A Study in Experience

[Wandering Eyes]

It has been a year of ups and downs among the Japanese stallion ranks. The country lost its flagship stallion, Deep Impact (Jpn), on July 30 at the age of 17, and a fortnight later another stalwart of the Shadai Stallion Station, King Kamehameha (Jpn), died at 18.

But it has also been a year when the offspring of that duo’s fellow Shadai incumbents have come to the fore internationally. Heart’s Cry (Jpn), like Deep Impact a son of Sunday Silence, is responsible for the G1 Cox Plate winner Lys Gracieux (Jpn), who followed up her Australian success with a scintillating display in last week’s G1 Arima Kinen. The King Kamehameha stallions Rulership (Jpn) and Lord Kanaloa (Jpn) have respectively provided G1 Caulfield Cup winner Mer De Glace (Jpn) and Almond Eye (Jpn), winner of the G1 Dubai Turf and G1 Autumn Tenno Sho. Meanwhile, G1 Nassau S. winner Deirdre (Jpn) is a daughter of Harbinger (GB), who is about to embark on his tenth season at Shadai.

While this has truly been an annus mirabilis for Japanese-bred horses overseas, the success of the country’s breeding programme, and the dominance of Deep Impact in particular, has hardly been a secret in the bloodstock world before now. And in recent years, a number of European breeders with the means to do so were understandably eager to use Japan’s multiple champion sire.

The Wildenstein family was rewarded with the G1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches winner Beauty Parlour (GB), who is now among Peter Brant’s White Birch Farm broodmare band following her €1.6 million purchase in 2016. Further European Classic success for Deep Impact came last year with the 2000 Guineas winner Saxon Warrior (Jpn), who is about to start his second season at Coolmore Stud, while Lanwades Stud welcomes the Niarchos family’s G1 Prix du Jockey Club winner Study Of Man (Ire) to its stallion roster for 2020.

For Kirsten Rausing, this is not just a chance to stand a young stallion with a mouthwatering pedigree but also, as she celebrates her 40th anniversary at Lanwades, it represents the renewal of a longstanding association with Study Of Man’s breeders and the second time a Niarchos-bred French Classic winner has been retired to the Newmarket farm.

“The first stallion I had here was Niniski, and he was syndicated by the British Bloodstock Agency,” says Rausing. “The late Mr. Stavros Niarchos took a share in the horse, from which share he eventually bred the very good French Derby winner, Hernando (Fr), who himself became a stallion here at Lanwades. In fact, there are long ties of friendship and professional association.”

Of course, when it comes to breeding, there are two halves to every pedigree and, as desirable as his sireline may be, every bit as appealing is the bottom half of Study Of Man’s pedigree. His dam Second Happiness placed just once in three starts but she is a Storm Cat half-sister to Kingmambo and thus a daughter of the champion Miesque. In recent years, different branches of the Miesque family have also been responsible for the Group/Grade 1 winners Alpha Centauri (Ire) (Mastercraftsman {Ire}), Karakontie (Bernstein), Rumplestiltskin (Ire) (Danehill) and Tapestry (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}).

“It is an absolutely marvellous family and, I’m sure we all agree, one of the very best in the stud book,” Rausing says. “Study Of Man’s grandam Miesque, of course herself a winner of no less than 10 Group 1 races, but also dam of two Classic winners—Kingmambo and East Of The Moon—and now ancestress also of the up-and-coming Karakontie, a very exciting first-season sire standing in Kentucky, but with very significant results in Europe with his first crop of 2-year-olds this year. It’s a very live and developing family, of which of course Miesque is the shining star, and I am so thrilled to be associated with it.”

As if such ties needed bolstering, extra encouragement can be found in the fact that two of the top three first-season sires in Japan in 2019 are sons of Deep Impact, with the champion freshman, Kizuna (Jpn), bred on the same Storm Cat cross as Study Of Man.

Rausing of course supports her stallions well with her own broodmare band, as do the owners of the horses she stands. It was notable that at the recent stallion parade at the stud during the Tattersalls December Sale, not only was the Niarchos family’s racing manager Alan Cooper present, but so were Heike Bischoff and Niko Lafrentz, owner-breeders of exciting young Lanwades sire Sea The Moon (Ger), and Victoria and Anthony Pakenham, owners of the Derby winner Sir Percy (GB). The quartet of stallions in residence is completed by G1 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint winner Bobby’s Kitten. Following the sad death of Roaring Lion and the departure of Hawkbill to Japan, he is the only son of leading American sire Kitten’s Joy standing in Britain and will be represented by his first 2-year-old runners in 2020.

