John Dunlop

A consequence of massive book sizes is that it has become even harder for a less obvious prospective stallion to break into the elite tier. However, just as many seemingly excellent stallion prospects over the years have failed to make the grade, and there is still scope for a stallion to succeed against the odds, to 'pull himself up by his bootstraps', to join the elite after having started out considerably farther down the ladder. One such has been the admirable Invincible Spirit (Ire), whose retirement from active service at...

Invincible Spirit (Ire), the sire of 22 individual Group 1 winners worldwide, has been retired from covering duties, the Irish National Stud announced on Wednesday. Now 27, Invincible Spirit was a fixture on the Irish National Stud roster of stallions for 22 consecutive seasons, starting in 2003 after his breakthrough Group 1 victory in the Sprint Cup at Haydock the previous autumn. As a racehorse he won seven of his 17 starts for trainer John Dunlop and owner-breeder Prince Faisal, with his other wins including the Duke Of York Stakes...

Shadwell's Erhaab (Chief's Crown--Histoire {Fr}, by Riverman), who won the G1 Derby at Epsom in 1994, died peacefully this week at Batsford Stud. The 30-year-old, the oldest surviving winner of the Blue Riband, had spent the past decade at the Gloucestershire stud. Bred by Sheikh Hamdan's operation in Kentucky, the half-brother to Group 2 winner Oumaldaaya (Nureyev) and stakes winner Hispanolia (Fr) (Kris {GB}) was trained by John Dunlop. In five starts as a juvenile, the dark bay won twice and was also third in the G3 Horris Hill S....

Fourth tackling an insufficient seven furlongs in his Sept. 11 debut at Doncaster, his lone juvenile outing, Anamoine Ltd's homebred John Leeper earned 'TDN Rising Star' status upped to 10 furlongs at Newcastle on his Apr. 30 seasonal return last time and continued on a rapid upward trajectory with a career high in this first stakes start. Keen under cover in fourth early, he was sent up to join the front rank with three furlongs remaining and stayed on resolutely under continued rousting inside the final quarter mile to win...

Ed Dunlop is among an elite group of five current trainers to have saddled two Oaks winners. His first, Ouija Board (GB) (Cape Cross {Ire}), has already gone on to produce the Derby winner Australia (GB), a son of Galileo (Ire), and the baton could potentially pass now to Snow Fairy (Ire) (Intikhab) to follow suit with John Leeper (Ire), by Galileo's son Frankel (GB). Whether it's at Epsom or a later big-race target, to have a blue-blooded colt in the stable who has shown some early promise is naturally...

Naming a horse in someone's memory can be a risky strategy but, for Juddmonte, naming a Galileo (Ire) colt after their late American trainer Bobby Frankel was certainly no drawback. Since the outstanding Frankel (GB) retired to stud, a number of his offspring have also been named after trainers of note. Atty Persse (Ire), took the name of the trainer of The Tetrarch (Ire) and became Frankel's first Royal Ascot winner in 2017. He was wearing the Godolphin silks by that time but he raced initially for his breeder, Bjorn...

It is a sign of the times that one of the success stories of the racing summer involves a French trainer based in England, winning his first Group 1 race in Germany for a horse owned by a group of Australians. Step forward David Menuisier, a graduate of such centres of racing excellence as the training yards of Richard Mandella, Criquette Head and John Dunlop now making a name for himself from his adopted West Sussex home of Coombelands. This was the place from which Guy Harwood honed the prodigious...