The Weekly Wrap: Let’s Hear It For The Mares

[Wandering Eyes]

Two superpowers of the east and west traded blows on Sunday. No sooner had Frankel (GB) notched a second Grade 1 winner in Japan with victory in the Yasuda Kinen of Mozu Ascot, than Japanese supersire Deep Impact (JPN) fired back a riposte with a second Classic winner in Europe courtesy of Study Of Man (Ire) in the G1 QIPCO Prix du Jockey Club. The racing world has never felt smaller: an American-born son of a British superstar winning in Tokyo while a Japanese-conceived, Irish-born colt triumphs in Chantilly.

So much focus is centred on stallions’ offspring but there were some mighty mares in play over the weekend, particularly perhaps the mightiest pair seen in Europe and America for many a generation. Urban Sea (Miswaki) has already achieved the rare feat of producing two Derby winners, both of whom have appeared as sires of Derby and oaks winners. In the case of Galileo (Ire), he now appears as grandsire of Masar (GB) (New Appraoch {Ire}), while his half-sister Melikah (Ire), by another Derby winner in Lammtarra, is his great grandam. Thus we find Urban Sea’s name twice in the pedigree of the 2018 Investec Derby winner and this is unlikely to be an unusual occurrence in major race winners of the future.

However much Urban Sea is feted, her great rival as both top-class racemare and broodmare, Miesque (Nureyev), has also loomed large in the Classic picture this season, with her great grand-daughter Alpha Centauri (Ire) (Mastercraftsman {Ire}) having won Tattersalls Irish 1,000 Guineas, followed a week later by the success of her grandson Study Of Man.

Green Is The Colour
Vimal and Gillian Khosla’s star broodmare Green Room (Theatrical) is another to have taken a major step up the ladder within blue hen territory when represented by her third Group 1 winner, the Investec Oaks winner Forever Together (Ire) (Galileo [Ire}). She and her full-sister Together Forever (Ire) are destined to be forever confused with one another but in one sense it matters not, as they are both winners at the highest level and both were darlings of the sales ring even before their racing days.

Born three years ahead of her Classic-winning sibling, the G1 Dubai Fillies’ Mile winner Together Forever sold for €680,000 to the Coolmore team, and she was followed a year later by Signe (Ire) (Sea The Stars {Ire}), the sole yearling of Green Room to bring seven figures at €1.1 million, though the subsequent Oaks heroine wasn’t far off in 2016 when selling for €900,000. All three were offered at the Goffs Orby Sale by Ballylinch Stud, where Green Room is a permanent boarder.

Ballylinch manager John O’Connor reports the 16-year-old to be in good form, having foaled her latest daughter of Galileo on Apr. 25 and recently been covered by Sea The Stars. For the preceding four years she has only visited Galileo and was barren the season after she produced Forever Together, but she also has a yearling filly by the champion sire on the ground.

“Vimal and Gillian Khosla are delightful clients and this is another wonderful result for them as breeders,” O’Connor said. “They will be visiting the farm in the coming weeks and will make a decision on whether or not to sell the yearling then.”

Green Room already has a son at stud, the G1 prix Jean Prat winner Lord Shanakill (Speightstown), who is now at Pennsylvania’s Pin Oak Lane Farm and is the sire of G1 Prince Of Wales’s S. winner My Dream Boat (Ire).

The chances of her establishing a dynasty in her own right are enhanced by the the fact that she also has two of her daughters at Ballylinch Stud for company. The Khoslas, who are based in Scotland and currently have six mares, retained maiden winner Black Ruby (Ire) (Dansili {GB}), who is now in foal to Lope De Vega (Ire). Meanwhile Signe, who is in foal to Siyouni (Fr), is boarded at the farm by her owner Fiona Carmichael.

“The mare has been incredibly versatile in that her Group 1 winners have won at a mile and a mile and a half, and she produces lovely stock,” O’Connor added.

Masar Meets The Press
The gates of Moulton Paddocks were swung open for members of the Fourth Estate on Monday morning as Masar, the first horse to win the Derby in Godolphin’s royal blue silks, was paraded around the yard.