Rausing says, “We are very proud of having three Derby winners here: Sir Percy, Sea The Moon and now of course Study Of Man. I was most fortunate to have the late Archipenko here, a very well-bred horse by Kingmambo out of Bound, by Nijinsky, and he was a good racehorse himself. I think he exceeded many a spectator’s expectations by what he managed to do in a relatively brief stud career. He unfortunately died early from leukaemia and so we miss him greatly, but he gave us three Group 1 winners, each one of whom was inbred to the great mare Special, and now we have quite a few daughters of Archipenko at stud here. I’m looking forward to breeding them to Study Of Man and getting a bit of inbreeding to Miesque.”

There is clearly much to look forward to for the team at Lanwades, and with a significant anniversary to celebrate in 2020, there is also much upon which to reflect. Rausing’s many roles within the breeding industry during that time—including as chairman of the TBA and EFTBA—as well as being a breeder of more than 100 black-type winners, make her something of a pioneer among women in the world of bloodstock. Born in Sweden, she spent an informative chapter of her life in Ireland working for the late Captain Tim Rogers of Airlie Stud, himself a notable trailblazer in the modern-day stallion business.

“I cannot underestimate the extraordinarily important influence Captain Rogers would have on my own life,” she recalled recently in an interview with the Bloodstock Notebook. And it was of course through the Airlie connection that Rausing came to buy from the Aga Khan Studs the most influential matriarch of her broodmare band, Alruccaba (GB), in partnership with Sonia Rogers. From this inspired purchase has sprung a stream of successful racehorses which flows still and includes Alyssa (GB) (Sir Percy {GB}) and Algometer (GB) (Archipenko), two recent group winners in the white and green hoops.

One might well imagine that Rausing would first nominate an esteemed member of this dynasty, her dual Champion S. heroine Alborada (GB) (Alzao), as her proudest achievement as a breeder. But it is in fact another grey, Kala Dancer (GB), who is offered up as the recipient of this distinction.

“He was one of five yearlings that I had that year [1983],” she says. “They were the first yearlings conceived during my time at Lanwades and I had four colts and a filly. We had two Niniski colts from his first crop of 27 live foals and myself and my then stud groom Jim Lilley, we did the yearlings, and I remember walking this grey colt and Jim walked a bay colt.

“We were walking into the wind, and it’s quite difficult to speak because you’re walking quite as fast as you can, and Jim said, ‘I like this colt, I think he’ll be good,’ and I shouted back at him, ‘yes, I’m sure you’re right but I like the grey. I think he could be nice too’.”

That bay and grey went on to be known as Petoski (GB) and Kala Dancer, each of whom played a significant role in ensuring an important first-season sire championship for Niniski in the early days of Rausing’s tenure at Lanwades. Petoski’s juvenile victory in the G3 Lanson Champagne S. at Glorious Goodwood was later augmented by his victory over Oh So Sharp (GB) and Rainbow Quest in the G1 King George VI and Queen Eizabeth S. Meanwhile the G1 Dewhurst S. winner Kala Dancer went on to stud in Australia, where he sired one of the country’s most beloved horses, the Melbourne Cup winner Subzero (Aus), who still plays an important ambassadorial role at the age of 31.

“[Kala Dancer] was certainly my first Group, 1 winner, but he was also the horse that put Lanwades on the map and certainly made Niniski champion first-season sire. So I think from that point of view, Kala Dancer was for me a wonderful horse.”

The stallion master’s instincts of Captain Rogers have clearly been well learned over the years and for someone with Rausing’s nous, blood will always out when it comes to selecting the right horse to stand at stud.

“Obviously in an optimum situation, one looks for a combination of all factors, but I’m operating under certain budgetary restrictions. One often has to give on something and I have to say that the thing I would find most difficult to give on is pedigree,” she says.

“You may be able to accept conformational defects in some of them, not all of them, but it’s very difficult to make a case for a horse with a very, very light pedigree, even should he have exceptionally good racing results. It’s just my experience, but I feel that horses breed true to their pedigrees rather than maybe their racing performances. But there’s always the odd exception to every rule.”

It may be “just” her experience, but an amalgamation of knowledge gleaned over four decades at the helm of her own operation, not just in dealing with fellow breeders but also in applying it to the Lanwades broodmare band, should not go unconsidered. And it is an instinct that bodes well for stud’s newest stallion.

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