Archive for October, 2010
Thursday, October 28th, 2010
By Sid Fernando
Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc., whose range of pedigree services has been emulated by Blood Horse Publications and others, has always been an innovator, yes, and it’s because the company’s strengths lie with the bright folks who develop the technology as well as with those who analyze the data and service our clientele. In other words, WTC has bright, employed personnel, devoted specifically to running the company and interacting with clients, and our technology guru, Stephen, develops and implements changes that you, the customer, require or desire, for better decision making.
If you follow my movements on Twitter, you’ll know that I flew from New York to company headquarters in Fremont, California, in Silicon Valley, Tuesday to meet with Stephen and another WTC innovator, Roger, to go over some new features in development. Earlier today I tweeted some news of these enhancements, but for those of you not yet a part of the Twitter and Facebook realms, here it is. WTC has added three new features to its eNicks program, on the front end for users (and there are new back-end features for stud farm administrators coming soon, too). As you read this the new updates will be live and operational—live testing, so to speak. Please contact us if you find glitches or are unable to utilize these functions. And for your information, other new features will be introduced over the next few months as well to aid you in making mating and buying decisions.
New Feature No. 1: For users, you will now have the option to email eNicks with the list of all unrestricted stakes winners (not just some) produced from this cross with one simple click. Previously, you had the ability to email the eNick (the pedigree page) only and would have had to separately view the stakes winners online. Now, we’ve simplified this for you in one step to get the information and share it with others, too. Simply click the tab “eMail this eNick + SWs.”
New Features No. 2 and 3: For users on Twitter and Facebook, you’ll note that there are now tabs to send the eNick (pedigree sheet) directly to these social media sites. You can follow the WTC office on Twitter here.
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Monday, October 18th, 2010
By Sid Fernando
Juddmonte’s Frankel continued his ascent to the stars Saturday in the G1 Dewhurst at Newmarket, and the general commentary from Europe is that he’s the best 2-year-old seen on the continent in the last 20 years. Frankel is by Galileo out of Kind, by Danehill, and his pedigree combines the best of the Coolmore sires in this cross, as Galileo is a son of Sadler’s Wells and along with Montjeu is his sire’s best son at stud. The Sadler’s Wells branch of Northern Dancer is the epitome of classic royalty at 12 furlongs, while the Danehill branch of Northern Dancer, through Danzig, symbolizes the speed wing. On paper, then, this pedigree would appear to be that of a 10-furlong horse, but Frankel’s trainer, Henry Cecil, felt he was a miler before the Dewhurst, and that opinion doesn’t appear to have changed, despite Juddmonte racing manager Teddy Grimthorpe’s assertions that the Derby will be looked into as well depending on how the brilliant colt winters. At present, the target is the Guineas at Newmarket.
Juddmonte, of course, bred and raced Danehill before he was sold to stand at Coolmore and Arrowfield, and Frankel’s female family is a Juddmonte-crafted pedigree, with the next dam, Rainbow Lake, a daughter of Juddmonte’s Rainbow Quest. Several members of the family were trained for Juddmonte owner Khalid Abdullah by the late Jeremy Tree at Beckhampton, including Danehill. At the time, Roger Charlton was the assistant to Tree, and in 1990 Charlton took over the yard and trained Quest for Fame to an Epsom Derby win and Sanglamore to the French equivalent for Mr. Abdullah.
Roger Charlton also happens to be one of the few trainers around the world who has a blog and a presence on Twitter, and today he posted on his blog an inside look at the racing character of Kind, Frankel’s dam, as well as a look back at seven generations of Frankel’s tail-female descent. I highly recommend it because it confirms Henry Cecil’s current belief that the colt is a miler. Note that Cecil runs the colt with a Figure-8 noseband because he tends to pull, and he obviously is a speedy sort like his dam, who also was difficult to relax. See the excerpt below from Charlton’s post:
Her next foal was Frankel’s dam Kind and she is by Danehill (Jeremy Tree) and broke her maiden by 6 lengths over 7f and went on to win another 5 races, including two listed races one over 5f and the other over 6f. I tried hard to get her to relax but she became increasingly head strong. “
Click here to read the Charlton blog post in its entirety.
Click here to read about the three main contenders in the Dewhurst.
Click here to read an analysis of the Dewhurst by James Knight.