“I’m still not through half the messages yet to be able to reply to all the wellwishers,” admitted Charlie Appleby as she showed off his star colt with some of his 160 staff members on hand for a group photo.

“We hit the ground running in the spring—even through the really bad weather we didn’t miss a day and we’re very lucky to have the staff and the facilities to be able to do it,” he said.

Masar is of course not just the first Derby winner for home stallion New Approach, who won the blue riband back in 2008, but he is a third generation homebred following the purchase of Melikah as a yearling 20 years ago. His dam Khawlah (Ire) is by the late Darley sure Cape Cross (Ire) and won the G2 UAE Derby and G3 UAE Oaks for Godolphin at Sheikh Mohammed’s home track.

“I’m the lucky one who is given these horses to train but it’s really heartfelt back at the stud for Liam [O’Rourke] and Sam [Bullard]. It’s great for the stallions and the mares,” Appleby added.

“We’re in a little bit of a bubble up here but I try not to get too sucked into it and I like to know what’s going on outside it. Twenty years I’ve been here and it’s home for me. Half my life has been dedicated to Godolphin. The support I receive from His Highness is phenomenal. We talk twice a week when we’re working horses and from January onwards we’re always talking about hopefuls for the Classics. It’s a huge operation and I have a wealth of experience I have around me —I’m not doing this single-handed.”

He continued, “One hopes it’s a new chapter for Godolphin. It’s taken us five years to get that Classic winner but we were very lucky in the first season with Outstrip winning at Santa Anita [at the Breeders’ Cup]. I felt like last year we took another step up and we had the strongest team of 2-year-olds to go into the winter with. Saturday has put us where we wanted to be. Sport is all about confidence and it’s given us that. We have the right players now to be competitive. We’re a global team and it’s been amazing. People want to see competition and Coolmore have been our competitors for many years but honestly we haven’t been competitive enough and we know that. I know what people are saying outside these gates but that just gives us more determination. After His Highness, Coolmore were the next people on to congratulate us. They want the competition too.”

Lindop Signing Off In Style
An agreeable feature of modern-day racing is the rise of the number of women in the weighing-room and this is particularly so in Australia. The country is about to lose one of its leading lights, however, with the impending retirement of Clare Lindop, who in 2003 became the first female to ride in the Melbourne Cup.

Five years later, she recorded another ‘first’ when winning the G1 VRC Derby aboard Rebel Raider (Aus) (Reset {NZ}) for the man whom she credits as giving her the most support throughout her career, trainer Leon Macdonald.

Lindop, a native of Warrnambool, Victoria, has spent much of career riding in South Australia, where she has won the jockeys’ championship three times, most recently in 2015 after returning from serious injuries sustained in a fall on Adelaide Cup day.

As well as being a first-rate jockey, Lindop is also a first-rate individual whose easy charm and committed work ethic has seen her blaze a significant trail for those who follow in her wake.

As she prepares to step down at the end of the current SA Racing Festival, Lindop has written an open letter to her fans, published last week on her website. It’s well worth reading in its entirety as its fulsomeness in praising others also speaks volumes for Lindop herself.

She credits her first Melbourne Cup ride on Debben (Aus) as career-changing: “The media exposure that becoming the first Australian female to ride in our greatest race brought me set me onto a path full of opportunities which I may never have otherwise gained. That season, after riding in the Cup, I had my the biggest year in the saddle, riding 111 winners for the season, a new record for a female jockeys and one which was only just broken by Jamie Kah last year, and looks to be smashed again and set even higher this year by a flying Linda Meech. The fact that both of these jockeys don’t really want this to be a ‘female record’ and are looking to break the record full stop also makes me proud of the long way that female jockeys have come.”

Lindop won’t be drawn on the exact date of her final departure from the weighing-room but ends her letter by saying, “I’ll be out on the track racing amongst the pack, doing my utmost to keep up somewhere in contention, copping a face full of mud and stones to boot, and then saying, ‘Well lads, I’m out. Good luck to you all!'”

Good luck to you too, Clare.

 

 

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