Seven Days: Succession

Last week this column was led by Hukum (Ire) (Sea The Stars {Ire}). Now, for the same owner/breeder, Shadwell, it is the turn of Al Husn (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}).

It was quite the boost for Newcastle's all-weather G3 Hoppings Fillies' S. that both the winner Al Husn and runner-up Nashwa (GB) (Frankel {GB}) went on to win a Group 1 on the turf on their next start. With Nashwa having won the G1 Falmouth S. in emphatic fashion, she reopposed Al Husn in attempting to defend her crown in the G1 Nassau S., eventually finishing third, just half a length behind Above The Curve (American Pharaoh), who was the same distance behind Shadwell's winner.

Al Husn thus became the fourth individual Group 1 winner for Shadwell this season following Hukum, Mostahdaf (GB) (Frankel {GB}) and Anmaat (Ire) (Awtaad {Ire}), and the seventh since Sheikha Hissa took over at the head of the operation from her late father. This year there have also been Group 2 wins for Alflaila (Ire) (Dark Angel {Ire}), Mutasaabeq (GB) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}) and Israr (GB) (Muhaarar {GB}).

When Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum died in March 2021 and Shadwell subsequently significantly reduced its stock, it would have been easy to assume that the operation would gradually wind down. Happily, the reverse appears to be true, and the streamlining, which would undoubtedly have been painful, is now paying dividends. 

Shadwell's elite troops have marched to glory in impressive fashion, with the old housemates in their Newmarket assistant trainer days, Owen Burrows and Roger Varian, supplying the latest Group 1 winners, while William Haggas, John and Thady Gosden, and Charlie Hills have all played their parts. A select amount of restocking took place at last year's yearling and foal sales, with Angus Gold signing for 10 fillies at Books 1 and 2 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale, while another six colts and one filly were recruited from the December Foal Sale. A group of young trainers were added to the roster, with Harry Eustace, Kevin Philippart de Foy and George Boughey each receiving four Shadwell horses this year.

And then there are the stallions, present and future. The highest-rated turf horse in the world last year, Baaeed (GB), joined the Nunnery Stud while Group 1-winning sprinter Minzaal (Ire) (Mehmas {Ire}) went to Derrinstown. Whether Hukum eventually stands on the same roster as his brother remains to be seen, but the dual Group 2 winner Mutasaabeq is from the same family and will deserve a place at stud, as does Anmaat, while the G1 Prince of Wales's S. winner Mostahdaf is a hugely enticing prospect. 

More pleasing still for racing fans is that, at four, Al Husn, Israr and Alflaila are the youngest of the horses mentioned here. We are getting the chance to see these bigger names compete, and improve, over several seasons. And that, after all, is what it's all about. 

A Classic for the King?

Similar concerns were raised as to the continuation of the Royal Studs following the death of Queen Elizabeth II last September. In the immediate aftermath of her passing there was a day's delay to the St Leger, a race the Queen had won in her Silver Jubilee year of 1977 with Dunfermline (GB). 

There could be no finer tribute to the Queen's beloved breeding operation than a major success close to her anniversary in this year's race, and in the Royal Ascot and Glorious Goodwood winner Desert Hero (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}), King Charles and Queen Camilla have a noteworthy potential contender. The William Haggas-trained colt has now won four of his six starts, most importantly last week's G3 Gordon S. While Haggas has trained one of Sea The Stars's faster runners in Baaeed, there looks to be little doubt that Desert Hero will see out the Leger trip. His unraced dam Desert Breeze (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) was gifted to the Queen by Sheikh Mohammed, as was her full-brother, Dartmouth (GB), winner of the G2 Yorkshire Cup and G2 Hardwicke S. among his four Pattern wins. Another of the mare's siblings, Manatee (GB) (Manduro {Ger}), won the G2 Grand Prix de Chantilly, while the family's middle-distance and staying record was further enhanced by the Listed success over almost two miles of another half-sister, Gaterie (Dubai Destination).

