CHARLIE Parker is the president of the Racehorse Owners Association in Britain, a role his late father Sir Eric held at the turn of the millennium. He has other involvements in the sport of racing and the breeding business, owning Wellsummers Stud near Marlborough in Wiltshire and Windsor House Stables in Lambourn, the base for trainer Roger Teal and former home of Peter Walwyn.

Parker operates under the umbrella of Crimbourne Bloodstock, retaining a strong connection with the past as his father operated Crimbourne Stud in West Sussex and it was there that he bred the Group 1 Prix Jean Prat winner Havana Gold, now a Tweenhills Stud stallion. Some 30 years ago next spring will also be the anniversary of Sir Eric’s victory, as an owner, in the Grand National at Aintree with the New Zealand-bred Seagram. Crimbourne Stud was sold following Sir Eric’s death in 2014.

Charlie Parker is no stranger to big race success himself as an owner. His colours have most famously been carried by Grade 1 Christmas Hurdle winner Verdana Blue, though he parted with her last December at Tattersalls when she sold for 370,000gns. He is also a pinhooker, and the best horse he has been involved with in that sphere is Whitsbury Manor Stud’s Group 1 Flying Five Stakes winner Havana Grey, the best son of Havana Gold.

Parker is a fan of both flat and National Hunt racing and currently he has the listed bumper winner Vegas Blues in training with Nicky Henderson. His flat horses are shared between his tenant Roger Teal and fellow Lambourn trainers Jonny Portman and Charlie Hills.

While the travails currently affecting racing due to the coronavirus are foremost in Parker’s thoughts in his role with the ROA, he must surely have taken some time last weekend to keep an eye on racing in Japan. The object of his attention would have been a two-year-old colt by Gleneagles (Galileo), Shock Action, who was contesting the Group 3 Niigata Nisai Stakes over a mile. The colt was successful, repeating a course and distance win just over three weeks earlier. This was his second victory in three outings and pushed his winnings to just over €300,000.

Irish-born

Bred by Italian-based Scuderia Effevi and Dioscuri Srl, but foaled in Ireland, Shock Action was sold through Joe and Mary Hernon’s Castletown Stud as a foal and purchased by Paca Paca Farm, owned by former The Irish Field Japanese columnist Harry Sweeney, for 65,000gns at the Tattersalls December Sale. Sweeney is now president of the Japanese wing of Godolphin in whose colours Shock Action was successful.

After the race on Sunday, Harry Sweeney said: “We are thrilled with the result. Shock Action looked very good when winning last time out but we were not able to assess from his maiden win exactly how good he was. However, we are all now very clear that he is top-class. He was not put under any great pressure and showed a lot of maturity to run up the centre of the long Niigata straight and to bank the US$300,000 winner’s cheque.

“His trainer, Ryuji Okubo, had been very bullish about this horse for some time. Even after he was defeated on his first start, the trainer was adamant that Shock Action was well above average. He has been proven to be absolutely correct. With this win he now already has enough prize money to guarantee himself a starting berth in the Group 1 Satsuki Sho -Japanese 2000 Guineas next year. He will however run again before that and will probably line up in the Group 1 Futurity over a mile in December, with possibly a prep race before that.”

At the same sale in which Shock Action was traded, December 2018, The Castlebridge Consignment sold his dam Reset In Blue, a dual stakes winner by Fastnet Rock (Danehill), to Charlie Parker’s Wellsummers Stud for just 85,000gns. She was carrying a colt by Australia (Galileo) and he was due to be offered for sale in Book 2 of the Tattersalls October Sale as Lot 1146. This grandson of Galileo, whose only older sibling is a group-winning juvenile and also a grandson of Galileo, was scheduled to be sold from The Castlebridge Consignment. Now that plan is temporarily shelved and he will be offered in December, by which time perhaps his half-brother will have stepped up to an even greater success.

Reset In Blue was purchased by the Botti family’s Scuderia Effevi for €160,000 at the Italian yearling sale in 2013. Two of her seven wins for trainer Stefano Botti were in listed races at Rome and Milan, and she was group-placed. She also ran fourth in the Group 1 Premio Lydia Tesio, the Group 2 Italian Oaks and the Group 3 Italian 1000 Guineas. The third produce from Reset In Blue is a March-born filly foal by Intello, also her third offspring by a son of Galileo (Sadler’s Wells), and she is now safely in foal to Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Expert Eye (Acclamation).

One of three stakes winners for her dam, Reset In Blue is a half-sister to another seven-time winner in Romantic Wave (Rock Of Gibraltar) who was successful at Group 3 level in Italy and finished third behind his stablemates Biz The Nurse and Wild Wolf in the Group 1 Gran Premio di Milano. Another sibling, Dematil (Orpen), was a stakes winner at two in Italy,

All three stakes winners are among the six successful offspring from Eurirs (Indian Ridge), the only one of four foals out of Anna Grassi (Bound For Honour) not to win. However, her full-brother Euribor (Indian Ridge) was runner-up in four stakes races, including the Group 3 Prix de Cabourg in France, the Group 3 Premio Primi Passi in Italy and the Listed Oceanside Stakes at Del Mar in the USA.

Listed winner

Anna Grassi was a listed winner at two in Italy and she won four times at that age. Her full-sister Daniela Grassi (Bound For Honour) won twice and she too was sent to be covered at the Irish National Stud by Indian Ridge (Ahonoora) on a couple of occasions. She had a colt in 2006, the year Indian Ridge died, and he was named Libano.

He started his career in Italy and won their 2000 Guineas, a race his own-brother and stakes winner Slapper (Indian Ridge) was placed in. Libano was then sent to be trained in Ireland by Dermot Weld and added a listed success at Leopardstown to his curriculum vitae.

Gleneagles, a full-brother to Group 1 winners Happily and Marvellous and the Group 1-placed Taj Mahal and Coolmore (both group winners), is out of the Group 2 Cherry Hinton Stakes winner You’resothrilling (Storm Cat), a full-sister to Giant’s Causeway. Champion at two in Ireland when he won the Group 1 Goffs Vincent O’Brien National Stakes, Gleneagles went on at three to win the Group 1 2000 Guineas, Irish 2000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes. These performances ensured him the title of champion miler of his generation in Europe.

Six stakes winners are among the first crop of three-year-olds by Gleneagles and they include the Group 2 winning juveniles Royal Dornoch and Royal Lytham, the latter being also Group 1-placed.

That initial crop also includes Jessica Harrington’s stakes-winning filly Silence Please who was fourth on her most recent start in the Group 1 German Oaks. Shock Action is now the first stakes horse in his second crop.