Grimthorpe Relishing Latest Juddmonte Cycle

[Wandering Eyes]

It is not just the horses with Classic aspirations who are emerging from hibernation just now. Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle is back at work, too.

“There are an awful lot of bubbles at this time of year and I always feel the Almighty has several hedgehogs out there ready to prick them all,” says Lord Grimthorpe wryly. “You just hope one or two escape. But it is an exciting time, especially the way our season is, when you have from end of October to contemplate what might or might not be in May.”

To be fair, Prince Khaled Abdullah’s racing manager hardly felt as though a bubble had burst when–a year ago last Friday–a filly from the first crop of Nathaniel (Ire) was beaten in a conditions race at Newbury. For one thing, the race was won by a filly running in the first colours of his employer, likewise trained by John Gosden. And Enable (GB) shaped perfectly respectably, just failing to get up for second behind ‘TDN Rising Star’ Shutter Speed (GB) (Dansili {GB}).

“Enable was always going to be best at a mile and a half,” Grimthorpe says. “And actually William Buick got off that day and said she’d run a very decent race and that she would be nice.”

Nice! A year on, of course, that defeat at Newbury remains the only one endured by Enable, who graduated from Classic success against her own sex to prove no less dominant against colts and older horses.

Working back from a defence of the Arc, and possibly the Breeders’ Cup thereafter, she will make a somewhat later start this time round. “I think the Coronation Cup would make sense to start her,” Grimthorpe says. “We know she acts at Epsom. The blossoms on my trees at home are a month behind, and after the winter we’ve had it’s been rather the same with some of the fillies. But with older horses, and all those races to think about in the second half of the season, there isn’t the same pressure to get going [as when targeting Classics].”

It has to be auspicious for her prospects of consolidating her status at four that Enable so thrived on her schedule last year.

“After every race there’d be mutterings about a very hard race, that she’d need a break now,” Grimthorpe recalls. “But she’s always got home, eaten up fully and the next Monday morning whipped round and dropped Imran [Shahwani], her lad. The key to success with any Thoroughbred is soundness. You can be incredibly talented, but if you can’t string it together–either mentally or physically–you’re not going to end up doing yourself justice. With the good ones, I think they certainly push themselves to the front, once they’re rolling.”

One way or another, these are unusually exciting times even for an operation accustomed to a consistent presence in elite racing over the past 40 years. Having represented its apogee on the track, Frankel (GB) (Galileo {Ire}) has quickly suggested that he could achieve commensurate standing in his new career at stud.

Banstead Manor, headquarters of Prince Khaled’s Juddmonte breeding empire in Newmarket, recently mourned the death of its great mare Hasili (Ire) (Kahyasi {Ire}) and last week pensioned her son Dansili (GB) (Danehill). But there is a timely changing of the guard, with Frankel flanked by other young sires of diverse strengths in Kingman (GB) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}), Bated Breath (GB) (Dansili {GB}) and, over in Kentucky, Arrogate (Unbridled’s Song). So albeit their owner is now an octogenarian, and some peripheral land and stock has been sensibly streamlined, arguably he has never had a more stimulating sense of the legacy he continues to build for the breed.

“Prince Khaled has always been a great ‘husbander’ of families,” Grimthorpe notes. “Both in his private life and his bloodstock life, he’s a very strong family man. What he’s always done is nurture these families, given them the best chance he possibly could. All those foundations were laid quite a long time ago, really, and the benefits are still being reaped today. For a homebred operation, which is essentially what we are, it gives you an inner glow that’s hard to replicate when you see third, fourth and even fifth generation Juddmonte families.”

“We all know it’s cyclical. Everything has its ups and downs. But to have the likes of Kingman coming on, his first crop literally on the cusp, for Prince Khaled it’s incredibly motivating.”

In some ways, even the Prince and his team must be learning more about Frankel through his progeny. Cracksman (GB) (Frankel {GB}) is only the most luminous example of many foals proving able to extend the trademark buoyancy of their sire to a mile and a half.

“It would have been a huge mistake for Frankel to go to the Derby, at the stage he was at in his career,” Grimthorpe says. “But certainly as a 4-year-old I always said he would have been effective from five furlongs to a mile and a half. You could have run him in the King’s Stand and you could have run him in the King George.”

“To take him to an Arc that year would have been a huge ask: to go a mile and a half first time in incredibly soft ground. On good ground it might have been different but Henry [Cecil, his late trainer] was adamant he wanted to go to the Champion S.–and in the end he had to take on the two best horses of that era at that distance anyway [Cirrus Des Aigles (Fr) (Even Top {Ire}) and Nathaniel]. So it wasn’t a side-step.”

“His pedigree is a bit of a mixture. His dam Kind (Ire) (Danehill) was obviously five and six furlongs, but if you go back it’s a Whitney family, you’ve got Rock Garden, you’ve got Stage Door Johnny, so there is quite a bit of stamina laid back. And of course Galileo has done incredibly well with fast mares. Frankel was certainly the flagbearer for that particular type of mating.”

In view of Frankel’s candidature as potentially the ultimate heir to his sire, it is interesting to hear that his defining characteristic as a racehorse–in the view of a man who followed his career from the inside–is so similar to the one always identified in Galileo by his trainer, Aidan O’Brien.

“I think above all Frankel had the will,” Grimthorpe suggests. “He wanted to do it, all stages of his life; he never really ever took a backward step. I’ve almost given up being surprised by Frankel, really. The hardest thing always for him, even when he was a yearling, was that he had to carry the weight of everybody’s vast expectations; and yet he has always seemed to carry them quite comfortably. That’s been the most extraordinary thing about him and I think his stud career so far has again proved that point really. Like in all sports, he’s got to keep on doing it. But he’s given himself a huge chance.”

