Bill Oppenheim: Earlier Start

It was not very many years ago that winter meant a complete shutdown of flat racing in Britain and Ireland, with only Cagnes-sur-Mer keeping the doors open in France. When that was the case, we could forget about tracking European second-crop sires, whose first foals were about to begin racing at three, until pretty much mid-April at the earliest. 
But times have changed. Britain has had ‘all-weather’ (synthetic track) flat racing for over 25 years now; Ireland’s synthetic track since 2007, Dundalk, has been racing every Friday through the winter; and, driven by the PMU (French Tote), France now has all-weather winter racing at Deauville and Chantilly as well as Cagnes-sur-Mer. Even though European winter racing is geared more to the average older horse, shall we say, rather than the good horse, nonetheless a few races for 3-year-olds inevitably sneak through, and an indisputably significant number of these are 3-year-olds from the first crops of their sires. Last weekend there were three listed races for 3-year-olds in Britain and France (the two in France were at Saint-Cloud, back on the grass), and all three were won by representatives of their sires’ first crops. So we decided we’d better start paying attention. 

When play was completed at the end of 2014, the leading European freshman sire was Ireland’s Ballylinch Stud’s Lope de Vega, who emulated his sire Shamardal on the racetrack by capturing the French Classic double of the one-mile G1 Poule d’Essai des Poulains (2000 Guineas) and the 2100 meter (10 1/2 furlong) G1 Prix du Jockey Club (the ’new’ French Derby) in 2010. If you click here for the 2014 TDN Freshman Sire List for North American and European sires, you’ll see that he ranked #4 in progeny earnings behind North American sires Quality Road (Lane’s End), Super Saver (WinStar) and Lookin At Lucky (Ashford), with 24 winners and the earners of US$1,265,607. He was the top NA/EU freshman sire by number of graded/group stakes winners (four), which included G1 Dewhurst S. winner Belardo. 

Europe’s number two (#6 overall) was the Haras de Bonneval’s Siyouni, a son of Pivotal who won the 2009 edition of France’s top 2-year-old race, the G1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardare, for his owner-breeder, the Aga Khan. Siyouni had 18 winners, including three GSW last year, the best of them being the Aga Khan’s filly Ervedya, winner of the G3 Prix de Cabourg and placed in both the G1 Prix Morny (third to The Wow Signal) and the G1 Prix Marcel Boussac (second to Found). 

Third in Europe (#7 overall) was England’s Whitsbury Manor’s Showcasing, the most promising sire son so far of Oasis Dream. Bred and raced by Prince Khalid Abdullah, Showcasing won the G2 Gimcrack S. as a 2-year-old, but in an abbreviated campaign at three ran second against older horses in the G2 Duke of York S. in May, then finished out with the washing in two Group 1 sprints won by Starspangledbanner (Choisir); all of this form, good and bad, was at six furlongs. He started at stud for £5,000 and had dropped to £4,500 for 2014, but they came out running and by the end of the season he had 29 winners, three black-type winners (including Group 2 winner Toocoolforschool and Group 3 winner Cappella Sansevero), seven black-type horses and a 2015 stud fee of £15,000, book full. Lope de Vega, incidentally, had started at €15,000, dropped to €12,500 by 2014, and stands this year for €40,000, book full; and Siyouni, who had always stood for €7,000, now stands for €20,000, and you can’t get into him, either. 

Nine European freshman sires figured among the 19 combined NA/EU sires that had $600,000 or more in 2014 progeny earnings. The other Euros, in order, at the end of 2014, were: EU #4 (#11 overall) Zebedee (Invincible Spirit); EU #5 (#12 overall) Starspangledbanner (Choisir); EU #6 (#14 overall) Paco Boy (Desert Style); EU #7 (#17 overall) Rip Van Winkle (Galileo); EU #8 (#18 overall) Fast Company (Danehill Dancer); and EU #9 (#19 overall) Equiano. 

Now back to last weekend. Highclere Stud’s Paco Boy was a top miler over three seasons for trainer Richard Hannon Sr. Beginning with the 2008 G1 Poule d’Essai des Poulains (French 2000 Guineas), his final 19 races were either Group 1 (15) or Group 2 (four) races. He won all four of the Group 2’s, and was in the first four in 12 of the 15 Group 1’s (3 wins, 3 seconds, 2 thirds, 4 fourths). He had 25 winners last year, and among his seven BTH was Lexington Times, a winner and third in the G3 Solario S. at two. Making his first start this year, he sprang an upset to win last Saturday’s seven furlong Spring Cup at Lingfield. Paco Boy has already sired six runners which have run RPRs of 102 or higher, which I would call very encouraging. 

