Seven Days: Ascot Shines in the Season’s Gloaming

[Wandering Eyes]

Qipco British Champions Day should be one of those occasions when some of the stallions of next year go out in a blaze of glory on the track. Richard Fahey's Powerful Glory did indeed enhance his future stallion credentials when delivering a 200/1 shock success in the British Champions Sprint, but the other major winners of the day were geldings, bar of course the dual Champion Fillies and Mares Stakes winner Kalpana (Study Of Man).

The upside of that scenario is that we can look forward to some returning heroes and, after conquering Paris and Ascot in his three Group 1 triumphs this year, the Aga Khan Studs' mighty flagbearer Calandagan (Gleneagles) heads east next to take on Tokyo.

“Are you getting worried? We're coming!” joked racing manager Nemone Routh to the group of Japan Racing Association representatives on course, in reference to Calandagan's next outing in the Japan Cup on November 30.

In conquering the hitherto top-rated Ombudsman (Night Of Thunder) in the Champion Stakes on Saturday, the four-year-old Calandagan will have improved his position in the world rankings and victory in Japan could seal Horse of the Year honours. 

We arguably saw the two best horses in the world racing on Saturday. In the Everest at Randwick, which is worth £3.46m to the winner, the outstanding Hong Kong-based sprinter Ka Ying Rising (Shamexpress) just turned up and did what he does best in beating off the opposition by more than a length to claim the 15th win of his 17-race career. 

Of the top horses competing at Ascot on Saturday we will say farewell now to Delacroix (Dubawi) and his movie-star looks as he joins Camille Pissarro on the new boys' list at Coolmore. Rosallion (Blue Point), too, is a likely retiree, though it appears that Ombudsman will remain in training with the Gosdens. Whether or not Field Of Gold (Kingman) also stays at Clarehaven for a four-year-old season in training remains to be seen. We hope so.

We do know that the Arc winner Daryz (Sea The Stars) is set to return to training next year, which means that the Aga Khan Studs team can look forward to plenty more high-level international outings with him and Calandagan. 

Of the latter, Routh said,  “I'm sure he will be back here for the King George but then we've got Daryz now as well, so it will be interesting. First we'll go to Japan and then maybe Dubai and I imagine he'll keep travelling, but he's an amazing horse and it's really exciting to have him.”

Calandagan's victory gave his trainer Francis Graffard his twelfth Group 1 win of the year, and clearly he may not be finished yet. In some respects it also brought a sense of relief after Powerful Glory became a 200/1 winner of the Champions Sprint and Cicero's Gift took some major scalps in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at 100/1. The latter, appropriately for his trainer Charlie Hills, is by his former stable star Muhaarar, who was an altogether shorter-priced favourite when winning the Champions Sprint at the same meeting a decade ago. The joy Cicero's Gift's victory brought to his trainer in a tough year in which he has lost his father, and the evident thrill it gave jockey Jason Watson, made it more special to behold, however unexpected it might have been considering the eight Group 1 winners he had in opposition in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.

The day had started with a proper staying champion in Trawlerman, an Ascot specialist through and through and the star performer for his sire Golden Horn. Like Kalpana, the seven-year-old was winning on Champions Day for the second time. His first victory in this same race came in 2023 and he was third last year behind Kyprios. For the first time this year the British Champions Long Distance Cup was run as a Group 1, making it the first race day in the country to stage five Group 1s on the same card. 

On an afternoon when geldings ruled, they also filled the first three slots in the newly introduced Qipco British Champions Day Two-Year-Old Conditions Stakes, in which the first two home, Mission Central (No Nay Never) and Ardisia (Ardad), were respectively been by the O'Leary brothers, Michael and Eddie.  The winner had previously won the G3 Round Tower Stakes and the runner-up is an admirable juvenile with five wins to his credit, including Redcar's Listed Two-Year-Old Trophy. This race is, however, a strange addition to the Champions Day card.

With 31,257 racegoers in attendance at Ascot on Saturday – over 50 per cent more than the 19,715 who attended both days of the Irish Champions Festival combined, the atmosphere throughout the afternoon was electric. They came to see the best, and even with some big-price winners, they were served up a treat.

