Pinatubo: A Champion In The Making

It has been quite the year for Shamardal. Not only has he been represented by G1 Poule d'Essai des Poulains winner Castle Lady (Ire) and the two Royal Ascot victories in five days of Blue Point (Ire) but, portentously for next year's Classics, he is the sire of three unbeaten Group 1-winning juveniles: Pinatubo (Ire), Earthlight (Ire) and Victor Ludorum (GB). The trio emanates from a crop of just 82 foals in 2017.

While Earthlight has already won twice at the highest level for Andre Fabre, and his stable-mate Victor Ludorum added the G1 Qatar Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere to the list on Sunday, it is the Charlie Appleby-trained Pinatubo who heads the ratings for all European juveniles and has sent correspondents scrabbling for superlatives. His breath-taking win in the G1 Goffs Vincent O'Brien National S. on Irish Champions Weekend has drawn lofty comparisons to none other than Frankel (GB), but a Timeform rating of 134p puts him ahead of the Juddmonte great at corresponding stages of their careers.

Bar one season at Dalham Hall Stud in 2008, Shamardal—a son of the fabled 'Iron Horse' Giant's Causeway— has stood at Godolphin's Irish headquarters at Kildangan Stud for the entirety of his career, and his stellar 2019 season, headlined by Pinatubo, is the source of considerable pride to the team there.

“It has been a fantastic year, to have had those horses raised here on the farms and to watch their careers develop,” says stud director Jimmy Hyland. “Pinatubo was foaled on Kildangan and was here for six months until he was a weanling and then moved to Blackhall Stud and stayed there until he was a yearling in July. He then returned to Kildangan for his breaking prep and was here until November last year. So he's now unbeaten in five races and it's incredible to think that he was still here last November. For me to say that I thought he was going to be a champion would be incorrect, but what I will say is that all our young stock are treated like future champions and the staff here do a great job to ensure that they realise their full potential, and thankfully in his case he's done that. It's a dream come true.”

While Shamardal covered 16 'outside' mares in 2019, for several seasons prior to that he has largely been restricted to mares owned by the Maktoum family. Thus, his four juvenile stakes winners this season, which include the Willie McCreery-trained Ickworth (Ire), have all come in the Godolphin blue. They have also put him at the head of the table for two-year-old sires in Europe.

Hyland says, “Shamardal's career has been wonderful and we've been fortunate to be entrusted with him. He's now 17, rising 18, but we've been very careful with how we've managed him and in the mare selection for him.”

With his profile as a broodmare sire also growing significantly, Shamardal has recently been joined at Kildangan by his super-fast son Blue Point, who bears a strong resemblance to his sire and is currently occupying the stable opposite him. With Shamardal covering a relatively small book of mares by modern-day standards, Hyland explains the importance of weighing up the stallion's physical attributes, and those he imparts to his stock, as well as finding a good match on paper. Pinatubo's dam, the homebred listed winner Lava Flow (Ire) (Dalakhani {Ire}), from the extended family of Invincible Spirit (Ire) and Kodiac (GB), worked on both fronts and she is now back in foal to Shamardal this year.

He says, “When we were doing the mating for Shamardal and Lava Flow, in a way it was quite an obvious mating in that Shamardal had already sired two stakes winners out of Dalakhani mares prior to Pinatubo, and her dam is by Barathea (Ire). Crackerjack King (Ire) is a Group 1 winner by Shamardal out of a Barathea mare, and to add to that you have the inbreeding to Mr Prospector which is similar to Lope De Vega (Ire), so there are a lot of positives there for that mating.

“Then physically, when you're mating a mare with Shamardal you've got to go for a medium-sized mare, probably slightly refined. Even in the case of Earthlight's dam, Winter's Moon (GB), a New Approach (Ire) mare, she is medium-sized, similar to Lava Flow in many ways. What Shamardal brings is that substance and power. He has a distinctive look—a strong head, deep girth, strong hindquarters—and he passes that onto his progeny.”

He adds, “With Earthlight, Shamardal has sired five Group 1 winners from the Sadler's Wells line so there was a strong reason to do that mating as well.”

When a horse bursts onto the racing scene in the way Pinatubo has, very quickly his every move is scrutinised by those who follow the sport closely. Behind the scenes at Kildangan Stud, it is a similar story from the day each horse is foaled.

Hyland, one of the privileged few to be able to recall the early days of Pinatubo, says, “He was a medium-sized foal and very correct from the get-go. Thankfully he had an uncomplicated development and there were no issues with him, health-wise or conformation-wise. You hear Charlie Appleby referring to his attitude and temperament—laidback and relaxed—and that's pretty much the way he was here. He was a very straightforward horse to deal with and those are all the key things you need when you're going to war as a racehorse.”

Chris Harrison oversaw Pinatubo being broken in at Brookfield yard on Kildangan Stud and he is not surprised that the colt was able to show his merit so early in the racing season. His debut came on May 10 at Wolverhampton, and he followed up this win with victory in the Woodcote S. on the notoriously tricky camber of Epsom before progressing to Royal Ascot, Glorious Goodwood and a return to Ireland for his Group 1 triumph.

Harrison says, “It's been brilliant to see him racing, especially on the Curragh, finishing so well.

“He just loved sleeping and eating. When he went to the lunge ring he just never gave us any trouble. You see it over the years, that the horses who are that easy, and that good at sleeping and eating, are the ones that become the champs.”

He adds, “For the six weeks they are here, they change hugely, and by the time we send them away to what we see on the race track, there's a big difference again. When we send them into training, they are just amateurs at that stage, and then they add the professional bit later.”

The precocious Pinatubo is of course not the only Group 1 star to have emerged from Kildangan. This season alone, the farm has been represented by dual Dubai World Cup winner Thunder Snow (Ire) (Helmet {Aus}), Defoe (Ire) (Dalakhani {Ire}), Castle Lady and Earthlight.

Ahead of Pinatubo's next major challenge in Saturday's G1 Darley Dewhurst S. and his likely crowning as European champion 2-year-old, Hyland reflects, “We've had a great year and real credit has to be given to our staff here. I always say to everybody, we're here to educate them for the next phase of being a racehorse. The breaking part of the operation is very important for these young horses, so that they've got a very good experience with people and with the process, and then they are ready to go into training. I suppose the next phase for us, with a horse like Pinatubo, who has been born and raised here, is for him to go on and win Classics and become the superstar that we hope he's going to be, and then retire here as a stallion some day.”