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Monday, October 11th, 2010
By Elaine Belval
In August, I wrote about Dubawi after Makfi won the Gr.1 Prix Jacques le Marois at Deauville. At that time Dubawi had nine SWs, seven first-time. Well, since that time he has added eight more SWs (seven first-time) to rank second in Europe by number of stakes winners with 17 (through this weekend), even though his first crop is only age 3. He is currently ranked sixth on the GB/Irish (flat) general sires list by progeny earnings and ninth on the 2-year-old list by progeny earnings. He’s also ranked highly in France and Italy, too, by progeny earnings as Makfi is French based, while the stallion’s Worthadd won the lucrative Italian Derby. Aside from Makfi, Dubawi also is represented by the European G1 winner Poet’s Voice.
Dubawi also shuttled to Darley’s New South Wales Australian farm, and he’s made his presence felt in the Southern Hemisphere as well with four individual SWs, two of them at the G1 level.
Over the Oct. 2-3 weekend, Dubawi was represented by Secret Admirer, the winner of the eight-furlong G1 Flight S. at Randwick in Australia. (His other SH G1 winner is Happy Archer in South Africa.)
Another G1 winner doesn’t seem that big of a deal anymore for Dubawi, who has four in total already in his fledgling career with the promise of many more to come. However, Secret Admirer is unique. Not only was she the first G1 winner for Dubawi in Australia, she is the first unrestricted SW inbred to Seeking the Gold. Secret Admirer is a daughter of the unraced mare Secret Illusion – herself the daughter of the solid Australian sire Secret Savings, a son of Seeking the Gold. This makes Secret Admirer inbred 3 x 3 to Seeking the Gold in tail-male.
Secret Admirer, besides being a G1 winner, also has an attractive and unique pedigree. In addition to being inbred to Seeking the Gold, her broodmare sire Secret Savings is inbred to the second dam of Seeking the Gold (the elite mare Broadway).
Seeking the Gold was a foal of 1985. He has several respectable sons at stud in the US (including Mutakddim and Petionville and young sires Bob and John and Jazil). Daughters of Seeking the Gold are highly prized producers, with over 65 unrestricted SWs. Granddaughters of Seeking the Gold have a dozen unrestricted SWs including GSW Phola.
With the continued success of Seeking the Gold as a sire and broodmare sireline, Secret Admirer should not be the last SW inbred to him.
Dubawi stood for £20,000 at Dalham Hall Stud in England in 2010.
(Elaine Belval is senior pedigree analyst at WTC.)
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Sunday, October 3rd, 2010
By Sid Fernando
First-crop European sire Iffraaj, a prolific sire of winners with 31 to date, went to the next level today when son Wootton Bassett took the Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere-Gran Criterium at Longchamp over 1400 meters (about 7 furlongs) to become his first winner at the highest level. Wootton Bassett is now undefeated in five starts and has more than £500,000 in earnings to date, the bulk of it earned in restricted stakes.
Iffraaj leads all first-crop sires worldwide with 31 winners and is threatening to break Invincible Spirit’s European record of 35 winners. Like that former prolific winner-getter, a son of Green Desert and a top-level sprinter who now routinely gets high-quality horses, Iffraaj has now demonstrated that he can get the Group 1 winner, and he’s bound to get chances to improve on his record with better-quality mares and emulate what Invincible Spirit has done. In 2010, Iffraaj stood for only 6,000 Euros at Darley’s Kildangen Stud in Ireland.
Darley has been on a tear lately with its young stallions worldwide, with such as Street Cry, Dubawi and Shamardal rising to the top ranks, and Iffraaj’s ascension could be another feather in the cap of the sprawling international operation that has a presence in North and South America, Europe, Japan, and Australia.
Iffraaj is a son of Zafonic (by Gone West) from Pastorale, by Nureyev, and he’s from the immediate family of Darley’s top Green Desert (by Danzig) sire Cape Cross and ex-sire Diktat—whose US-bred Dream Ahead is a multiple Group 1-winning 2-year-old in 2010. All three trace to champion 2-year-old filly and Group 1 winner Park Appeal, by Ahonoora. Park Appeal is the dam of Cape Cross, a Group-1 winning miler; the 2nd dam of Diktat, a multiple Group-1 winning sprinter; and the second dam of Iffraaj, a multiple Group 2 winner at 7 furlongs who was second in the Group 1 July Cup over 6 furlongs.
It’s notable that both Diktat’s and Iffraaj’s Group 1 winners, Dream Ahead and Wootton Bassett, respectively, have Danzig in the bottom halves of their pedigrees, recreating internally the Danzig (Green Desert)/Park Appeal combination that created Cape Cross—the sire of Sea the Stars.
Aside from Wootton Bassett, Iffraaj also has a Group-2 placed runner and four Listed-placed 2-year-olds.
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Jack Werk (1944-2010)