 

Sir Mark Prescott with John Gosden and Prince Ahmad bin Khalid bin Abdullah Al Saud | Emma Berry

 

Champions of the past were remembered too, as the late, great trainer Major Dick Hern was inducted into the British Horseracing Hall of Fame along with the 11-time Group 1 winner Enable. Prince Ahmad bin Khalid bin Abdullah Al Saud, the son of Enable's late owner-breeder Prince Khalid, was on hand to receive her medal from Hall of Fame panelist Sir Mark Prescott, along with Enable's trainer John Gosden.

The only thing missing from Champions Day was a proper celebration from the inimitable Con Marnane, breeder of Sheikh Rashid Dalmook Al Maktoum's Powerful Glory. We can only guess at the revelries which ensured at Bansha House on Saturday night. 

International Opposition for Calandagan?

Oaks winner Minnie Hauk (Frankel) and Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan (Goldencents) feature among the 14 overseas entries for the Japan Cup which were revealed last week.

Aidan O'Brien's quintet of entries includes Los Angeles (Camelot) and Stay True (Galileo), while his son Joseph has entered Al Riffa (Wootton Bassett), who is one of the favourites for the Melbourne Cup.

Along with Calandagan, his stable-mate Goliath (Adlerflug) could also be in for a return visit to Tokyo, while the British-trained trio of Dubai Honour (Pride Of Dubai), Rashabar (Holy Roman Emperor) and Wimbledon Hawkeye (Kameko) are also on the list. The two potential Australian-trained runners, bred respectively in Britain and France, are Sir Delius (Frankel), who was recently ruled out of the Spring Carnival in Melbourne following an unsatisfactory scan, and OTI Racing's Deakin (Australia).

Teofilo's Influence Spreads Via Caulfield Cup Sire St Jean

The action is heating up in Victoria ahead of the Cox Plate and Melbourne Cup, and last Saturday's G1 Caulfield Cup continued a theme which has been somewhat prevalent in Group 1 contests in Europe this year in that the five-year-old winner Half Yours – a gelding – is a son of a relatively under-the-radar sire.

The stallion in question is St Jean (Teofilo), who was bred in Ireland by Hadi Al Tajir, a great friend of Sheikh Hamdan, and trained initially by Kevin Prendergast. A winner at three, he was sold at the end of that season for 65,000gns to race on in Australia, where he won once for Aaron Purcell before a tendon injury curtailed his racing season in 2014. St Jean reemerged in New Zealand several years later to win the G3 City of Auckland Cup before embarking on a stallion career at Brackley Park. 

While his racing career is not quite up there with the best of them, St Jean does represent a family of the best of them as his third dam is the great Height Of Fashion, meaning that he emanates from the family of Nashwan, Deep Impact and Baaeed among others. And of course his sire Teofilo has made quite an impact on the Melbourne Cup – for which Half Yours is now co-favourite – in recent years as the sire of Cross Counter, Twilight Payment and Without A Fight, winner of the race between 2018 and 2023.

According to Arion's statistics, Half Yours was one of only 11 foals in St Jean's second crop. There had been 17 in his first crop and 13 and 10 in subsequent years. He may be a little busier this season now that his son has carried off one of Australian Racing's most coveted prizes. Incidentally, a little piece of history was made in this year's Caulfield Cup as Jamie Melham (née Kah) became the first female jockey to win the race.  

A First for Racing in Mauritius

Mauritian trainer Shawn Seabaluck called in to Tattersalls on Friday and though he wasn't there to buy yearlings, he had just completed an important equine shopping trip which will see the arrival later this week of the first shipment of British horses to the island. 

 

Shawn Seabaluck and Richard Kent | Emma Berry

 

With the help of Mickley Stud's Richard Kent and trainer David Evans, Seabaluck has bought a batch of 12 horses, ranging in age from two to four, to be trained at Mauritius's Champ de Mars racecourse, which was founded in 1812, making it the oldest southern hemisphere track and one of the oldest in the world. 

“At any meeting you can have 20,000 to 50,000 people wanting to go horseracing,” said Seabaluck, a trainer of 30 years' standing. 

“Normally our horses come from South Africa. You buy them in one lot but you don't know what you're buying. This is history now, because it's the first time that British horses have been to Mauritius. It's a 12-hour flight. We are dealing with IRT (International Racehorse Transport) and we are scheduled to fly on 22 October. So far, we're doing good. Our target is buy something like 30 to 40 horses.”

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