On Sunday two 10-furlong listed races for 3-year-olds were run at Saint-Cloud, outside Paris, and which unexpectedly has now come under threat by a proposed development of 6,000 houses on the site of the racecourse. The fillies’ race, the Prix Rose de Mai, was won by Princess Charm, a daughter of Coolmore’s Rip Van Winkle, a son of Galileo who was a real top-level performer, winning three Group 1 races at 1 mile to 10 1/2 furlongs at three and four, especially when he didn’t have to run against Sea The Stars, to whom he ran fourth in both the G1 English 2000 Guineas and Epsom Derby, and second, both beating older horses, in the G1 Eclipse (distances: one mile, 12f, 10f). He had G1 Phoenix S. winner Dick Whittington among his 16 winners last year, and this early marker as a 3-year-old augurs well for him. The equivalent colts’ race, the Prix Maurice Caillault, was won by Piment Rouge, who is by Evasive, a son of Elusive Quality bred and raced by Cheveley Park Stud, then sold to Godolphin, and who went to stud at the Haras de Grandcamp for just €3,000. As he had already sired the G3 Prix des Chenes winner Evasive’s First last year, it’s safe to say Evasive’s days as an obscure French stallion are over. 

Though all three had black-type winners last weekend, and though European racing is still only just more or less coming out of hibernation, six other European now second-crop sires are ahead of the three black-type winning sires by 2015 earnings (click here). You have to go down to #19 on the list to find the first European sire, which is the Haras De La Cauviniere’s (they also stand Le Havre) Air Chief Marshall, a Group 3-winning son of Danehill Dancer. He’s sired five winners this year, including the 3-year-old gelding Djoko, a winner twice and twice black-type placed at Cagnes-sur-Mer. The next three are now-familiar names: #21 Lope de Vega, five winners including Wychwood Warrior, black-type placed in Dubai last month and an impresive seven-furlong winner at Dundalk last week; #25 Showcasing, five winners including the 3-year-old colt Projected, second in the 6 1/2-furlong Prix Montenica on the all-weather at Chantilly; and #26 Siyouni, four winners including the colt Svoul, third in the Montenica. Also ahead of the three sires of black-type winners at this really early stage are Haras de Hetraie’s Silver Frost (Verglas, three 2015 winners), and Ireland’s Tally Ho Stud’s Zebedee (five 2015 winners), who was the number four freshman sire in Europe last year. So, even though the 2015 European season is still in its infancy, seven of the nine EU second-crop sires mentioned in the context of 2015 results have black-type horses already this year . 

More Change… 
In 2009, Britain’s industry stakeholders created and funded Racing For Change, which was rebranded Great British Racing in 2013. To the extent that the purpose was to strengthen the identity of horse racing in the U.K. the project has been somewhat successful, but on the other hand the adoption of a purely domestic agenda is more beneficial for those with a purely domestic agenda themselves, whereas the reality is the top level of British racing is part of a European setup. The creation of British Champions Day, so that ‘Britain’ could have its own year-end championship, was a great achievement from the domestic point of view, but has raised more questions than it’s answered on the European and broader international front. Also, because countries determine their own rules (or states, in the cases of certain countries, he noted ruefully) the downside of Great British Racing’s agenda is that the erection of a sensible European circuit remains a matter of negotiation rather than integration, which should be the case because it would benefit the horse racing industry in our competition with other means of entertainment. 

In the constant tweaking which, fair enough, needs to take place to keep any business viable (note the changes in the North American 2-year-old sale structure this year), a couple of changes involving, or at least implicating, Great British Racing, have been announced. The first is that the major end-of-season British 2-year-old races are to be moved two weeks forward, this year to Oct. 10, and that the six-furlong G1 Middle Park will be run the end of September instead of the same day as the G1 Dewhurst, run at seven furlongs. All this is good, because the year-end 2-year-old racing schedule had been a complete mess since this all got started. Coupled with the lengthening of France’s G1 Jean-Luc Lagardare back to a mile, the distance of the old Gran Criterium, the major year-end 2-year-old races will at last more or less make sense again. 

Great British Racing’s latest brainwave, however, is not a good idea. They have decreed that the Jockeys’ Championship (always determined by number of winners) will now not cover the British Turf season (end of March to early November), but will instead begin with the Guineas meeting at Newmarket the beginning of May and end with the hallowed British Champions Day near the end of October. It’s one of those things you look at and just go: say what? The use of statistics as a promotional tool for the business is blatantly obvious, but when we talk about statistics produced for the general public, it’s equally obvious they should be simple and easy to read and understand, yet meaningful. Jockeys are still a much under-utilized promotional tool for our business, and jockey standings and championships are a no-brainer. But, really? The Guineas meeting may well kick off the major flat turf season, but what about those horses that had a prep race in April? The same jockey rides the horse in the prep and the Guineas, yet the prep race doesn’t count? Think again, folks; this one should not get out of the starting blocks.