IT’S hard to believe that it has been 13 years since Sublimity stormed home at Cheltenham to beat Brave Inca by three lengths in the Champion Hurdle. The prolific Grade 1 performer also scored at the highest level in the Festival Hurdle at Leopardstown, lost out by just a head to Punjabi in the Grade 1 Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Wetherby, and was in the frame in various other top-level contests, including when third to Solwhit in the Irish Champion Hurdle.
That talented gelding also did well on the flat, winning the Listed Doncaster Mile and the Curragh’s 10-furlong Listed Alleged Stakes. He was trained in turn by Sir Michael Stoute, John Carr and Robert Hennessy, and is the most famous jumper sired by the brilliant miler and notable classic sire Selkirk (Sharpen Up), who spent his career at Lanwades Stud in Newmarket.
There have not been many sons of Selkirk at stud, but Cityscape has a South American Grade 1 star and a Hong Kong millionaire to go with his growing number of European stakes winners, and Trans Island has compiled a solidly successful profile as a dual-purpose stallion. Aiken is at the start of his stallion career but he was a high-class racehorse, he comes from a prolific blacktype family and he has a couple of blacktype sires among his close relations.
His sole sales horse last year is a now four-year-old half-brother to the prolific pair Truckers Highway (Rudimentary) and Glen Countess (Pilsudski) who sold at the Tattersalls Ireland August National Hunt Sale. That chesnut comes from the immediate family of the Grade 1 stars Wither Or Which (Welsh Term) and Alexander Banquet (Glacial Storm).
Aiken, who beat Maxios in the Group 2 Grand Prix de Chantilly, ran away with a listed contest at Ascot and was only beaten by about half a length when fourth to Royal Diamond in the Group 1 Irish St Leger. Aiken has not yet had any runners, and neither has Gatewood (Galileo; has three-year-olds), the pattern-winning son of his Group 3-winning full-sister Felicity.
However, their Group 2-winning half-brother Sleeping Indian (Indian Ridge) – best at around a mile – has plenty of winners. His best include the stakes-winning sprinter Hototo, juvenile Group 3 scorer Crazy Horse, the Grade 1-placed sprint pattern star Night Carnation, and a long list of horses who have won at least five times on the flat, several of them with double-digit tallies.
Aiken’s dam is the Group 1 Oaks d’Italia third Las Flores (Sadler’s Wells), a half-sister to Bach (Caerleon) and Dancing Goddess (Nijinsky). The latter was a classic-placed stakes winner whose talented grandson Air Eminen (by Danehill) sired the smart French hurdler Hurkhan, whereas the Group 1-placed, Group 2 scorer Bach has sired many multiple winners under National Hunt rules.
Aiken was a high-class racehorse, he is by the sire of a Champion Hurdle star and comes from a family that has yielded some successful stallions. It will certainly be interesting to see how his progeny turn out.
AIKEN (GB), Bay 2008. Won six races, £165,057, from 1 mile 2 furlongs to 1½ miles, at 3 and 4 years including, Grand Prix de Chantilly, Chantilly, Gr.2, John Doyle Buckhounds Stakes, Ascot, L, also placed second in Qipco Long Distance Cup, Ascot, Gr.3.
Retired to Stud in 2014, first crop now 5 year olds.
Stands at: Anngrove Stud, Mountmellick, Co Laois, Ireland.
Contact: Alastair Pim
Telephone: +353 (0)57 8624122 or 087 2902188
Email: anngrovestud@eircom.net
Fee: €1,000