‘It’s A Crucial Week’ – New Stallions On Show As Breeders Flock to Newmarket Open Houses

[Wandering Eyes]

NEWMARKET, UK — Britain doesn't yet have its own equivalent of the Irish Stallion Trail or La Route des Etalons, but credit must go to the seven farms in and around Newmarket that have thrown open their doors to breeders for an extended run to coincide with the concluding sessions of the Tattersalls December Sale.

Opening times over the next few days vary for each farm but, on Sunday, it was possible to view 26 stallions parading within a 30-mile radius of British Flat racing's headquarters.

Spared the fuss of having to parade were a couple of the town's elder statesman in Dubawi and Oasis Dream. The Darley behemoth was sure to keep a close eye on proceedings from the comfort of his box at Dalham Hall Stud, however, while Oasis Dream, now rising 26, cut a fine figure when giving a buck and a kick in the paddock that runs parallel to the yellow brick road leading to the stallion yard at Juddmonte's Banstead Manor Stud.

For many, the road's end brought a cherished encounter with the living legend that is Frankel, as well as the first glimpse of Lead Artist in his new home, preparing to embark on his first season at a fee of £12,500 next year.

“It's a crucial week,” Shane Horan, Juddmonte's nominations manager, said of the opportunity to showcase this year's G1 Lockinge Stakes hero to the breeders that arrived in droves on Sunday.

“He's gone down really well. He's a Dubawi out of a Frankel mare and a Group 1-winning miler. He was an obvious one for us to stand and, any new horse that comes here, there is always huge interest in them. Already, lots of people have asked us to hold one [a nomination] and then they'll come down and see him and have a think about what mares would suit him. That's where the process starts and we'll finalise things once the sales are over.”

Among those in attendance to be taken with Lead Artist was Daniel Creighton, the bloodstock agent and co-founder of Salcey Forest Stud in Warwickshire, who also took the opportunity to voice some concerns with regards the dilemma so many breeders face when it comes to mating plans.

“He's a very nice horse. It's obviously an impeccable pedigree and they've priced him at a very reasonable level,” Creighton said of Lead Artist. “For a commercial breeder like myself, it's important to have stallions that are affordable. England is kind of lacking in stallions at the moment and, unfortunately, the market has just gone so polarised towards first-season sires that, if you use horses in their second or third season, you could be in trouble. They don't keep stallions like Territories that were affordable and could get you a winner. Now, you have to go to a first-season sire or spend 100 grand to send your mare to a proven stallion.”

Next year, Creighton will be spoilt for choice should he choose to go down the first-season sire route, with Lead Artist being joined in Newmarket by this year's G1 Prix Jacques le Marois winner Diego Velazquez at the National Stud, as well as the triple Group 1 scorer Rosallion and G1 Commonwealth Cup hero Inisherin at Dalham Hall. The dual Group 1-winning juvenile Shadow Of Light, new to Darley's Kildangan Stud for 2026, also paraded at Dalham Hall on Sunday before his move to Ireland later this year.

“He came here about six weeks ago and he's settled in very well,” Jamie Jackson, the National Stud's sales and nominations manager, said of the striking Diego Velazquez, who has been introduced at a fee of £17,500.

“He's been able to put on some weight and condition, he's showing amazingly, and everyone's been very complimentary. We'd love to cover a full book for the syndicate behind him and Sam Sangster. If he gets 160 mares, we'd be absolutely delighted – and there's no reason why he wouldn't.”

Whilst the team at the National Stud prepared to host a bumper crowd for a special event later on Sunday, it was all hands to the pump at Dalham Hall as Darley's UK base welcomed a relentless stream of visitors eager to inspect the trio of newcomers.

“We can get hundreds and hundreds of people here,” Dawn Laidlaw, Darley's head of nominations, said of the five-day open house which got underway there on Saturday. “It's brilliant for us, particularly when you have new stallions. And it's a good chance for people to see the horses that have been here a year or two and how they've changed.”

Of the new recruits, she added, “I would say one of the winners for people has been Inisherin. He's a lovely, big stamp of a horse and was obviously very fast. Shadow Of Light was a brilliant two-year-old and seems to be going down well, while Rosallion was an absolutely fantastic racehorse. He's probably a little bit light at the moment – he obviously had quite a hard season – but he moves really well and is exceptionally athletic. I think, this time next year, he'll look like a totally different horse.”

Those views were echoed by Dwayne Woods, the bloodstock agent and owner of Brook Stud, who was quick to highlight the obvious potential of Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum's Irish 2,000 Guineas and St James's Palace Stakes winner.

“It's obviously very early days for them to look good, straight out of training,” Woods said of Darley's three newcomers. “But I thought Rosallion was an absolutely beautiful horse with plenty of scope and size. He's going to look fabulous in a year's time and I think he'll go down really well with breeders.”

He continued, “We've obviously seen them when they were racing, but I always love to see them close up as stallions and to envisage the way they're going to progress.”

Brook Stud had a busy December Foal Sale when offering 11 weanlings, including a Study Of Man filly who sold to Daithi Harvey for 175,000gns.

Another to enjoy a successful time of things at Tattersalls was the dual Group 1-winning sprinter Shaquille, who averaged 64,371gns from 35 of his first-crop representatives.

Little wonder the team at Ace Stud was in a buoyant mood as Shaquille's dappled bay coat glistened in the Sunday morning sunshine, with breeders Fiona and Mick Denniff featuring among the interesting onlookers.

“We sold two foals by him this week, we've got a mare in foal to him, and another couple will be coming back to him,” Fiona said of their fierce patronage of the young stallion.

“As I stood and looked at him there, I said to my husband, 'I don't need to make any notes on this stallion.' I like him that much. I watched him when he was racing and thought he was a phenomenal racehorse. Then, when I saw him for the first time, he looked like a miler and not a sprinter. He walked so well and had so much about him. For me, it was a no-brainer – I had to use him.”

Similarly, many breeders who thought it a no-brainer to support Chaldean when he stood his first season at Banstead Manor in 2024 have seen their judgement well rewarded at Park Paddocks in recent days.

With an average of 107,440gns from 25 foals, the Classic-winning son of Frankel also featured prominently among the leading first-crop sires at the December Foal Sale.

“We could not be happier with Chaldean,” Horan summed up ahead of the sire's imminent return from Cambridge Stud in New Zealand, his base for the Southern Hemisphere breeding season.

“We were quietly confident coming into the sale that he would go really well. We were very pleased with the Juddmonte foals that we have on the farm and we knew that he'd covered an exceptional book of mares. All of the right people were buying them and the amount of people that stopped me to say, 'Well done with the Chaldeans, you must be very pleased with the Chaldeans.' He was a very sought-after foal himself when he was offered and people remember him.”

Just a short hop away at Shadwell's Beech House Stud, another son of Frankel, Mostahdaf, prowled for breeders on Sunday in the wake of his first foals selling at Tattersalls, headlined by a filly Shadwell signed for themselves at 100,000gns.

As the curtain prepares to come down on 2025, however, we can be forgiven for turning our attentions to Shadwell poster boy Baaeed and the countdown to his first runners arriving on European racecourses in 2026.

“It's a massive year for Shadwell and our stallion operation,” said the team's UK nominations and EU marketing manager, Will Wright.

“Obviously, we've got Baaeed whose legacy goes all the way back to Height Of Fashion, our foundation mare. It's a story in the making, really, and his first yearlings were incredibly well received, selling for up to €800,000. Almost half of his first crop have been retained by their owner-breeders without sending them to the sales. He's everything that a stallion should be and must be one of the most exciting prospects of recent times heading into next year.”

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