With his fee now £175,000, it does no harm that Frankel’s highest achievers to date have been for others. But it seems inevitable that he will sooner or later produce something special from Juddmonte families, too. One possibility is Contingent (GB) (Frankel {GB}), a filly out of G1 Prix Marcel Boussac winner Proportional (GB) (Beat Hollow {GB}) who won impressively on debut at Leopardstown last autumn.

“She was drawn 18 of 18, but had got the race pretty much won by the time she came into the straight,” Grimthorpe says. “To do that was smart. I saw her the other day and physically she’s done well, though she’s still a bit wintry. I think possibly in Dermot [Weld]’s mind she’s more of an Oaks filly. While we haven’t ruled out the Irish Guineas, I’d think she’ll go either for the Victor McCalmont or the Blue Wind.”

Another interesting prospect, among the 3-year-old fillies, is At Your Pleasure (GB) (War Front). “She won on the polytrack at Deauville and Andre Fabre was considering Prix De La Grotte,” Grimthorpe reports. “But she was still wintry and we know she wants good ground, at least, so there didn’t seem much point. Whether the French Guineas comes too soon remains to be seen, but she has the potential to be pretty nice.”

As for the colts, there were mixed messages from Expert Eye (GB) (Acclamation {GB}) on his reappearance at Newbury on Saturday. Having pulled so hard early, it had to be encouraging–after his flop in the Dewhurst last autumn (hedgehogs operate right through the season)–that he could retain sufficient energy to claim second.

Then there is Imaging (GB) (Oasis Dream {GB}), second to G1 QIPCO 2000 Guineas favourite Gustav Klimt (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) in their trial at Leopardstown. “We did have things in our favour–he acts on the ground and had the benefit of a run–so it’s hard not to be impressed by the winner,” Grimthorpe admits. “That said, we were over 11 lengths clear of the Dewhurst and Middle Park winner so we have to be encouraged. I’d think we’d look at the French or Irish Guineas.”

For Gosden, meanwhile, Crossed Baton (GB) (Dansili {GB}) built nicely on his maiden success when scoring his recent reappearance at Kempton. “He’s on an upward curve, but still has a lot more to do,” Grimthorpe stresses. “He’ll probably go to the Blue Riband [at Epsom on Wednesday] and then we’ll gauge him from there.”

As it happens, Crossed Baton made his debut in the equivalent maiden to the one in which Frankel famously beat Nathaniel on their mutual debut. Both those horses, if in different ways, have made a fine start to their stud careers. But Nathaniel, over at Newsells Park, has somehow remained commercially cold despite coming up with Enable.

Grimthorpe is delighted that the industry is making a concerted effort now to redeem the market’s disdain for staying blood–not least, wearing his York chairman’s hat, through a spectacular boost in the value of the Ebor H. next year to £1 million.

“We have to enhance, preserve, and nurture the stayer,” he says. “The gene pool, and the amount of active stallions, has diminished–especially in Flat racing. If that trend continues then it cannot be to the improvement of the breed, in fact quite the opposite. You will get more and more the same, when I think the beauty of our racing and our bloodstock in Britain, and in Europe, is its diversity.”

“But this is not a quick fix. It’s got to be a 10-year programme. Because in order to alter the psyche of, first of all, trainers and owners and bloodstock agents, they’ve got to see that it’s worthwhile owning and racing this stock; very worthwhile. Then you have to get into the psyche of the breeder and vendor, because at the moment, literally the moment, a sire doesn’t get whizzbang horses it joins the National Hunt roster.”

There have been few more dispiriting examples of that syndrome than Juddmonte’s own Champs Elysees (GB) (Danehill), whose books had dwindled irretrievably before he was exported to Ireland as a jumps stallion–in which role he has been in instant demand.

Yet Grimthorpe cautions that just getting those first drivers of the market on board will take five or six years. “And even then, you’ve still got to get the stud master and the mare-owner to breed horses worthwhile for this programme,” he said. “Then another cycle will eventually begin, and all these valuable races will become more of the norm.”

Grimthorpe astutely points out that the commercial obsession with speed is founded on a specious principle anyway. “If you look at all the good sprinters, you almost have to go back to Oasis Dream (GB) (Green Desert) and Dayjur (Danzig) [to find many] who were top-class at three,” he noted. “Most of the good sprinters show their best at four or five–so they are not necessarily precocious. Often you need the same patience, whether you are racing over five furlongs or a mile and a half.”

“These days the moment a horse shows appreciable form over a mile and a half or even a mile and quarter, you get two calls. One will be an Irishman or Nicky Henderson; and the other is Australian. But although [their] money is good, suddenly you can think: ‘Hang on a minute here, in 2019 I could be winning £750,000 at York with a horse like this. Why would I sell it?'”

“The good thing, with the Ebor, is that with fantastic support from our sponsor [Sky Bet], everybody can still be involved without it costing a fortune–which is the essence of York, Yorkshire and Yorkshire racing. If you’re paying down to seventh or eighth, quite a lot of people are going to have a very good payday.”

He is heartened that the industry is at least uniting to address the situation. After all, even if Nathaniel appeared to merit greater dividends for coming up with Enable, things could have been worse.

“As Julian Dollar [of Newsells] said, imagine if Nathaniel had waited until his second or third crop,” Grimthorpe says. “Where would he be then? The patience would have long run out. And the whole racing world would have missed out.”

View the full article