Nathaniel

NEWMARKET, UK -- In contrast to the opening day of foal trade in Ireland just over a week ago, the Tattersalls December Foal Sale was slower out of the blocks with a clearance rate of 60%. The average and median did improve throughout the day and ended with slight increases on this session last year at 12,086gns (+8%) and 9,000gns (+13%). Turnover, from 111 of the 182 foals sold, dipped by 14% to 1,341,500gns, albeit from 24 fewer foals changing hands than on the corresponding day last year. Of those...

"This business is a great leveller," says Emma Banks, who is preparing for the sales debut of the first foal of her star mare Lady Bowthorpe (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}) at Tattersalls next week. The Dubawi (Ire) colt is being consigned by Fittocks Stud, where he was born, and is lot 242 on Wednesday.  "It's getting nerve-wracking. He's going to be the second horse I've sold this year. I had a yearling in the Somerville Sale, which didn't sell. I'd have happily raced him but Tim Easterby bought him outside the...

Wine and racehorses. What, as they say, is not to like? It worked for Marchese Mario Incisa della Rochetta, whose delicious drop of Tuscan red, Sassicaia, is revered the world over, and who found fame in the Thoroughbred world as the co-owner and breeder, with Federico Tesio, of the great Ribot (Ity) among others.  Now Graham Smith-Bernal, who bought Newsells Park Stud from the Jacobs family in 2021, is aiming for a similar sideline in excellence.  In the name of proper and thorough journalistic research, a crack team of wine...

Seventy years ago, Queen Elizabeth II won the fourth running of the race named in honour of her parents, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, at her own racecourse, Ascot. Aureole was a hugely appropriate winner, having been bred by King George VI in 1950, two years prior to the monarch's death. The horse's victory was widely welcomed, not least because he had been beaten a year earlier by his conqueror in the Derby, Pinza.  The 'King George' provides ones of the key pivot points in the season,...

Mark Tompkins retired from the Newmarket training ranks in 2019 with his highest-profile winner having been the 1993 St Leger winner Bob's Return (Ire) (Bob Back). The final black-type victory of his career came with Brushing (GB), a homebred daughter of Medicean (GB), who landed the Listed Galtres S. at York as well as the Cumberland Plate.  Tompkins is now hopeful that by Friday afternoon he can add Classic-winning breeder to his list of achievements as Brushing's daughter, the Lingfield Oaks Trial winner You Got To Me (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}),...

Continuing the profiles of the favourite horses of TDN Europe's editorial team in 2023, Heather Anderson selects a bold frontrunner with huge reserves of stamina. At first glance, the admirable Quickthorn (GB), by Newsells Park Stud's perpetually under-appreciated Nathaniel (Ire), had compiled a fairly successful record as a member of the staying ranks throughout his five-year career prior to his Goodwood heroics this August. However, the Lady Blyth homebred elevated his game to another level when taking the G1 Goodwood Cup this summer, and it was the manner in which...

Continuing our series on the profitability of stallions, this week we are looking at those who stood between £20,000 and £49,999 in 2020. Three of the top four in this table have subsequently graduated to the higher-fee bracket outlined in Part I of this series last Thursday.  As previously stated, we will be examining sires in four key price brackets according to their yearling sales returns of 2022 set against their fees at the time of covering. The average profit has been determined by the stallion's fee plus a figure...

William Haggas is looking to the future after Baaeed's shock swansong defeat in the Qipco Champion S. at Ascot on Saturday by revealing the six-time Group 1-winning superstar's younger brother is set to make his debut soon.  Baaeed (GB) (Sea The Stars {GB}) lost his unbeaten record on his 11th and likely final start on Champions Day when finishing fourth, beaten a little under two lengths, behind Bay Bridge (GB) (New Bay {GB}). That was despite being sent off as a prohibitively short-priced favourite at odds of 1-4. Haggas was...

Sir Mark Prescott will happily recount the story of the time he bashed his former pupil assistant William Haggas over the head with a frying pan for oversleeping. He will also reflect with pleasure on the great pride he felt when Haggas won the Derby in 1996 with Shaamit (Ire). When it comes to being a benevolent dictator, the Prescott pendulum has, by his own admission, swung more from dictatorship towards benevolence in recent years and, more than anyone involved in British racing, the master of Heath House cares deeply...

What an excellent weekend of European Classics, which featured a sprinkling of some intriguing "what ifs" to flavor what's to come in the months ahead. On Friday, Aidan O'Brien won his 41st British Classic--yes, you read correctly--when Tuesday (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}--Lillie Langtry {Ire}, by Danehill Dancer {Ire}) short-headed the unlucky John Gosden-trained Emily Upjohn (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) after an exhilarating face-off in the waning stages of the G1 Cazoo Oaks at Epsom. It was a familiar affair in more ways than one. The fillies are by champion half-brothers,...

He has been branded a pessimist by Sir Michael Stoute for admitting as much, but Richard Brown of Blandford Bloodstock, who bought Cazoo Derby hero Desert Crown (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}), believes Saturday's achievement will never be topped. Brown, a renowned bloodstock agent with over 20 years of experience in the game, went to 280,000gns to secure Desert Crown on behalf of Saeed Suhail at Book 2 at Tattersalls in 2020 and counts himself as extremely lucky to have sourced what he believes is a once-in-a-lifetime colt.  "I ended up at...

With Britain en fete in the midst of the Platinum Jubilee festivities, the Oaks and Derby fell slap-bang in the middle of a four-day bank holiday and, despite the absence of Her Majesty the Queen at Epsom, the meeting still offered much cause for celebration. Sir Michael Stoute is never one to blow his own horn, though he is often heard humming on Newmarket Heath while watching his horses work. And as one of British racing's senior trainers, on the royal roster to boot, he was a most fitting winning...