THERE was a total of 100 foals registered last year in the first crop of dual classic star Capri, and yet last month’s Cheltenham Festival provided a fine advertisement for his potential as a stallion.
It will be 2025 before the first of Capri’s offspring could be challenging for prizes at the four-day spectacular, but this year his full-brother Brazil was among its winners.
The Padraig Roche-trained four-year-old, a 13-length winner at Naas a month before, hit the front inside the final half-furlong and battled on well to hold on by a short head in the Grade 3 Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle.
The two are sons of the late great Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) and out of Dialafara (Anabaa), a winning mare from a prolific blacktype family who has a pair of other pattern-winning Galileo’s to back up those two sons: Group 3 Loughbrown Stakes winner Cypress Creek and the talented Passion.
The latter won the Group 3 Stanerra Stakes at Naas and finished third in the Group 1 Irish Oaks, Group 1 British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes, Group 2 Ribblesdale Stakes and the Group 2 Curragh Cup.
Diamilina, their grandam, won the Group 2 Prix de Mallaret and Group 3 Prix de la Nonette and was placed in the Group 1 Prix Vermeille, and that half-sister to the classic-placed pattern-winning miler and blacktype sire Diamond Green (Green Desert) is a daughter of the smart Linamix (Mendez).
Linamix, a classic-winning miler and leading sire, is prized in National Hunt circles for the stamina he transmits through his descendants, one of the reasons why Capri promises to be a source of top staying chasers and hurdlers in addition to the inevitable two-milers and middle-distance horses.
Some of that stamina was evident during his four-season career on the track. A Group 2 Beresford Stakes winner at two who finished third to Waldgeist in the Group 1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud over 10 furlongs, he went on to pip Cracksman in the Group 1 Irish Derby at the Curragh and defeat Crystal Ocean by half a length in a vintage edition of the Group 1 St Leger.
Stradivarius was a short head behind in third in that Doncaster classic, with margins of a length and a half and a length and a quarter to Rekindling and Coronet in fourth and fifth. Capri’s next win was in the Group 3 Alleged Stakes over 10 furlongs at Naas.
His first foals caught the eye in the auction rings at Goffs and Tattersalls Ireland, with colts fetching €38,000 in both, two of them in Fairyhouse.
Seven others fetched at least €20,000, there was a €16,000 filly in Goffs, and from the handful of them sold as yearlings already this year, there has been three five-figured lots sold including a €19,000 filly in Fairyhouse in February.
Capri, a dual classic-winning full-brother to a Cheltenham Festival scorer, is by the sire of Mahler, Imperial Monarch, Sans Frontieres, Vendangeur and Soldier Of Fortune, among others in the National Hunt sector.
Race record
CAPRI (IRE), Grey 2014. Champion 3yr old stayer in Europe in 2017. Top rated older horse in Ireland in 2018 (11-13f.). Won six races, £1,532,171, from 7 furlongs to 1 mile 6½ furlongs, 2 to 4 years including, Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby, Curragh, Gr.1, William Hill St Leger Stakes, Doncaster, Gr.1, Juddmonte Beresford Stakes, Curragh, Gr.2, toals.com Bookmakers Alleged Stakes, Naas, Gr.3, Coolmore Canford Cliffs Stakes, Tipperary, L, also placed third in Criterium de Saint-Cloud, Saint-Cloud, Gr.1, Derrinstown Stud Derby Trial Stakes, Leopardstown, Gr.3, Holden Loughbrown Stakes, Curragh, Gr.3, Saval Beg Levmoss Stakes, Leopardstown, L.
At stud
Retired to Stud in 2020, first crop now yearlings.
Information
Stands at: Grange Stud, Fermoy, Co Cork, P61 N208, Ireland
Contact: David Magnier, Albert Sherwood, Andrew Magnier, David O’Sullivan and Catherine Magnier
Telephone: +353 (0)25 33006
Email: info@grangestud.com
Web: www.coolmore.com
Fee: €4,000