This time last year, the TDN asked industry figures to name a sire that could feature prominently in 2016. Today we look back on agent James Delahooke's outlook on Frankel.
James Delahooke: Rewind to the early 80's when the death of Jock Whitney, former U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain and a confirmed anglophile, brought an opportunity to purchase a group of his mares and fillies. Much encouraged by Jeremy Tree, Prince Khalid asked me to assess the mares, and a package duly joined his Juddmonte Farms broodmare band. Among them was a 1979 Stage Door Johnny filly named Rockfest who had managed two minor victories as a 2-year-old but had not trained on. To be truthful, she was not particularly prepossessing and only made the cut as part of the package. Mated to my yearling purchase Rainbow Quest, she produced Rainbow Lake. Another of my yearling purchases, Razyana, had foaled Danehill. When Danehill met Rainbow Lake their daughter Kind went on to prove how right Mr. Jeremy Tree's insistence had been. Kind's son Frankel has his first runners this year, and I have seen enough of them to be confident his story is only half-written. The chattering classes have as usual had their little go at denigrating someone else's commercial property–he doesn't stamp his stock, they say. To which my reply is neither did Northern Dancer or Habitat, the two most influential stallions of my apprenticeship years.
Go Frankel, show them what you have got.
A happy footnote is that my recent purchase Ribbons was covered by Frankel on St. Valentine's Day, his first cover of 2016. Thus proving that I am putting my (client's) money where my mouth is!
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