Dual Group 1 Winner Hawkbill Relocated to Darley Japan
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Photo: Mathea Kelley/Dubai Racing Club
Hawkbill wins the 2018 Dubai Sheema Classic at Meydan
Darley announced that dual group 1 winner Hawkbill will stand at its Japan base for the 2020 breeding season.
The son of leading American sire Kitten's Joy , Hawkbill stood at Darley's Newmarket base, Dalham Hall, for £7,500 this season and retired to stud as his sire's leading earner.
Purchased for $350,000 at the 2014 Keeneland September Yearling Sale, the chestnut is out of a Giant's Causeway mare who has since produced the grade 1-winning Free Drop Billy , and his further family hails from the same lines as Godolphin stars Dubai Millennium and Ribchester.
Trained by Charlie Appleby, Hawkbill won three of his five starts at 2 before striking in the Tercentenary Stakes (G3) at Royal Ascot in 2016. He landed his biggest success when denying The Gurkha in a thrilling finish to the Coral-Eclipse (G1) on his next start.
Placed efforts in group 1 company at 4 followed, along with wins in the Al Rayyan Aston Park (G3) and Princess of Wales's Arqana Racing Club Stakes (G2), before a second top-level strike in the 2018 Longines Dubai Sheema Classic (G1), defeating Poet's Word and Cloth of Stars.
Harry Sweeney, president of Darley Japan, said, "Hawkbill is a big, good-looking, and correct horse, and I believe he will very much suit Japanese mares. If his progeny look like him, then they certainly will be popular at the sales."