Seven Days: Running With the Fast Crowd

At the risk of making anyone who knows me choke on their cornflakes upon reading this, I'm rather enjoying the big sprint races this year.

The rivalry between Big Evs (Ire) (Blue Point {Ire}) and Asfoora (Aus) (Flying Artie {Aus}) now stands at honours even, though it was hard not to feel that Asfoora was a little hard done by when Live In The Dream (Ire) (Prince Of Lir {Ire}) edged left just at the moment the Australian was launching her challenge down the stands' side in the G2 King George Qatar Stakes. 

So it's on to York we go, with the Nunthorpe set to be one of the most thrilling contests of the Ebor meeting. An extra level of intrigue was added by the winning return of the Archie Watson-trained Bradsell (GB) (Tasleet {GB}) in the Listed Prix du Cercle after almost 11 months off the track. Fragile he may be, but the likeable four-year-old is also abundantly talented and it would be rewarding for his patient connections if he could improve on his third-place finish in last year's Nunthorpe. 

He's Apples

Mick Appleby was rightly crowned leading trainer at Glorious Goodwood. He took seven horses to Sussex from his base in Leicesterhsire and came away with four wins (including a Group 2 and Group 3), a second and two thirds. Top work indeed. Appleby must be high on the Christmas card list of Paul and Rachael Teasdale, the owners of Big Evs and the Molecomb winner Big Mojo (Ire) (Mohaather {GB}). With luck we will both horses again at York. Appleby's Molecomb third, Mr Lightside (Ire) (Earthlight {Ire}), looks set to head to the G2 Mill Reef while Big Mojo will tackle the G2 Gimcrack. According to her husband, Mrs Teasdale is already working on a rough draft for her Gimcrack speech.

Bizakov Dominates Deauville

The Teasdales were not the only owners in clover this week. Nurlan Bizakov has been enjoying a terrific year ever since Charyn (Ire) (Dark Angel {Ire}) won the Listed Doncaster Mile on the opening day of the British turf season. The four-year-old Charyn has subsequently added the G2 Bet365 Mile and G1 Queen Anne Stakes to his tally and is on course for a tilt at Sunday's G1 Prix Jacques Le Marois. 

Bizakov, however, has already plundered several of Deauville's major trophies this summer. On Sunday, Ramadan (Fr) (Le Havre {Ire}) landed his third stakes win of the year in the the G3 Prix Daphnis for Christopher Head before the Jerome Reynier-trained Lazzat (Fr) (Territories {Ire}) really brought the day to life, remaining unbeaten to capture the G1 Prix Maurice de Gheest.

Bizakov is now a major player in the French stallion business through his Sumbe operation, and while both Ramadan and Charyn are potential future residents of Haras de Montfort et Preaux, that will not be the case for the gelded Lazzat, who joins Dubai Honour (Ire) and Goliath (Ger) on the list of Group 1-winning geldings in Europe this year. 

That anatomical status could however mean that he has a longer racing career than most, and along with the more obvious target of the G1 Prix de la Foret, his ambitious trainer, who already has a proven international record, has also suggested that the Golden Eagle in Sydney on November 2 could be in Lazzat's travel plans. There's no black type attached to that relatively new 1,500-metre contest at Rosehill which was first run in 2019, but there is the not insignificant matter of A$10m (approximately €5.9m) in prize-money attached to the race. 

Bizakov bought Lazzat's granddam Lashyn from her breeder Charles H Whacker for $625,000 at Keeneland September back in 2010 and, as a daughter of Mr Greeley and the 1,000 Guineas winner Sleepytime (Ire) (Royal Academy), she naturally commanded such a price tag. Lashyn won a 10-furlong maiden for Sir Michael Stoute and her first living foal, by the Derby winner Australia (GB), became known as Lastochka (GB), who also won a maiden in Britain, over a mile as a juvenile.

Now ensconced in Bizakov's French-based broodmare band, the eight-year-old Lastochka has struck gold with her first foal, Lazzat, who has in turn already greatly enhanced the value of his yearling half-sister by Sumbe's Golden Horde (Ire).

Endearing Performance

While we may drift off a bit during the winter once the National Hunt season is in full swing, it is always good to see a major winner for Henry de Bromhead, and it's even better when that winner comes in the glorious sunshine of midsummer. 

Step forward (again) Term Of Endearment (GB) (Sea The Moon {Ger}), who may just have earned herself a trip to Australia, though for the far more sensible early November target of the Melbourne Cup.

The five-year-old mare was bred by Andrew Whitlock and bought for the Acheson family by Alex Elliott for 50,000gns from Book 3 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale. She now has three Group victories to her name, including this season's G2 Lillie Langtry Stakes and the G3 Bronte Cup and is surely now too valuable a prospect for a dual-purpose racing career.

