Tag Archive for: Vadeni

Monday Musings: Sir Mark Dreaming of the Arc

/in /by

The first weekend in July was always considered the pivotal moment in the flat-race season, writes Tony Stafford. It was the time when the best of the present Classic crop could meet their elders in the time-honoured Coral-Eclipse Stakes. That is certainly one sponsorship name that always deserves linking with its race.

Receiving a 10lb weight-for-age concession from the older generation over ten furlongs, I believe the stars of the three-year-old crop ought to beat more mature rivals, as second-favourite Vadeni duly did. But I reckon that, for all the talent the Prix du Jockey Club winner exhibits, the select six-horse Eclipse on Saturday was not won by the best horse on the day, more of which later.

They say patience is a virtue. Every year the remarkable Sir Mark Prescott lines up his team in the spring and we in the game await the flurry of winners from June onwards. It didn’t happen this year and at start of play yesterday morning, Sir Mark had sent out only six winners from the 19 horses to run from his Heath House yard at the bottom of the Bury Side gallops in Newmarket.

That means another 44 of the 63 horses listed in the 2022 edition of my favourite publication, Horses In Training, have yet to see a racecourse unless Sir Mark has twisted some arms to enable his star mare to have a jog up the Rowley Mile or July Course.

The six to have appeared had collected £54k in win and place earnings, £24,000 of which was courtesy of the five-year-old Revolver’s second place in a valuable handicap at the Guineas meeting. Off the track from September 2020, Revolver has yet to appear again. He won his first six races of that season, all handicaps, starting from a mark of 57.

By the time he finally ran in his first race outside handicaps he had gone up by a full three stone and was not disgraced when fourth in the Doncaster Cup, his final outing before Newmarket this spring.

Yesterday, Sir Mark took what must be his favourite active racehorse across to Saint-Cloud for her seasonal reappearance and the grey Frankel five-year-old, Alpinista, was untroubled to pick up the Group 1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud.

The £192k prize will have cheered the trainer as well as owner-breeder Kirsten Rausing, stable jockey Luke Morris, and the uncomplaining Heath House team who will belatedly see a welcome injection into the stable pool.

Alpinista was emulating the example of Revolver by winning six races in a row, in her case all from the start of last season. First it was a fillies’ Listed race at Goodwood; then she moved on to Haydock in the corresponding weekend to this a year ago and gained a first Group 2 victory in the Lancashire Oaks.

The following month Sir Mark embarked on a tour of Germany’s top racecourses and most important races available to older horses with her. First, at Hoppegarten in Berlin, she beat the subsequent Arc winner, Torquator Tasso, in easy fashion.

Next it was Cologne and finally Munich, the last three all at the top level, as was yesterday. Now they are getting closer to home, but it seems after her comfortable victory in Paris yesterday, she will be returning to that city for two Longchamp dates in the autumn, with the Prix Vermeille and then the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe firmly on her agenda.

If she does get safely through the Vermeille leg of her itinerary, she will be going into Europe’s premier race with a fully-tested resume. She has won eight of her 13 career races, seven of them in stakes, and it will be interesting to see how she figures in any re-match with Torquator Tasso if he reappears in the race in which he shocked the racing world nine months ago.

His form had been largely discounted before his success, the one grudging element being German horses’ punching-above-their-weight record in big races in France.

Despite form such as that with Alpinista – multiple group winner Walton Street was third - many felt it a fluke. That opinion was reinforced when he reappeared in late May and ran very moderately. However, on Saturday in Hamburg, Torquator Tasso ran away from his rivals, and his jockey Rene Piechulek was already pulling him up long before they reached the post.

That was also the situation before the corresponding race there in 2021 when, after a modest warm-up, he comfortably collected that Group 2 contest. His only subsequent loss that year was in Alpinista’s race at Hoppegarten.

I would love to see Alpinista win the Arc for Sir Mark. It has a ring to it and it would be a richly-deserved achievement for Kirsten Rausing whose home-bred horses do so well in major races. I know Richard Frisby, her advisor, will take a great amount of pleasure from Alpinista’s continued excellence.

I mentioned the Coral-Eclipse at the top of the article, and it wasn’t until I weighed what I said that I had to wonder whether John and Thady might have gone into one again, this time with Mishriff’s rider David Egan.

It was an excellent training performance from the boys (old and new) to have Mishriff right after the disappointment of his second shot at the Saudi Cup, won so lucratively the previous year. He finished a tailed-off last that day and it was quite an anti-climax as a repeat victory would have catapulted Prince Abdul Rahman Abdullah Faisal’s world traveller past Winx, Arrogate and Gun Runner to the top of the world racehorse earnings chart.

Not seen out since, and turning up at Sandown as a 7-1 shot encountering two 2022 Classic winners in Vadeni and Native Trail, the latter who followed his 2,000 Guineas second to Coroebus with victory in the Irish “2,000”.

After Alenquer made the running from, to my mind, the surprise favourite Bay Bridge, the race became one of those Sandown scrums. Horses and their riders seem to find trouble there even in small fields as they cluster near the far rail in the straight.

