The Weekly Wrap

The sales caravan rolled into Doncaster and Baden-Baden last week and is now full steam ahead for La Teste de Buch for the Osarus September Sale, which starts tomorrow.

While the familiar names of Dark Angel (Ire) and Kodiac (GB) once again dominated proceedings at the Goffs UK Premier Sale, it was good to see a new name in lights at BBAG.

Sea The Moon (Ger) should always have been an easy sell in his home country. A Deutsches Derby winner by an acknowledged source of class and stamina in Sea The Stars (Ire) and out of a full-sister to three German Classic winners is the kind of pedigree that would have most German breeders stampeding to his door. However, the dwindling pool of mares in the country led Sea The Moon's breeder Heike Bischoff to seek a more prominent stud berth for her star colt, and he retired to Lanwades Stud in Newmarket, which has seen a decent flow of German mares come calling, along with plenty from Britain and Ireland.

The strength of support for Sea The Moon's first-crop yearlings from a range of buyers outside Germany, along with plenty of encouraging comments from agents and trainers, will have given those selling horses by him at Goffs and Tattersalls over the coming weeks renewed confidence. One to note is Staffordstown's colt out of Kirsten Rausing's treble Group 1 winner Albanova (GB) (Alzao), who has already produced four black-type performers, including the G3 Arc Trial winner Algometer (GB) (Archipenko). He is catalogued as lot 319 at Tattersalls October Book 1.

The 13 Sea The Moon yearlings sold on Friday in Germany returned an average just shy of €100,000, led by a colt from Bischoff's Gestut Gorlsdorf who will presumably race in Britain for Sheikh Mohammed after being bought by Godolphin for €460,000.

Not Forgetting Monsun
Though he's been gone for five years, there's no getting away from the legacy of Monsun in Germany. Indeed, as well as being the damsire of Sea The Moon, Monsun also filled that role in the pedigrees of the two major winners during the finale of Baden-Baden's 'Grosse Woche' (Big Week) on Sunday. The Schlenderhan-bred Guignol (Ger), a son of Cape Cross (Ire) and Monsun's Oaks d'Italia winner Guadalupe (Ger), landed his second top-flight win in the G1 Grosser Preis von Baden. His half-brother and fellow Group I winner Guiliani (Ger) (Tertullian) stood his first season at Schlenderhan's near-neighbour Gestut Erftmuhle this season, while his dam's full-brother Getaway (Ger), another Grosser Preis von Baden winner, has been kept busy at Coolmore's Grange Stud over the past seven years.

Narella (Ger), the winner of the second of Sunday's two Group races at Baden-Baden, the G3 Steinhoff Zukunftsrennen, was provided by another of Monsun's daughters, Naomia (Ger), and gave freshman sire Reliable Man (GB) his first stakes winner. The shuttling son of Dalakhani (Ire) will not return next season to Gestut Rottgen, where Narella was bred, as he has been recruited to stand in France at Niccolo Riva's Haras du Thenney. In 2018, the Normandy farm will also welcome another horse with German connections and Group 1 victories in two hemispheres when it takes charge of Ivanhowe (Ger) (Soldier Hollow {GB}), who has raced in Australia under the name of Our Ivanhowe since his export from Germany at the end of 2014. Now seven, Ivanhowe is yet another Schlenderhan graduate to have won Baden-Baden's biggest prize – beating Sea The Moon in the process – along with the G1 Grosser Preis von Bayern, G1 Doomben Cup and G1 Ranvet S.

Love For The Leger
The St Leger and the Irish St Leger are usually just 24 hours apart but with the British racing calendar being a week in arrears this year we'll have the Irish extravaganza this Sunday with Britain's oldest Classic taking place six days later on Sept. 16.

Of course the Irish version, being open to older horses, isn't a Classic at all, but it's a damn fine race nonetheless. This year we could see a rematch between the last two Ascot Gold Cup winners Big Orange (GB) (Duke Of Marmalade {Ire}) and Order Of St George (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) backed up by a strong cast of the best stayers in Ireland and Britain.

