Twin French Studs With Big Cheltenham Chances

[Wandering Eyes]

The Cheltenham Festival gets underway today with the loudest roar of the week guaranteed to be at 1.30pm as the tapes fly for the first race, the G1 Sky Bet Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.

The joint-favourite for the opener, Al Dancer (Fr) (Al Namix {Fr}), represents the father-and-son team of trainer Nigel and jockey Sam Twiston-Davies, based just a few miles from the course at Naunton, but the 6-year-old’s origins stretch a little farther afield.

Officially bred by SCEA Maulepaire at al, the grey Al Dancer is a result of a mare-share between Haras de Maulepaire’s Comtesse de Tarragon and Marie-Cécile de Saint-Seine, the latter being the breeder of his dam, Steel Dancer (Fr) (Kaldounevees {Fr}).

“Steel Dancer had an accident in training and never raced,” says Pierric Rouxel, who manages Maulepaire for the Comtesse de Tarragon.

“Marie-Cécile is a good friend and she had a number of horses at the time but she was so sad at the idea of not keeping Steel Dancer as a broodmare prospect that she asked if we would like to share the mare with her. She has turned out to be a very good broodmare.”

Indeed, her second foal, Tzar’s Dancer (Fr) (Tzar Rodney {Fr}), won 13 of his 44 races in the colours of de Saint-Seine, including a listed steeplechase at Auteuil, and she has produced two other multiple winners in addition to Al Dancer. The latter, bought as a yearling for €60,000 by Anthony Bromley for owner Dai Walters at Arqana’a mixed autumn sale, has now won five of his eight starts in Britain, including all four this season.

Rouxel will be in the crowd today to see him attempt his first Grade 1 victory.

He says, “It’s like going to Mecca. We dream of Cheltenham. The atmosphere is incomparable and the quality of the competition is so high, it’s a real European championship for jump horses. We don’t have the equivalent in France.”

By the time Rouxel returns to Haras de Maulepaire at Savigné l’Eveque, near Le Mans, Steel Dancer should be about to deliver a foal by Doctor Dino (Fr).

He adds, “This year we won’t have a yearling for sale as at long last she foaled a filly and we want to keep her. Her filly is by Great Pretender (Ire) and is an absolute beauty. Al Dancer was also a beautiful yearling, he was black at that time with a lovely head and he would catch anyone’s eye.”

Steel Dancer will return to Doctor Dino this year—a mating of convenience in one way as the son of Muhtathir (Ire) stands next door on the sister stud of Haras du Mesnil. The two properties combined were formerly the home of the Comtesse de Tarragon’s parents, Jean and Elisabeth Couturié, and the farm was split in two for their two daughters, with Mesnil now being run by the countess’s nephew, Henri Devin, and his wife Antonia.

Both operations have benefited from the burgeoning success of Mesnil’s Doctor Dino. The Comtesse de Tarragon is also the breeder of his daughter La Bague Au Roi (Fr), one of the best jumping mares in training and the winner of two Grade 1 chases this season who will swerve Cheltenham in favour of Aintree. The Devins meanwhile came close to winning a French Classic when their homebred Physiocrate (Fr), trained by their son Henri-Francois Devin, was second in the Prix de Diane in 2015. Their Flat success with the stallion continued last season when Golden Legend (Fr)—who, like Al Dancer, is out of a mare by another of their former residents, Kaldounevees—won the G3 La Coupe de Maisons-Laffitte before finishing runner-up in the GI EP Taylor S.

“Doctor Dino really did it the hard way,” says Irish-born Antonia Devin. “He just had our mares to start with, then he got a few mares from outside and then he just took off because of his own results, which were very impressive.”

His success in both codes has led to increased interest in the 17-year-old from fellow European breeders.

She continues, “We’ve never had so much interest from Ireland and England. We’ve limited his book to 150 but he will eventually cover a few more because he’s very fertile and he’s getting them in foal straight away.”

The Devins, like their stallion, are truly dual-purpose in their breeding exploits and along with their aunt and Rouxel, they will have a number of runners bred at the farm to cheer home at Cheltenham this week, including dual Grade 1 winner Politologue (Fr) (Poliglote {GB}), who heads for tomorrow’s G1 Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase, and A Plus Tard (Fr) (Kapgarde {Fr}). The latter is one of a handful of runners this week for David and Patricia Thompson of Cheveley Park Stud and contests today’s Close Brothers Novices’ Chase. Furthermore the family will be keeping a close eye on Doctor Dino’s elite runners Sharjah (Fr) and Sceau Royal (Fr) in the G1 Champion Hurdle and G1 Queen Mother Champion Chase respectively.

“One of the reasons that we liked Doctor Dino so much was that we had used Muhtathir and he had proved he could get jumping stock,” Antonia explains. “And on the damline there’s Sallust, and I’d always liked him as a sire. When I was at the National Stud he was standing there and, being by Pall Mall, he had a lot of speed and it just sort of clicked. Doctor Dino was such a great racehorse and so sound and what he gives to his progeny is that they are straightforward as well as being very sound, and what more can you ask for?”

The impressive La Bague Au Roi is another example of Doctor Dino working well with one of Mesnil’s ‘home’ stalllions, in this case the grand old veteran Turgeon (GB), sire of her late dam Alliance Royale (Fr).

“Turgeon is 33 now and we’ve decided to retire him even though he still looks in great condition,” says Antonia. “We had a terrific foal by him only last week and we’re very fortunate that Doctor Dino crosses so well with Turgeon, whose stock have a real aptitude for jumping, while Doctor Dino gives them that bit of finishing speed as well.”

Next door at Maulepaire, La Bague Au Roi’s dominant female family flourishes still.

“We have a half-sister to La Bague Au Roi by Saint Des Saints (Fr) and she has a yearling filly by Doctor Dino and she is going again to him this year,” Rouxel reports. “We also have a Doctor Dino yearling filly out of a half-sister to the dam of La Bague Au Roi. It is a real fillies’ family. Usually we don’t even have to look at the sex of the foal, we just know it’s a filly.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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