Blue in the Pink

While the absence of Rosallion (Ire) (Blue Point {Ire}) was the major disappointment of Glorious Goodwood, his 2,000 Guineas conqueror Notable Speech (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) upheld the Classic form in the G1 Sussex Stakes and was the highlight of a good week for some of the Darley stallions. It seems likely that he will end his year at Del Mar in a bid to give his trainer Charlie Appleby a fourth consecutive win the GI Breeders' Cup Mile with a fourth different son of Dubawi after Master Of The Seas (Ire), Space Blues (Ire) and Modern Games (Ire). 

Even without Rosallion, his sire Blue Point had a decent week on the Sussex Downs, with the group winners Big Evs (Ire) and Raqiya (Ire) as well as handicap winner Blue Prince (Ire). The leading first-crop sire last year, Blue Point is now, unsurprisingly, at the top of the second-crop sire table. 

Sing Praises

Another young stallion who cannot be overlooked of course is Coolmore's Justify, whose daughter Opera Singer showed great tenacity when making all to win the G1 Nassau Stakes. There's talk of the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe now for the Evie Stockwell-bred filly, and it really would be quite something if Justify, the American Triple Crown winner based at Ashford Stud in Kentucky, could supply the winner of the Derby and the Arc in one season. 

That Derby winner, City Of Troy, should be seen next at York in the Juddmonte International which, if the Dante winner Economics (GB) (Night Of Thunder {Ire}) reappears to line up alongside Calandagan (Ire) (Gleneagles {Ire}) and Japanese raider Durezza (Jpn) (Duramente {Jpn}) among others, could well be the race of the season.

Rottgen Revels

At Dusseldorf on Sunday, Gestut Rottgen claimed the G1 Preis der Diana with the front-running Erle (Ger), by home stallion Reliable Man (GB), one of the last remaining representatives of the Mill Reef line at stud. As one might expect from the Rottgen operation, Erle was certainly bred for the job as her granddam Enora (Ger) (Noverre) landed the same fillies' Classic back in 2010, while her dam's half-brother Erasmus (Ger), also by Reliable Man, won the G3 Preis der Winterfavoriten.

Erle's Rottgen-bred dam Kizingo (Ire) (Oasis Dream {GB}) actually raced for Juddmonte, having been bought by the operation as a foal for 270,000gns, but when she was subsequently reoffered as a three-year-old at Tattersalls with two placed efforts to her name she returned to the Rottgen fold at the reduced price of 35,000gns.  

Erle's win also gave a boost to Imad Al Sagar's Blue Diamond Stud, which owns her two-year-old half-sister from the final crop of Adlerflug (Ger). Bought for €300,000 at BBAG last September, she is named Eleganz (Ger) and is in training with Andre Fabre in France. 

Since 1972, Gestut Rottgen has won the Preis der Diana four times, including with the subsequently influential Anna Paola (Ger) in 1981. In the previous two years their representatives Wagnis (Ger) and Kassada (Ger) had been beaten a head and a neck respectively when finishing second, so Erle's win was a welcome back-of-the-net moment after a few clashes with the crossbar. It was particularly memorable for trainer Maxim Pecheur and jockey Martin Seidl, each of whom was winning the Diana for the first time, and in Pecheur's case in his first season since swapping his jockey's licence for that of trainer. 

The Rottgen draft at the forthcoming BBAG September Yearling Sale features nine yearlings, including three from the first crop of the stud's homebred Deutsches Derby winner Windstoss (Ger) (Shirocco {Ger}).

Complexity Forcing the Pace 

In Saturday's TDN, we heard all about the background of G2 Richmond Stakes winner Black Forza, who had the misfortune of being born at a sales complex and sold alongside his mother later that day. Not for the first time one wonders when this practice of mares being consigned for sales so close to their foaling date will be outlawed on welfare grounds. 

The young Complexity colt has had plenty of sales experience since then, being sold again that November as a weanling, the following July as a yearling, and this April as a breezer from Powerstown Stud.

“I just write the cheques, Michael does the work,” said his owner Eleanora Kennedy of Black Forza's trainer Michael O'Callaghan when congratulated on her success last week at Goodwood. Kennedy is also the owner of the G3 Ballycorus Stakes winner Mustasarref (GB) (Dark Angel {Ire}), who could extend the owner's good run in this Thursday's G3 Desmond Stakes.

Black Forza is one of two black-type winners from the first crop of Complexity to date, along with the GIII Sanford Stakes winner Mo Plex. The young Airdrie Stud stallion, who is a son of the Distorted Humor horse Maclean's Music, is setting a good gallop in the freshman sires' championship in America, with 13 individual winners, including Shin Forever in Japan. One to watch.