups among his 15 victories to date, Stradivarius is guaranteed his place in racing’s history books and he also, eventually, deserves a place at a good Flat stud. Where better for him to stand when his time comes to retire than at the National Stud, where many visitors would also be able to glimpse one of the most popular racehorses of the modern era?

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The Weekly Wrap: Peace, Love and Understanding

First Love, now Peaceful. In another alarming week in world events, we could all use a little of both, but they are of course the two latest Classic winners for their peerless sire Galileo (Ire).

When winning the Moyglare Stud S. last September, Love (Ire), now also the 1000 Guineas winner, sparked a Group 1 double on Irish Champions Weekend which was completed by the Irish St Leger winner Search For A Song (Ire). By November, Galileo had drawn level with Danehill’s record on 84 individual Group 1 winners thanks to the remarkable Magic Wand (Ire), who won the G1 Mackinnon S. in Australia on her 11^th start of a 12-race year across six different countries.

The 5-year-old mare, who returned in triumphant fashion on Saturday at the Curragh to win the G2 Lanwades Stud S., is perhaps the perfect embodiment of the most important trait Galileo appears to impart to many of his offspring: hardiness. Plenty of them, of course, are not short on talent either, and another went his way with just one runner apiece in the fields for the 1000 Guineas and Irish 1000 Guineas and the most recent Classic was added to Galileo’s phenomenal tally after Peaceful (Ire) led home an O’Brien family party at the Curragh on Saturday.

Trained, like a significant number of Galileo’s major winners, by Aidan O’Brien, she was at the forefront of a quartet completed by her stable-mate So Wonderful (War Front) and Fancy Blue (Ire) (Deep Impact {Jpn}) and New York Girl (Ire) (New Approach {Ire}) representing the stables of the master trainer’s sons Donnacha and Joseph. It would be no surprise to see first-season trainer Donnacha snare an early Classic victory of his own courtesy of Fancy Blue, on whom he won a Naas maiden last September in his final season as a jockey and who looks tailor-made for the Oaks, both on her Guineas performance and pedigree.

Lyons In Roaring Form
The weekend delivered an extra shot in the arm with the victory of Siskin in the Irish 2000 Guineas. The unbeaten Juddmonte colt of course also represents one of the most powerful owner-breeder operations in the world, but he has been entrusted to Ger Lyons, who, over three decades has steadily built his stable into a serious force to be reckoned with. That he is now patronised by some of the world’s leading owners is deserved rewrad for effort and a first Classic success for Lyons and his retained jockey Colin Keane was a widely popular result.

He is a trainer who doesn’t pander to anyone and is refreshingly direct in this age of spin by social media. But it was easy to detect the strong emotion prompted by Siskin’s behind-closed-doors Guineas win even as Lyons joked that it suited him just fine as he prefers his own company anyway. He may have stood alone, but the racing world was watching and smiling along with him.

In a different year, with more time between major events and fewer restrictions on travel, we maybe would have seen Siskin take on Pinatubo (Ire), Kameko and Victor Ludorum (Ire) in the St James’s Palace S. As it is there will be no raiding party from Glenburnie at Royal Ascot this year.

“That’s out of everybody’s control,” Lyons told TDN on Monday. “I know Aidan [O’Brien] is partaking but he can fly in and fly out, but apart from the flying in and out it would be the wrong thing to run Siskin back again. That doesn’t work for me. I’m not saying it’s wrong for Aidan, I’m just saying it doesn’t work for me.”

He continued, “It’s just the timing and it’s unfortunate but it’s the year that were in and we’ll take it. The English Guineas was ruled out because we couldn’t get Colin in to ride, simple as, so we committed to the Curragh Guineas, and that was our main aim. We said if we’re doing that and he’s good enough, then the Sussex Stakes will be the next race. He’s proven himself well good enough, so as we stand it’s the Sussex Stakes unless we are told differently. That’s his programme.”

The unbeaten Siskin appears to have taken his first outing of the season well, according to his trainer, who said, “He’s grand, he lost his weight but he’s licked his pot. If he ever stops eating I’ll be very worried. He rode out this morning and did his dressage, had a shower and had his roll as usual. Then he had a couple of hours picking grass and he’s the same old Siskin, so I’d say the weight will be back on him in the next day or so.”

While he was the most important, Siskin was not the only exciting winner to emerge from Glenburnie in the past week. Lyons has sent out six winners from his 31 runners since the resumption, including exciting juvenile debutante Frenetic (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}) and the listed winners Heliac (GB) (Champs Elysees {GB}) and Nickajack Cave (Ire) (Kendargent {Fr}). Juddmonte’s Peace Charter is also a filly to watch with interest following her fifth-place finish in the G3 Leopardstown Fillies Trial S.

