SADLER’S Wells (by Northern Dancer) had a profound effect on the global racing industry, both flat and National Hunt. His surviving sons are veterans now and while Galileo has forged his own dynasty on the flat, the race is on to try to find the ones who will prove as potent with hurdlers and chasers.
Sons of his brilliant champion Montjeu have done very well with their National Hunt runners and several of them are currently ranked in the top 50 in the sires’ championship table. Although the overwhelming bulk of the stars sired by Galileo’s sons have come on the flat, there is a growing number of listed and graded scorers appearing over obstacles.
Mahler – the only one in the top 50 this season at the time of writing – is well-established as being a leading sire of staying chasers. Imperial Monarch’s first-crop daughter Cill Anna won a listed mares’ novice hurdle at Doncaster last Saturday, and the first crop of the now British-based Sans Frontieres contains the Naas Grade 2 novice hurdle winner Jason The Militant.
Almost all leading flat sires manage to get the occasional blacktype winner under National Hunt rules, a feat that classic sire Teofilo has achieved in past seasons, while Nathaniel, the sire of the great Enable, struck with Burning Victory at Fairyhouse recently, the Willie Mullins trainee taking the Grade 3 Winning Fair Juvenile Hurdle at Fairyhouse on her jumping debut.
The group-siring flat stallions Rip Van Winkle and Sixties Icon are also among those who have had multiple winners over obstacles, whereas Soldier Of Fortune, now exclusively National Hunt and hugely popular in that role, has hit the Group/Grade 1 target in both codes.
Soldier Of Fortune’s pattern-race haul on the track featured a nine-length romp in the Group 1 Irish Derby, a classic that Capri also won, albeit by a neck. The younger horse also won the Group 1 St Leger at Doncaster, beating Crystal Ocean and Stradivarius, he was a Group 2 and listed scorer at two, and accumulated over £1.5 million in prize money.
The grey is a full-brother to the pattern-winning stayer Cypress Creek and out of Dialafara (by Anabaa), a winning daughter of the Group 2 Prix de Mallaret winner and Group 1 Prix Vermeille runner-up Diamilina. That mare, a full-sister to the unbeaten but tragically ill-fated runaway pattern scorer Diamonixa, is a daughter of the outstanding French stallion Linamix (by Mendez), a top flat sire who stallion sons have seen him exert a powerful influence on the National Hunt sector.
Their winning full-sister Dali’s Grey is the dam of the Group 3 winner and Group 1 Melbourne Cup runner-up Bauer (by Halling) and their siblings also include the classic-placed, pattern-winning miler and blacktype flat sire Diamond Green (by Green Desert).
Capri looks odds-on to be very popular with breeders and, in the years to come, that early support will boost his prospects of siring lots of blacktype winners over hurdles and fences, possibly over the full distance range.
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, £1,526,141, 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.
Retired to Stud in 2020.
Stands at: Grange Stud, Fermoy, Co Cork, P61 N208
Contact: David Magnier, Albert Sherwood, Andrew and Catherine Magnier, David O’Sullivan.
Telephone: +353 (0)25 33006
Email: info@grangestud.com
Web: www.coolmore.com
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