Desert Hero may be arguably the most important budding stayer at Haggas's Somerville Lodge, but there is clearly a big soft spot for Hamish (GB) (Motivator {GB}), who is ridden daily by the trainer's wife Maureen and was bred by his father Brian. 

Hamish, who beat Hukum in the G3 September S. of 2021, is unbeaten this season in three Group 3 contests and could yet aim to give his stable a St Leger double if the plan to head to the Irish Champions Weekend comes to fruition. Now seven, he's been a slow burn, but he is exactly the type of horse the racing public loves to latch on to. Three of Hamish's six wins have come at York, the track that Haggas pere et fils would consider to be their local, despite the fact the horse is trained in Newmarket. More remarkably, six of Hamish's nine wins have been in Group 3 contests. Don't rule him out of striking at a higher level eventually. 

William Haggas signed for Hamish's granddam, the unpromisingly-named Frog (GB) (Akarad {Fr}), at the Tattersalls Houghton Sale of 1994 for 16,000gns, and she went into training with his former boss, Sir Mark Prescott, winning five of her 11 starts. Her greater achievement has been as a broodmare, however. 

Frog's eight winning offspring are led by the G1 Doomben Cup winner Beaten Up (GB) (Beat Hollow {GB}), while his half-brother, Harris Tweed (GB) (Hernando {Fr}), who was named after Haggas Sr's company, won the Listed March S. at Goodwood. Their sister Vow (GB), by Hamish's sire Motivator, was fourth in the Oaks after winning the Lingfield Oaks Trial. Her current three-year-old, Pledgeofallegiance (Ire) (Sea The Stars {Ire}), has won two staying handicaps this season for Prescott in the colours of Victorious Racing, but the majority of the family has raced, initially at least, for the Haggases. It is the dual winner Tweed (GB) (Sakhee), the dam of Hamish, who holds the bragging rights so far among Frog's broodmare daughters. 

Tom and Nathaniel

No jockey was in finer form at Goodwood than Tom Marquand, whose four winners were all at group level. The aforementioned Hamish and Desert Hero provided a brace of Group 3s, and he committed daylight robbery in the G1 Goodwood Cup aboard Lady Blyth's homebred Quickthorn (GB), later producing a similar front-running masterclass with Sumo Sam (GB) in stamina-sapping conditions in the G2 Lillie Langtry S. before racing was abandoned halfway through the final day of the meeting. 

Quickthorn and Sumo Sam provided two further examples of the prowess of Nathaniel (Ire) as a sire. While Enable (GB) never graced Goodwood with her presence, another of Nathaniel's top daughters, Lady Bowthorpe (GB), won the G1 Nassau S. of 2021. With Quickthorn becoming his seventh Group 1 winner on the Flat (Burning Victory (Fr) won the G1 Triumph Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival), Nathaniel remains one of the unsung heroes of the British stallion ranks, and a friend to Flat and National Hunt breeders alike.

Ralph Beckett, who had a winning week all over the place, was Goodwood's leading trainer on countback. His three winners in Sussex included taking the G2 Lennox S. for a second time with Kinross (GB) (Kingman {GB}) and another for the King and Queen, for whom Beckett is the longest-standing trainer. The royal winner, Serried Ranks (GB) (Land Force {Ire}), is a seventh-generation descendant of one of the Royal Studs' foundation mares, Feola (GB) (Friar Marcus {GB}), who was runner-up in the 1,000 Guineas for King George VI and is the dam of the 1,000 Guineas and Dewhurst winner Hypericum (GB) (Hyperion {GB}). He thus belongs to the same distinguished family as Baaeed and Hukum.

Now a dual winner this season, the juvenile Serried Ranks has a full-sister catalogued as lot 95 in the Doncaster Premier Yearling Sale (good on Goffs UK for re-rebranding this sale thus, as everyone still calls it 'Donny' anyway). The filly is one of two yearlings to be offered in the sale by Highclere Stud on behalf of the Royal Studs.

