The Increasing Influence of Shamardal

[Wandering Eyes]

The careers of Dubawi (Ire) (Dubai Millennium {GB}) and Shamardal (Giant’s Causeway) have run side by side all the way through. Both were Maktoum-owned Group 1-winning juveniles in 2004 and then ‘Guineas’ winners for Godolphin in 2005. Both then joined the Darley roster, initially as dual-hemisphere shuttlers before being restricted to the Northern Hemisphere; and their stud careers have both blossomed ever since. For much of that time, Dubawi’s status has arguably been higher (witness that in 2015, the last time that Shamardal’s fee was specified rather than being described as ‘private’, Dubawi was covering for £125,000 while Shamardal was more affordable at €70,000). Shamardal, however, is currently riding on such a crest of a wave that one would now be hard pressed to name a first among equals.

While I am second to none in my respect for Dubawi’s ability to instil toughness and durability as well as class into his stock, I have to admit to a totally subjective bias in Shamardal’s favour simply because I’ve admired him from the outset. Admittedly, I didn’t notice him when the late Sheikh Maktoum al Maktoum’s Gainsborough Stud Management, after consultation with that great judge-of-a-bargain Mark Johnston, bought him at Tattersalls for the ludicrously small sum of 50,000gns as a yearling in October 2003. (He had been passed in for $485,000 as a foal but his price was then depressed by rumours of a veterinary misdiagnosis as a ‘wobbler’).

I was, though, at Ayr on 12 July 2004 when he made his debut, and the ease with which the powerful but still-very-raw blueblood scored put him into my mental notebook straightaway. His sire Giant’s Causeway had been Cartier Horse of the Year in 2000 and his dam’s full-brother Street Cry (Ire) (Machiavellian) had won the G1 Dubai World Cup in 2002. The pedigree was very much in vogue; and the manner of his eight-length victory, as well as his imposing physique, suggested that he could well live up to it.

Shamardal followed up by taking the G2 Vintage S. at Goodwood two weeks later in the colours of Abdulla Buhaleeba before completing his unblemished juvenile campaign in the autumn by taking the G1 Dewhurst S. in Maktoum Al Maktoum’s Gainsborough silks. Thereafter, having been transferred from Mark Johnston to Saeed bin Suroor, he raced in the Godolphin blue, winning all three of the races which he contested in Europe in 2005: the G1 Gainsborough Stud Poule d’Essai des Poulains over 1600m at Longchamp, the G1 Prix du Jockey Club over 2100m at Chantilly (beating subsequent G1 Irish Derby, G1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and G1 King George And Queen Elizabeth S. hero Hurricane Run (Ire) (Montjeu {Ire}) by a rapidly diminishing neck) and, merely nine days later, the G1 St. James’s Palace S. over a mile at ‘Royal’ York (transferred from Ascot) by three lengths.

Shamardal’s next start was to have been in the G1 Eclipse Stakes over 10 furlongs at Sandown, but a training setback put paid to that plan and prompted his immediate retirement. He subsequently served the first of his seasons at Kildangan Stud in 2006 at an introductory fee of €40,000. That same spring saw Shamardal’s contemporary and erstwhile stablemate Dubawi, winner of the G1 National S. at The Curragh as a 2-year-old and of the G1 Irish 2000 Guineas and G1 Prix Jacques le Marois at three, take up stud duties at Dalham Hall at a fee of £25,000. These have been their bases since then, other than in 2008 when each spent a season in the other’s home. Both stallions did very well from the start in both Europe and Australia, but their great success in the Northern Hemisphere soon led to them becoming permanent European residents.

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The horse who first got Shamardal’s ball rolling was the Bart Cummings-trained filly Faint Perfume (Aus). When Shamardal was taken out of training in July 2006, he was put more or less straight into quarantine and thus served a season in New South Wales before he started at Kildangan. Thus, although he had a European Classic winner in his first crop courtesy of Lope De Vega (Ire) taking the G1 Poule d’Essai des Poulains and G1 Prix du Jockey Club in the spring of 2010, he had already had a Classic winner in Australia by that time, Faint Perfume (Aus) having won the G1 Victoria Oaks in November 2009. Lope De Vega’s two Classic triumphs immediately solidified Shamardal’s reputation as a seriously promising young stallion, a reputation which was cemented later that year when he came up with his first top-class 2-year-old, G1 Racing Post Trophy hero Casamento (Ire).

Lope De Vega went on to kick-start Shamardal’s reputation as a sire of sires. His first-crop son Belardo (Ire) proved himself as a top-class juvenile by taking the G1 Dewhurst S. in 2014 and is now about to get going as a stallion himself, as Lope De Vega’s 2019 G1 Irish 2000 Guineas-winning son Phoenix Of Spain (Ire) will be doing before too long from his new base at the Irish National Stud. Lope De Vega’s stud career has developed from there, with his progeny’s worldwide tally of international Group/Grade 1 wins currently standing at 15.  Casamento has been less prolific, but his offspring are headed by Kings Will Dream (Ire), a Group 1 weight-for-age winner in Australia this spring.

To date, 25 sons or daughters of Shamardal (five of them bred in Australia, the remainder in Europe) have won a total of 40 Group 1 races. Nine of those wins have come this year (all in the Godolphin silks) provided by the G1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches heroine Castle Lady (Ire), the Royal Ascot sprinting specialist Blue Point (Ire) and the trio of terrific 2-year-olds Pinatubo (Ire), Earthlight (Ire) and Victrix Ludorum (Ire).

These three brilliant juveniles will presumably follow Blue Point (a new addition to the roster at Kildangan in 2020) into the Darley sires’ ranks in the fullness of time, very possibly after accruing further Group 1 glory. The Darley roster (which includes Shamardal’s aforementioned grandson Belardo at Kildangan) also contains the as-yet-unproven Shamardal horses French Navy (GB) (at Kildangan) and Bow Creek (Ire) (at Haras du Logis). Other major operations standing Shamardal stallions include Shadwell which has 2014 G1 Eclipse S. hero Mukhadram (GB); and the Aga Khan’s Haras de Bonneval, home of 2016 G1 Prix Ganay winner Dariyan (Fr). At Gestut Etzean, the nine-time stakes winner Amaron (GB) has made a promising start this year, his first juveniles containing the John Gosden-trained stakes performer Run Wild (Ger).

Bow Creek is one of two Shamardal stallions bred by Bobby Donworth and Honora Corridan at Roundhill Stud, the other being the quiet achiever of the Australian sires’ ranks: Puissance De Lune (Ire) whose runners have done so well over the past year that, having received merely 40 mares in 2018, he will end up having covered over 100 more than that this year at Swettenham Stud in Victoria. His popularity very much echoes his 17-year-old father’s current status, a status which looks set to develop further in the years to come.

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