Meanwhile, I'm still having a bit of a bottom-lip wobble at the fact that two of my favourite 3-year-old colts of the season are not even entered in the St Leger at Doncaster. Cracksman (GB) (Frankel {GB}), whose powerful, long stride looks tailormade for Town Moor, is heading to the G2 Prix Niel and then perhaps to take on his stable-mate Enable (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}) in the Arc, while the Queen's Call To Mind (GB) (Galileo {Ire}) may also be Chantilly-bound for the G2 Prix Chaudenay.

Of course it's up to a horse's owner where or where not to run, and in the case of the two colts mentioned here, it's reassuring that their respective trainers, John Gosden and William Haggas, have spoken of them both as works in progress who should be better as 4-year-olds.

What I cannot accept, as was suggested recently by a fellow Sunday Forum panellist on At The Races, is the utter nonsense that Cracksman is too good to run in the St Leger. No horse is too good to run in a Classic, especially not one which is closing in on its 250^th anniversary. Gosden, who has won the race four times, may yet take a fifth trophy, and a second for owner Bjorn Nielsen, whose G1 Goodwood Cup winner Stradivarius (Ire) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) could follow the 2011 victory of Masked Marvel (GB) (Montjeu {Ire}).

A Royal Line Indeed
Galileo doesn't know how to have a bad year and his half-brother Sea The Stars is also having a banner season, currently in fifth position in the European sires' table with an impressive 46% strike-rate. But it's not just Urban Sea's male descendants who deserve credit. On Saturday, Masar (Ire) put himself into next year's Classic frame with a two-length win in the G3 Solario S. at Sandown. By New Approach (Ire) out of the G2 UAE Derby winner Khawlah, a grand-daughter of Galileo's half-sister Melikah (Ire) (Lammtarra), Masar is thus inbred 3×4 to Urban Sea.

Then yesterday, the 20-year-old Melikah, who is already the dam of G2 Grand Prix de Deauville hero Masterstroke (Monsun {Ger}) and dual Group 3 winner Moonlight Magic (Ire) (Cape Cross {Ire}), was represented at Windsor by her tenth foal, Royal Line (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}). His winning debut at the age of three was notable for the fact that it was the first victory for Sheikh Mohammed's daughter under her HH Sheikh Al Jalila Racing, whose runners bear the famous maroon-and-while silks which were so successful for her father.

New Frontier For Keller's Star
This time last year, Barbara Keller was cheering her game mare Blond Me (Ire) (Tamayuz {GB}) to victory in the G2 Topkapi Trophy at Veliefendi. Twelve months on and the passionate horsewoman switched disciplines this weekend to watch her three-day eventer The Blue Frontier complete his final competition at Burghley Horse Trials in partnership with legendary Australian rider Andrew Hoy.

Now officially retired as a sport horse, the grey part-thoroughbred already has his second career lined up and will be one of the most eye-catching mounts in the hunting field this coming season. The Blue Frontier has been entrusted to Keller's friend David Redvers, who, when he's not at the races or the sales, is a field master for the Ledbury Hunt.

“He's such a bold jumper and he'll fly the Ledbury hedges,” said Keller, who can meanwhile look forward to Blond Me running in Sunday's G1 Qatar Prix Vermeille.

“It's just such a privilege to have these horses running so well. I love every minute of it,” she added.

It's also worth writing the name of the owner's Fridtjof Nansen (GB) (Kyllachy {GB}) in your notebook. The 2-year-old made a very promising debut for John Oxx on Aug. 27, finishing a running-on fourth to the exciting Saxon Warrior (Jpn) (Deep Impact {Jpn}).

Incidentally, The Blue Frontier is not Andrew Hoy's first connection with a major racing owner. In 2006, he won Britain's premier three-day event, Badminton, on Susan Magnier's former point-to-pointer Moonfleet (Ire), a son of Strong Gale (Ire), on what proved to be a memorable weekend for the Magnier family. Just 24 hours earlier George Washington (Ire) (Danehill) had won the G1 2000 Guineas at Newmarket.