Northern Lights

The battle to be champion sprinter of the year looks to be between two Yorkshire-trained speedballs in Shaquille (GB) (Charm Spirit {Ire}) and Highfield Princess (Fr) (Night Of Thunder {Ire}). The latter's trainer, John Quinn, tied with Ralph Beckett at Goodwood on three winners, and he will no doubt have been most delighted to get his star mare back in the winner's enclosure following three placed efforts this season, including two runs at Royal Ascot.

The pair is unlikely to meet in the Nunthorpe, in which Highfield Princess will aim to defend her title, with Shaquille being pointed towards the Haydock Sprint Cup. It is encouraging, however, for Britain, and the north of the country in particular, to have two such high-class sprinters in the ranks.

In The Footsteps of Monsun

In Germany, it has been quite the season for Sea The Moon (Ger) and also for Lars-Wilhelm Baumgarten, who is involved in different ways with both the G1 Deutsches Derby winner Fantastic Moon (Ger) and G1 Preis der Diana victrix Muskoka (Ger).

As highlighted by Sean Cronin in Monday's TDN, Lanwades resident Sea The Moon became the first stallion in 19 years, following his own damsire Monsun (Ger), to sire the Derby-Oaks double in the same year. And it is more than 100 years since the same sire (Ard Patrick in 1910) had the trifecta in the German Oaks as he did, with Kassada (Ger) and Sea The Lady (Fr) chasing home Muskoka.

Baumgarten bred Muskoka with his former wife Antje, and the filly is inbred 4×3 to Monsun's dam Mosella (Ger) (Surumu {Ger}). This family was also fairly recently given a Classic boost by Brametot (Ire) (Rajsaman {Fr}), the winner of the 2017 Poule d'Essai des Poulains and Prix du Jockey Club, whose dam Morning Light (Ger) is a Law Society half-sister to Monsun and is the granddam of Muskoka.

Having sold Muskoka at the BBAG September Yearling Sale through Gestut Ohlerweiherhof for €80,000, Baumgarten later that day signed for Stauffenberg Bloodstock's Sea the Moon colt for €49,000. Subsequently named Fantastic Moon, he went on to be champion two-year-old in Germany before winning the Derby for Baumgarten's investor-driven Liberty Racing syndicate. 

Morning Mist, the dam of Muskoka, has a yearling filly by Reliable Man (GB) in this year's BBAG Yearling Sale as lot 175, again in the Ohlerweiherhof draft, while the Masar (Ire) half-sister to Fantastic Moon is in the Goffs Orby Sale, consigned by her breeders Philipp and Marion Stauffenberg as lot 373.

Anodin Strikes Gold

France held onto another one of its Group 1 prizes this season–just–when the six-year-old King Gold (Fr), the winner of a handicap four starts earlier in April, landed the Prix Maurice de Gheest on Sunday. It was not only a first Group 1 winner for his sire Anodin (Ire), the brother to the mighty mare Goldikova (Ire), but also for his trainer Nicolas Caullery. 

The latter, a kind of younger, Gallic Mick Jagger, would look equally at home headlining Glastonbury as he does picking up gongs in Deauville, but he was visibly moved by this notable milestone in his career provided by a horse he co-owns with King Gold's breeder Christiane Wingtans.

Anodin, who moved from Haras du Quesnay to Haras de la Haie Neuve ahead of the 2022 breeding season, had been leading the French sires' table even before King Gold's major success, and he has now surged farther clear of the reigning champion Siyouni (Fr), who has been represented by most of his major runners this season outside France. That list of course includes last week's G1 Sussex S. winner Paddington (GB) and Irish 1,000 Guineas winner Tahiyra (Ire), though Mqse De Sevgine (Fr) landed a blow at home in the previous weekend's G1 Prix Rothschild.