“Peace Charter had a bad draw in the Guineas trial at Leopardstown and had no luck in running. That would have been grand if she’d had a better draw but we had a good end of the week for Juddmonte. Our horses in general have run really well since we’ve started back so we’re delighted,” Lyons said.

“Frenetic is a little star. She was back under saddle this morning and did a canter. She was mad keen to get out, that filly, and was ready for a while, and she will hopefully aim for the group race at Naas [the G3 Coolmore Stud Irish EBF Fillies’ Sprint S. on July 4].”

He added of the emerging staying prospect Nickajack Cave, winner of the Saval Beg Levmoss S., “I’m not a globetrotter but he’s a horse that we said at the start of the year if we had an Ebor horse it was him. He’s a long way off [last year’s Ebor winner] Mustajeer (GB) at the moment. He still only a young unexposed 4-year old and that was his first time over the trip. I got so much pleasure watching him because I just love seeing a race run like that. You could see [Colin] there watching and you could see the further he went the stronger the horse was coming under him and you knew turning in that he was going to take off. And he did and it was lovely to watch.

“He did it well and we have lovely options for him. Ultimately he has that shape about him, he’s the type of horse who could be a Melbourne Cup horse for the next three years. I’m not saying for me but he has that sort of look about him.”

Transatlantic Joy
Following the 2000 Guineas success of Kameko, his sire Kitten’s Joy was represented by another exciting 3-year-old this week in Crossfirehurricane, winner of the G3 Coolmore Ten Sovereigns Gallinule S. for Joseph O’Brien.

The colt boosted a good week for American owners in Ireland as he races in the colours of his co-breeder Scott Heider of Heider Family Stables. In a partnership which started around six years ago, Heider bred the unbeaten Crossfirehurricane with Craig Bernick of Glen Hill Farm and they now have a serious Irish Derby contender on their hands.

Bernick was also on the winners’ sheet in Ireland last week as the owner of the Dark Angel (Ire) filly Lynn Britt Cabin (Ire). Her victory at Leopardstown on Thursday for Fozzy Stack came a day after the owner’s One Voice (Ire) (Poet’s Voice {Ire}) was just touched off in the listed Salsabil S. at Navan. She holds an entry for a potential quick turnaround in the listed Victor McCalmont Memorial S. on Friday.

Star Quality
Five new TDN Rising Stars were named in Europe in the last week and they include Admiral Nelson (GB) (Kingman {GB}), who made a few headlines even before he started racing.

Bred by Bob and Pauline Scott at their Essex-based Parks Farm Stud, the colt set a new record price for the Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale last year when selling to Coolmore through Hillwood Stud for £440,000.

The Scotts bought his dam Shamandar (Fr) (Exceed And Excel {Aus}) as a foal and retained her at 3,500gns when offered as a yearling at the Tattersalls December Sale. She was later withdrawn from the Guineas Sale but the tale of pinhooking woe had a happy ending when she won the listed EBF Dick Poole Fillies’ S. in their colours and more than £200,000 in prize-money earned from 11 starts.

Admiral Nelson is the mare’s fifth foal and is entered for both the G2 Norfolk S. and G2 Coventry S. later this week.

Belardo Bowling Along
No fewer than 18 first-crop stallions have now been represented by at least one winner in Europe. Haras de Colleville’s Goken broke early and has maintained his lead with five winners to his credit. He is also the first of the bunch to record a stakes winner. His daughter Livachope (Fr) won Sunday’s listed Prix la Fleche having got her sire off the mark on debut on May 13.

It is the Darley stallion Belardo (Ire), a grandson of the recently deceased Shamardal, who has really caught the eye in the last week, however, bringing his tally up to four with a smart-looking first-time-out winner at Goodwood on Sunday. Trained by Joe Tuite, Lullaby Moon (Ire) streaked away from her rivals, including the 6/4 favourite Stream (GB) (Frankel {GB}), to win by two and a quarter lengths and she holds an entry for Saturday’s G2 Queen Mary S. Belardo could also be represented at Ascot in the G3 Albany S. by another recent winner, the William Haggas-trained Golden Melody (Ire).

With Roaring Lion having died last summer and Hawkbill relocated to Japan, only one son of the celebrated Kitten’s Joy remains at stud in Britain and that is the Lanwades resident and GI Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint winner Bobby’s Kitten. He too could be represented in the Queen Mary by one of his two winners to date, Kirsten Rausing’s Sands Of Time (GB).

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