Diverse Range of Sires Among Champions Day Winners

QIPCO British Champions Day at Ascot Oct. 16 delivered some wonderful performances and crowned the season’s leading jockeys.

There was to be no spectacular coronation for Britain and Ireland’s champion sire-elect Frankel , however, as his highest rated runner of the season, Adayar , finished a below-par fifth in the QIPCO Champion Stakes (G1).

Adayar has now raced too freely in his last two races, and it looks as though another winter to mature might do him the world of good.

His fifth place still threw a handy £33,894 (US$46,586) into Frankel’s prize money pot this season, though, with La Joconde  also contributing £26,800 ($36,835) with her fourth in the QIPCO British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes (G1) and Master of Reality  bringing in £13,450 ($18,486) for his fifth in the QIPCO British Champions Long Distance Cup (G2).

Galileo ’s only two runners on British Champions Day this year, The Mediterranean  and Roberto Escobarr , finished out of the money in the Long Distance Cup and so, by stealth, Frankel did manage to extend his lead at the top of the British and Irish sire table on the day.

Overall, though, results from Ascot on Saturday continued the theme of this flat season: that, for the first time, it feels as though we are in the twilight of the Galileo era, and a wider diversity of sires are therefore getting to taste more success.

That sense was felt most keenly when the hitherto disappointing Muhaarar  was represented by the two fillies who battled out the finish to the British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes, Eshaada ,and Albaflora .

Eshaada becomes not just the first group 1 winner, but a first pattern scorer above group 3 level for Muhaarar, who seemed to have so much going for him when he retired after winning the QIPCO British Champions Sprint Stakes (G1) on this card six years ago but sadly hasn’t proved up to scratch with his first three crops of racing age.

Furthermore, Champion Stakes winner Sealiway  is the only offspring of Galiway  to have raced on the flat in Britain or Ireland this year, which goes to show how much consideration trainers and owners here have given to the sire.

Sealiway is another feather in the cap of his breeder Guy Pariente, who stands the sire Galiway and damsire Kendargent at his Haras de Colleville in Normandy and has practically made both stallions himself.

Long Distance Cup hero Trueshan  continues to fly the flag for his sire Planteur , who commands a fee of just £3,000 as a dual-purpose proposition at Chapel Stud.

Planteur has been firing in winners left, right, and center of late, including Plantstepsdream in a listed race in Sweden last Sunday and Cordey Rose in two races at Le Pin Au Haras and ParisLongchamp in the space of four days last week.

Dubawi , the sire of British Champions Sprint winner Creative Force , and Sea The Stars , sire of Queen Elizabeth II Stakes (G1) victor Baaeed , were more orthodox sources of group 1 success.

Of course it’s not all about the stallions, though, and there were some wonderful broodmare achievements on British Champions Day, too.

Owenstown Stud’s crack broodmare Choose Me now has two winners at the meeting to her credit, with Creative Force triumphing four years after his half sister Persuasive  bested Ribchester  and Churchill  to land the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.

Choose Me, a listed-winning daughter of Choisir  descended from champion Cairn Rouge, has produced six winners from as many runners. As well as Persuasive and Creative Force, they include listed winner Tisbutadream and smart handicappers Amazour and Songkran.

In that light, the €230,000 ($268,719) paid by Amanda Skiffington for a Dark Angel  full sister to Persuasive at the Goffs Orby Yearling Sale last month doesn’t look unreasonable at all.

Elsewhere, there was some pleasing symmetry in the pedigrees of Shadwell’s two homebred group 1 winners on Saturday, Eshaada and Baaeed.

Eshaada is out of Muhawalah, a winning Nayef  full sister to dual group 1 winner Tamayuz . Muhawalah’s maternal granddam Allez Les Trois was by Riverman out of Allegretta, making her a half sister to the mighty Urban Sea, winner of the CIGA Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (G1) and dam of Galileo and Sea The Stars.

Eshaada, by the by, is a second female-line descendant of Allegretta to win a group 1 in Europe in quick succession, after Torquator Tasso  in the Arc.

Baaeed, meanwhile, is by Sea The Stars—like Muhaarar, a paternal grandson of Green Desert—out of the listed-winning Kingmambo  mare Aghareed, who has also produced this year’s three-time group 3 winner Hukum, making her a front-runner for broodmare of the year honors.

Aghareed is out of Emirates Airline Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf (G1T) heroine Lahudood , whose third dam was the late Hamdan Al Maktoum’s illustrious foundation mare Height of Fashion—dam of Eshaada’s broodmare sire Nayef.

To help illustrate the similarities in the pedigrees, a hypothetical foal of the future by Baaeed out of Eshaada would be inbred 4x4 to Green Desert; 4x5 to Allegretta; and 6x4 to Height of Fashion.

To put the icing on the cake, Glounthaune , who won the Richmond Homes Killavullan Stakes (G3) at Leopardstown on Saturday, is also from a maternal family that combines the powers of Height of Fashion and Allegretta.

The Kodiac  colt is out of Khaimah, a Nayef half sister to QIPCO Prix du Jockey Club (G1) third Motamarris and to the dam of Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby (G1) winner Santiago , out of Thamarat, a listed-placed half sister to Tamayuz.

Khaimah looks exceptionally well bought by Tally-Ho Stud for just €19,000 ($20,861) in Goresbridge. Surely that operation must by now have broken some sort of record for the number of 2-year-old stakes winners bred in a season?