By Emma Berry
Following a momentous 60th anniversary year for Moyglare Stud, with a Classic winner and a champion stayer to the team's credit, owner Eva-Maria Bucher-Haefner and her bloodstock advisor Fiona Craig picked up a smart pair of fillies at Arqana's Breeding Stock Sale last December.
Both Malavath (Ire) (Mehmas {Ire}) and Amazing Grace (Ger) (Protectionist {Ger}), who are Group 2 winners and were Group 1-placed in France and Germany respectively, will remain in training this season. They have now left Europe to join Christophe Clement's team of horses, which is currently stabled at Payson Park in Florida.
“They didn't arrive there until the middle of January but they have both been kept on the go,” reported Craig. “After the sale, Amazing Grace went to Nicolas Clement [in Chantilly] and Malavath went back to Francis Graffard, so they were in really good nick when they arrived. But they had a long journey and they have had some good time out in the paddock with Christophe.”
She continued, “He's stepping their work up now but there is no desperate rush to run them in Florida. We'll know a little bit more in the next few weeks. Malavath wants 7 1/2 [furlongs] to a mile, so she is a bit more straightforward and will probably go straight up to New York. There is a possibility that Amazing Grace could run in Florida, but we'll see.”
The 5-year-old Amazing Grace, who was previously trained by Waldemar Hickst, was, like her sire, bred by Dr. Christoph Berglar. Craig added, “She is an absolute beauty and she'll be so easy to breed. She's Monsun on top of Danehill Dancer. We bought her as a broodmare but then we thought we'd roll the dice. She's a good mare and we'll see if we could improve on that in America. We've got a lot of young mares so there's no big rush to put her in foal straightaway. And [GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf runner-up] Malavath is only four now, so that's an advantage.”
Closer to home, the Moyglare team can also look forward to a fairly imminent return for the Dermot Weld-trained Irish 1000 Guineas winner Homeless Songs (Ire) (Frankel {GB}), while star stayer Kyprios (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), who is raced in partnership by Moyglare and Coolmore, is being primed by Aidan O'Brien for another Cup campaign this summer.
“Homeless Songs has been kept in training all winter and she will either run in the Park Express on the opening day [of the turf season] or a week later in the Heritage S. I think a lot of it will depend on ground,” Craig said. “And Kyprios is also back in full training.”
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