As in the Gold Cup at Ascot, the trick was to be out in the clear. As Alenquer faded, Bay Bridge got enveloped in the traffic. Native Trail came on a furlong out and as he went for home it looked as though the Gosden second string, Lord North (33/1), could pinch it on the rail. But then, as David Egan searched in vain for room through the middle of the pack, Christophe Soumillon sailed past on the wide outside aboard Vadeni.

Extricating his mount too late, Egan took Mishriff into an impressive and fast closing second, beaten a neck, passing Native Trail by a head close home with Lord North only half a length back in fourth.

When Vadeni won at Chantilly I reflected on what a massive result that Classic win had been for his sire, Churchill, coming as it did from his first crop. The Coolmore team had always been hoping that the dual Guineas winner would become one of the most important successors to his own sire, the recently deceased Galileo.

Such was the importance of Vadeni’s win to Ireland’s premier stud farm that Aidan O’Brien and the Coolmore partners chose not to challenge for the Eclipse last weekend. That cannot have happened very often over the past 20 years – please excuse me for not checking! [2012, Nathaniel’s year, the only time since at least 2004 – Ed.]

There are sales going on at Newmarket this week, just as they were in Deauville over the past few days. One trainer came back with an Aga Khan maiden three-year-old for €95,000, saying it was almost impossible to buy there.

I love the July sale, which is a great counter-point to the wonderful three days of the July meeting on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Of course, many old-stagers still feel the last day is an unnecessary and unfair extra competition to Ascot and York and, to a lesser extent, Chester.

I will be interested to see what Year Of The Dragon makes on Friday. Slightly unlucky when a close third at Kempton last week, his Timeform p (for Polytrack) 93 rating should compute to a nice price. For purely biased reasons I hope he makes plenty for his owner.

His trainer William Knight had reason to smile at Sandown when Checkandchallenge redeemed his reputation after his luckless 2,000 Guineas run with a fast-finishing second off 108 in a hot mile handicap. Native Trail had got in his way in the Classic and it would not be a shock if his trainer takes “Check” straight back into Group 1 level for his next start.

- TS

Monday Musings: Crown King for a Day?

/in /by

Things move along rapidly in life in the 21st Century even if a certain English monarch has shown plenty of stickability, writes Tony Stafford. In the Coolmore box on Saturday after the authoritative triumph by Desert Crown in the Cazoo Derby, the main players were adamant we had all witnessed a superstar – one that might go all the way.

Even in his interview after the race, Sir Michael Stoute felt emboldened enough to declare him “promising”. Maybe he was saying, “seen it all before”, and I suppose he had all those years ago in Shergar, but promising? Hardly.

Maybe he was talking about his jockey. You would never have thought Richard Kingscote was having only his second mount in the race in a large field where more experienced big-race riders could easily have got caught up in the inevitable Epsom traffic that can envelop them on the wrong day.

But Kingscote, untroubled, could just as easily have been riding on a Friday evening at Haydock or Chester, the two tracks where he had best showcased his talents in the years he spent riding for the Tom Dascombe stable until Michael Owen’s mid-winter shake-up.

You need luck in this game. Sir Michael Stoute has never been a man in his half-century as a trainer to change his stable jockeys unduly, but Ryan Moore’s progressive unavailability with his Ballydoyle commitments meant there needed to be an available back-up.

In the past, Frankie Dettori might have been a contender for drafting in with Moore cemented to Coolmore, but Kingscote had moved south after leaving Manor House Stables and must have impressed Desert Crown’s trainer that he would do very nicely when he showed up to ride out at Freemason Lodge.

The son of Nathaniel, who before York had raced only once in a maiden at Nottingham last November, was obviously very talented. His trainer, though, was unsure whether Desert Crown could be readied in time for the Dante. Fortunately he was and Kingscote was on board, looking the part as they strolled home in what history has told us is always the best Derby trial.

All that was left was to beat the Godolphins and the Coolmores on Saturday, and this they did with panache, coming down the straight with a surge that took them past Moore and Stone Age as the Aidan O’Brien first string was battling to take control.

The consensus in the box afterwards was that Stone Age didn’t stay, along with a recognition that it would not have mattered if he had. The winner was supreme. It was going to take something special, they thought, to beat him.

That view held until mid-afternoon yesterday and, as is often the case when Coolmore don’t have the winner of a Classic, they still have more than a little to do with the breeding and production of it.

Step forward Vadeni, who swamped the front-running Modern Times for speed and drew effortlessly away in the last furlong of the Qatar Prix du Jockey-Club at Chantilly. He won by five lengths, avenging a defeat in a Group 3 on the track last September when third to James Ferguson’s El Bodegan. That colt battled on well to pip Modern Times for the runner-up spot.

The consolation for the Coolmore partners is that the winner was the result of an outsourcing by his breeder the Aga Khan, who sent Vadeni’s mother, Vaderami (an unraced daughter of the German stallion Monsun), to be one of the first group of mares to visit Churchill.

