Caulfield Discusses Dutch Art’s Slade Power

One thing’s for certain–that the Cheveley Park Stud team will never forget the 2014 Royal Ascot meeting. 
On a human level, managing director Chris Richardson and his wife Annie were rewarded for decades of generous service to Cheveley Park Stud in particular and to the industry in general by being asked to be part of the Royal procession. On the racing front, David and Patricia Thompson’s Cheveley Park nursery scored a notable victory when the homebred Dalakhani filly Integral landed the G2 Duke of Cambridge S. In doing so she went one better than her dam Echelon, runner-up in the equivalent race in 2006. 
    Integral’s victory came 16 years after her second dam, Exclusive, had won the G1 Coronation S., so three generations of this family have now performed with distinction at the Royal meeting. 
    It is a reminder of how long Cheveley Park has been operating at the top level that it was at Keeneland’s 1987 November Sale that the stud bought Integral’s third dam Exclusive Order, with David Minton bidding $825,000. To say she has proved a shrewd buy is a considerable understatement. Prior to Exclusive the daughter of Exclusive Native had produced three stakes winners to Sadler’s Wells, the last of them being Entrepreneur, winner of the 2,000 Guineas winner. Entrepreneur had earlier shared top price at the 1995 yearling sales, with the other sale topper, remarkably, also coming from Cheveley Park. 
    But it was the Cheveley Park stallions which made last week so unforgettable for all concerned. Let’s start with Pivotal, who could be described as the backbone of the operation. It is now 18 years since this Cheveley Park homebred gained his first important win, in the King’s Stand S. at Royal Ascot, yet the 21-year-old son of Polar Falcon–another Cheveley Park resident–is still making his mark. Having covered 20 of the stud’s broodmares this year, Pivotal added another important winner to his very long list, which extends to more than 60 group/graded winners. The latest of these, Eagle Top, looks poised to become his 22nd Northern Hemisphere Group 1 winner, judging by his impressive victory in the G2 King Edward VII S. 
    One of Pivotal’s Group 1 winners, the champion sprinter Kyllachy, dominated the latest edition of the King’s Stand S., with his sons Sole Power and Stepper Point taking first and second in this Group 1, which also fell to Sole Power last year. 
    Then, on the last of the five days, Dutch Art became the third member of the Cheveley Park roster to enjoy group success, when Slade Power took the meeting’s other top sprint, the G1 Golden Jubilee. Little more than half an hour later, Dutch Art added another £108,000 to his bankroll when Baccarat landed the hotly-contested Wokingham S. Then, at Haydock, a newcomer called Steve Prescott completed a hat-trick for Dutch Art in a style which suggests he could become another black-type performer for his popular sire. 
    Dutch Art–himself a son of the Cheveley Park resident Medicean–has been one of the success stories of recent years. Even though Slade Power’s Golden Jubilee success was Dutch Art’s first at Group 1 level, the stallion’s fee had risen from £5,000 in his fourth season in 2011 to £35,000 this year. The rise was no doubt partly a response to the prices achieved by some of the yearlings from his £5,000 fourth crop. These included colts which sold for 270,000gns, €240,000 and €205,000. They averaged more than 60,000gns. There was also strong demand for Dutch Art’s fifth crop weanlings. Although sired at a fee of £12,000, seven of them sold for sums between 100,000gns and 160,000gns, with Shadwell buying two of them. 
    Dutch Art’s current fee puts him among the top eight stallions in England– not bad going for a horse who himself sold for 14,500gns as a weanling and 16,000gns as a yearling. His value soared during his unbeaten two-year-old campaign, during which he twice changed hands. The last sale was to Cheveley Park, after he had become a dual Group 1 winner in the Prix Morny and the Middle Park S. 
    At that stage Dutch Art was third favorite for the 2,000 Guineas. Unfortunately for his new owners, he went winless through his second season but, in fact, his Timeform rating rose from 124 to 126 on the strength of a sequence of high-class efforts. He stayed a mile well enough to finish third of 24 in the 2,000 Guineas and a creditable fourth in the G1 St James’s Palace S. However, his connections decided to drop him back to sprinting and were rewarded with good second-place efforts in the G1 July Cup and G1 Prix Maurice de Gheest. 
    Bearing in mind that his second dam, the very useful Palacegate Episode, gained all 11 of her wins over five furlongs, it seems fair to say that Dutch Art was at his absolute best over sprint distances. Consequently it comes as no surprise that his progeny have been shining at up to a mile. 
    None of his six group winners–four from his first crop and two from his second–has won a group race over a distance longer than a mile, though Caspar Netscher, Producer and Ladys First have all won at a mile. 
Slade Power is clearly considered a pure sprinter, as he has only once ventured beyond six furlongs during an 18-race career which has yielded nine victories. This is despite having a dam and a second dam sired by versatile horses whose records included notable efforts beyond a mile. 
    His first dam, the five-furlong winner Girl Power, is by Key of Luck. This grandson of Danzig certainly didn’t lack speed, as he showed by winning the G3 Prix d’Arenberg over five furlongs as a 2-year-old. 
However, in a career severely hampered by injuries, the 5-year-old Key of Luck showed a very different dimension to his talents. Trained by Kiaran McLaughlin in the UAE, he shone on Nad Al Sheba’s sand track. After carrying top weight to a 12-length success in record time over a mile and a quarter, he took the Dubai Duty Free by 20 lengths in the hands of Gary Stevens. Stevens later described Key of Luck as “one of the most brilliant racehorses that I have been associated with.” 
    Key of Luck’s finest achievement as a stallion was to sire Alamshar, winner of the Irish Derby and the King George, but his broodmare daughters are proving most effective as the dams of sprinters and two of them have now produced winners of the Diamond Jubilee, the other being the 2011 winner Society Rock. 
    Marju, sire of the second dam Rumuz, would have been an easy winner of the 1991 Derby, had Generous not been in the field, but he then reverted to a mile to take the St James’s Palace S. Rumuz came closest to success over a mile and an eighth but the next dam, the American-bred Balqis, was at her best as a precocious 2-year-old sprinter. 
It should be exciting to chart Dutch Art’s progress from 2015 onwards, as his next three crops of racing age are the most expensive of his career, sired at £12,000, £18,000 and £35,000. 
    The latest stud card from Cheveley Park shows that 17 of the stud’s 132 broodmares visited Dutch Art this year, with nine of the 17 being daughters of Pivotal. The stud also has 14 Dutch Art yearlings and 16 foals, so it shouldn’t be long before Cheveley Park adds to its own total of group winners by Dutch Art, which currently stands at two–the Group 2 winners Garswood (out of a grand-daughter of Pivotal) and Producer.