Bearstone Stud

Bearstone Stud has kept the fees for its three stallions at the same price as in 2024, with Dream Ahead at £6,500, Belardo (Ire) at £5,500 and Washington DC (Ire) at £3,500.  "We feel our stallions offer exceptional value in a challenging market, none more so than Belardo, who is the highest-ranked sire standing in Europe under £15,000 by the number of European winners in 2024," said Bearstone Stud owner Terry Holdcroft.  "Further afield US Grade I winner Gold Phoenix added more US black-type to his form, and Fiach McHugh...

The reputation of Yorkshire as the cradle of the Thoroughbred was reinforced through some of the key results of the Irish Champions Festival last weekend. Economics (GB) (Night Of Thunder {Ire}) provided a reminder of the importance of his birthplace, the Reed family's Copgrove Hall Stud, where his broodmare sire, the Arc winner Peintre Celebre, had grazed as a youngster. His dam, the dual Group 2 winner La Pomme d'Amour (GB), a third-generation Guy Reed homebred, resides there still.  Just a little farther south from Copgrove lives Deborah O'Brien, the...

Victorious Racing's 2023 G1 King's Stand Stakes hero and 'TDN Rising Star' Bradsell (GB) (Tasleet {GB}--Russian Punch {GB}, by Archipenko), on an enforced sabbatical for 329 days after registering that career high, added to his comeback win in this month's Listed Prix du Cercle with a dominant performance in Friday's G1 Coolmore Wootton Bassett Nunthorpe Stakes at York. The 3-1 second favourite was swiftly into stride on the far wing and chased the trailblazing Ponntos (Ire) (Power {GB}) in second through the initial stages of this straight five-furlong dash. Easing...

Three-time Group 1-winning sprinter Glass Slippers (GB) (Dream Ahead) produced her first foal, a colt by Darley's Dubawi (Ire), owner-breeder Bearstone Stud announced via Twitter on Tuesday. "We are pleased to announce our new arrival, a classy-looking colt by Dubawi out of our triple Group 1-winning mare Glass Slippers," the stud tweeted. The daughter of the winning Night Gypsy (GB) (Mind Games {GB}) excelled over minimum trips and won the G1 Prix de l'Abbaye, and G1 Flying Five S., in addition to her GI Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint score.

Dream Ahead anchors the 2023 Bearstone Stud roster and will stand for an unchanged fee of £7,500. He is the sire of 32 stakes winners (13 group) and four Group 1 winners worldwide led by GI Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint heroine Glass Slippers (GB). Joining the son of Diktat, as announced on Thursday, is Belardo (Ire) at £6,500. Washington DC (Ire) will command £3,000, down from £3,500 in 2022. Mattmu (GB)'s fee has been reduced an identical amount, and he is priced at £2,000.

Dual Group 1 winner Belardo (Ire) will move to Bearstone Stud in Shropshire for the 2023 breeding season. A former Darley stallion, he will stand for £6,500 next year. The son of Lope De Vega (Ire) already has eight stakes winners worldwide with six of them successful at group level. Isabella Giles (Ire) won the G2 Rockfel S. and G3 Prestige S., while both Bellabel (Ire) and Gold Phoenix (Ire) won graded races at Del Mar in California. The former was also second in the GI Del Mar Oaks and...

NEWMARKET, UK -- "Trickledown" felt rather too contentious, given what was meanwhile happening to its proponents out there in the real world. In this environment, after all, the original label of "horse-and-sparrow economics" would always have conveyed the theory rather more intelligibly. Some alternative word was required on Friday, then, to describe how a rampant market at the front end of the Tattersalls October Sale was filtering somewhat more quietly into the base of the pyramid. In the end, the second half of Book 3--in which momentum reliably ebbs relative...

NEWMARKET, UK--There's no let-up in a sales calendar that becomes more packed every year, and the yearling action now switches to Newmarket, with the Tattersalls Somerville Sale sandwiched between last Friday's BBAG Yearling Sale in Germany, and a new French sale at Arqana this coming Thursday and Friday. This is in effect only the second year of the Somerville, a sale that grew out of the Tattersalls Ascot Yearling Sale, which itself only existed for four years, having been moved to Newmarket during the first year of the pandemic. That...

Washington DC (Ire) (Zoffany {Ire}) became the latest European freshman sire off the mark when the Kevin Ryan-trained 2-year-old gelding Washington Heights (GB) notched a first winner for the Bearstone Stud resident in Wednesday's Scaleby Restricted Maiden S. over five furlongs at Carlisle. 1st-Carlisle, £10,000, Mdn, 6-22, 2yo, 5fT, 1:01.41, g/f. WASHINGTON HEIGHTS (GB) (g, 2, Washington DC {Ire}--Epping Rose {Ire}, by Kodiac {GB}), who ran fourth in his June 7 debut at Wetherby last time, broke smartly to lead from the outset here. Holding sway throughout, the 4-1 third...

Triple Group 1-winning sprinter Glass Slippers (GB) (Dream Ahead) has been tested in foal to Dubawi (Ire) for her first mating, owner/breeder Bearstone Stud revealed on Twitter on Thursday. Trained by Kevin Ryan, Glass Slippers won three black-type races culminating in the G1 Prix de l'Abbaye at three. She added the G1 Flying Five S. the following season and, after missing by a neck to Wooded (Fr) in her l'Abbaye title defense, shipped to Keeneland to win the GI Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint. Glass Slippers finished third in three starts...

by Chris McGrath NEWMARKET, UK -- The world certainly looks a different place from when these babies slithered into the straw. A less frightening one, thankfully, to many breeders, who have been relieved by a remarkable strength and depth in all levels of the market after the global economy absorbed the shock of Covid. So while the Tattersalls December Foal Sale opened in the customary low register, business on Wednesday unequivocally maintained the buoyant morale established in other sectors. Indeed, the clearance rate of 84% was a session record, and...

Group 2 winner Mattmu (GB) (Indesatchel {Ire}), who was born and raised at Bearstone Stud, will stand there for £2,500 (Oct. 1st SLF) in 2022. Successful in the G2 Criterium de Maisons-Laffitte and G3 Phoenix Sprint, the bay was also third in the G1 Nunthorpe S. at York. From a select first crop of foals, Mattmu has a pair of winners from five runners, and one of his winners, Favourite Child (GB), ran second at listed level in France. Terry Holdcroft, owner of Bearstone Stud, commented, "Mattmu has impressed us...