The quest is always how to replace – or in their wildest dreams – replicate Galileo. They’ve always thought Churchill was his quickest Classic son as the champion juvenile of his year and easy winner of both the Newmarket and Curragh 2,000 Guineas.

Having gone into this weekend as the sire of two Group 3 winners, Churchill now has a five-length winner of a Classic in a field of 15 where runner-up and third had already won at Group 1 level.

Churchill is, on a lower plane, the sire of one of my favourite handicappers, Brian Meehan’s Lawful Command, who has all the courage of his wonderful grandsire. That colt will keep on winning handicaps, but I bet Sam Sangster, who bought Lawful Command, will already be resigned that his yearlings will be priced out of most mortals’ budgets this autumn with the stud fee doing a similar exponential jump as Galileo’s did when his first three-year-olds began flexing their Classic muscles almost two decades ago. Not even his passing has stopped them twitching away!

I mentioned last week when discussing Desert Crown, that he might not have been the most obvious contender for winning a Derby. Not all products of Nathaniel, Frankel’s contemporary and three-quarter-length debut victim to the unbeaten champion, are high-class. Both colts of course were by Galileo, and Nathaniel will always be remembered as sire of the 21st Century’s best race-mare, Enable. He has been a great servant to Newsells Park Stud in Hertfordshire and Gary Coffee and Julian Dollar have every right in declaring him a steal at £15k too!

Desert Crown may well aspire to similar heights as Enable. There have been many examples of Michael Stoute horses developing from ordinary performers in their three-year-old season to international champions, like Singspiel and Pilsudski all those years ago. When they start out good, they rarely disappoint.

Sir Michael must still hanker after the days when he trained horses of the calibre of Shergar for the Aga Khan, but His Highness’s horses have for many years been centred in France and Ireland for racing and breeding. Long-term stud operations cannot be carried on at full effectiveness without regular injections of new talent and, on the day Churchill offered fresh impetus for Coolmore, the Aga Khan Studs unveiled their latest trump card.

There were three Aga Khan winners yesterday and, rather like the perfect Harry Kane hat-trick (left-foot, right-foot and a header – that’s for you Your Majesty, sorry about yesterday!) – they offered a bright vision of the future.

First in the 12f fillies’ Group 3, the Prix de Royaumont, Christophe Soumillon brought Baiykara, only second best in the market, with an irresistible run which provided a step-by-step dress rehearsal for their Classic show a little later on.

The extent of Vadeni’s success over ten-and-a -half furlongs had been even less anticipated than the filly’s win. You got the impression from winning trainer Jean-Claude Rouget that he might be thinking less about Longchamp in October for Valeni than Leopardstown the previous month. That was probably in line with Soumillon’s earlier murmurings about the Arc for Baiykara.

“I love that race, <the Irish Champion Stakes>”, said Rouget, who has now won five Jockey-Clubs and four of the last seven. Some people in racing seem to think this is the “cheaper” alternative to Epsom and, while Rouget will not hold that view, he did concede that there have been some less than top winners of the Chantilly race along with stars like last year’s hero and European Champion, St Mark’s Basilica. Then again, not every Epsom Derby winner enters the sport’s pantheon either.

The third Aga Khan winner, almost bizarrely, was a sprinter, although in the year when the Aga Khan studs are celebrating the 100 years since the colours of his grandfather, also the Aga Khan, were first seen on a racecourse. That year he bought the flying speckled grey filly Mumtaz Mahal and as well as proving a great racehorse herself, she appears in many of today’s pedigrees, often through her descendant Nasrullah.

Yesterday’s sprint winner was Rozgar, easy winner of the six-furlong Listed race, and while out of an Aga Khan-bred daughter of Sea The Stars, she is by the Darley sprint sire, Exceed and Excel.

Returning though to Baiykara, she is from the first crop of Zarak, a beautifully-bred young stallion, coincidentally listed in 2022’s brochure from the Aga Khan’s French stud, the Haras de Bonneval, at the same fee as Churchill, €25,000.

By Dubawi out of the unbeaten champion mare Zarkava, he did not quite live up to his exemplary breeding, but one of his four wins in 13 starts was at Group 1 level – the Grand Prix De Saint-Cloud and he did just nudge the €1 million prize mark.

Zarak also had something to say later in the card, providing a cross-Channel win for the William Haggas stable.  This was Purplepay, a filly bought by his long-time clients Lael Stable at last December’s Arqana sale for €2 milllion.

That price would never have been countenanced in the first half of last year, even though she was prolific in the provinces, but she upped the ante for her last two runs and picked up a Longchamp conditions race before running third in a Saint-Cloud Group 1.

Fittingly, on the weekend when the 2022 Derby was run in Lester’s honour, his American friends Lael Stable, with whom he owned shares in Haggas horses, now have a very smart filly with his son-in-law.

As probably the trainer closest to the Sir Michael Stoute tradition of steadily bringing on his young horses, he can take this explosive filly a long way, perhaps starting at Royal Ascot next week. Yes, we’ve got that to come, in just eight days’ time. Chantilly was only one day after a wonderful Derby performance but, as we’ve seen, things in racing rarely stand still for long.

- TS