Late Maryland Sire Seville Gets First Stakes Winner

The late Maryland stallion and Australian group 1 winner Seville was represented by his first black-type winner Feb. 16 when his 3-year-old daughter Las Setas won the Wide Country Stakes at Laurel Park.

Las Setas is a Maryland-bred homebred racing for Robert Manfuso and Katherine Voss. In the Wide Country Stakes she delivered her second victory in as many starts since the beginning of the year. Trained by Voss, Las Setas has won two of three lifetime starts and earned $91,240 so far.

The sophomore filly is the third black-type winner produced by the winning Polish Numbers mare Tanca, who also was bred and raced by Manfuso and Voss.

Seville became the first son of top international sire Galileo to stand in the Mid-Atlantic region when Heritage Stallions acquired his Northern Hemisphere breeding rights from Mauricio Salinas Torres' Haras Masaiva in Chile. The stallion entered stud in Chile in 2014 and then stood his first season in the United States in 2015.

"Those first foals were awesome foals," remembered Louis Merryman, who was involved in syndicating Seville for Heritage Stallions and now operates Anchor & Hope Farm. "I would get calls out of the blue from breeders who had bought mares in foal to him and once they saw the foals were very impressed. We were getting a lot of good feedback."

Tragedy struck in May of 2017 when Seville got a leg caught between two fence boards in his paddock and fractured it so severely that surgical repair was not an option. Seville was 9 when he died.

Bred in Germany under the name Tattersalls Ltd., Seville was the second foal and best performer to date out of the multiple group 3 winner Silverskaya (by Silver Hawk), who was sold to bloodstock agent Charlie Gordon-Watson through the 2007 Tattersalls December Breeding Stock Sale for 750,000 guineas (US$1,626,739). 

Seville was eventually raced by Coolmore associates Michael Tabor, Derrick Smith, and Susan Magnier. He won once and placed twice in three starts at 2 and went on to place four times in grade/group 1 stakes, including runner-up finishes in the Juddmonte Grand Prix de Paris (G1), Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby (G1), Turnbull Stakes (G1), and Racing Post Trophy Stakes (G1). He finally got his group 1 win at 5 in the McGrath Estate Agents Metropolitan at Australia's Randwick. Seville was retired with a 2-6-1 record out of 20 starts in Europe and Australia and earned $1,188,759.

As a stallion, Seville sired 178 named foals. He had 21 Chilean-bred foals in his first crop. His subsequent crops included (named and unnamed) 79 foals (66 bred in Maryland) in 2016; 63 foals (62 bred in Maryland) in 2017; and, 41 foals of 2018.

Now a second-crop U.S. sire, Seville has been represented by 33 starters through Feb. 18, of which seven are winners. He has one other black-type performer in winning Chilean-bred Pampero Gaucho, who was third in September's Nacional Ricardo Lyon Pena (G1) at Club Hipico de Santago. 

"He was a cool horse and really tough," Merryman said. "I'm not surprised to see them come running now."