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Henry Cecil- a belated tribute

With the passing of Henry Cecil in June it is worth considering his place in the pantheon of the great trainers. It is also worth looking back on the subsequent impact of his runners in the breeding sheds.  Surprisingly, for such a successful trainer over such a long career, Henry trained very few important stallions.

Ranking as a trainer

As a ten time champion trainer, its obvious that Henry Cecil must take very high rank amongst the list of great trainers.  However for me, there are a few factors that temper my enthusiasm for ranking him anywhere near Vincent O’Brien, who is the benchmark for trainers.

1. Firstly Henry had it easy. He came from a privileged background being a stepson of champion trainer and Royal trainer Cecil Boyd Rochfort and his early marriage to Julie Murless (daughter of another champion trainer and Royal trainer) meant he was quickly seated at racing’s top table.  His starting position would have taken others a decade or more to achieve.

2. Apart from Wolver Hollow’s Eclipse in his first season his early years were underwhelming. A lot of tributes talk about Henry’s instinctive way with horses, however to me if there is nothing significant happening for a number of years it looks less like genius and more of a gradual tweaking of the same old methods used by others. Henry may have had a reputation for working his horses hard at Newmarket but he wasn’t much of an innovator in his methods. Gradual improvements in staff, methods and stock are a road map to training success but they are rooted in the ordinary rather than in genius.

3. Henry largely ignored the rest of the world. Henry may have felt that British racing was the best in the world but in his heyday he spurned many opportunities for his runners overseas. His tally of two US wins (Yashmak  in 1997 and Midday in 2009) is very underwhelming given the relatively easy pickings available in the US for turf horses. His tally of 6 Irish classics is also less than one would expect.  In my view, his Anglo-centric approach didn’t do justice to his horses or his owners by ignoring the opportunities that were available throughout the world.

4. He didn’t succeed with sprinters. I don’t know the reason for this but it is noticeable that he never trained a really top class sprinter and almost all of the big sprints are absent from his cv.

Great Stallions trained by Henry

none

Very Good Stallions trained

1. Kris (1976 Sharpen Up- Doubly Sure by Reliance).

Kris was a superb miler who should have won the Guineas and won 14 of his 16 races. His first crop yielded the outstanding Cecil trained triple crown winner Oh So Sharp (1982 Kris ex Oh So Fair by Graustark). His second crop yielded Irish 2000 Guineas winner Flash of Steel (1983 Kris ex Spark of Fire by Run the Gauntlet). His final career stats show 75 black type winners from 846 foals, a very creditable 9% and include other Group 1 winners such as Shavian, Rafha and Balisada. However Kris is regarded as a fillies sire and no important sire sons have emerged to continue his male line.

2. Diesis (1980 Sharpen Up- Doubly Sure by Reliance)

A brother to Kris, Diesis was a brilliant two year old who achieved a rare Middle Park, Dewhurst double.  Like his brother he made an immediate impression with an outstanding filly in his first crop-namely Diminuendo (1985 Diesis ex Cacti by Tom Rolfe).  Other Oaks winners followed in Ramruma (1996 Diesis ex Princess of Man by Green God) and Love Divine (1997 Diesis ex La Sky by Law Society). However unlike his brother there was not the same sex bias amongst his offspring who ranged from sprinters such as Keen Hunter (1987 Diesis ex Love’s Reward by Nonoalco) to milers such as Docksider (1995 Diesis ex Pump by Forli) and superb 10 furlong performers in Halling (1991 Diesis ex Dance Machine by Green Dancer) and Elmaamul (1987 Diesis ex Modena by Roberto). His final stud statistics showed 82 black type winners from 1069 foals (8%) and his sire line is just barely hanging on through Muhtathir (a son of Elmaamul and sire of Doctor Dino) and Halling who  has a few sons at stud.

Really Disappointing Stallions Trained by Henry

1. Reference Point (1984 Mill Reef ex Home on the Range by Habitat)

An above average Derby winner who won a Futurity at two and seemed to have the pedigree to succeed at stud.  He was very disappointing and his early death was not lamented by many breeders.

2. Hello Gorgeous (1977 Mr Prospector ex Bonny Jet by Jet Jewel)

As a winner of a Dante and Futurity (aka Racing Post Trophy) and a son of the new American sensation Mr Prospector, Hello Gorgeous proved popular at Coolmore and big money was paid for many of his early offspring. He was a disaster and led to a distrust of sons of Mr Prospector in Europe that took a long time to fade.  His final stats show 10 black type winners from 510 foals (2%).

2. Old Vic (1986 Sadler’s Wells ex Cockade by Derring Do).

From the first crop of Sadler’s Wells, Old Vic was a brilliant winner of the Irish and French Derby’s. Retired to Dalham Hall he was very disappointing as a flat sire before proving to be an exceptional jumps stallion.

Mixed bag

Of Henry’s other Derby winners, Oath (1996 Fairy King ex Sheer Audacity by Troy) and Commander in Chief(1990 Dancing Brave ex Slightly Dangerous by Roberto) found themselves in Japan and failed to make much impact.  Slip Anchor (1982 Shirley Heights ex Sayonara by Birkhahn) did reasonably well, but as a stamina source was never fashionable enough to attract sufficient high quality mares.

National Hunt sires

Henry was associated with many great stayers such as Le Moss (1975 Le Levanstall ex Feemoss by Ballymoss),  Ardross (1976 Run the Gauntlet ex Le Melody by Levmoss) and Buckskin (1973 Yelapa ex Bete A Bon Dieu by Herbager) . He trained a lot of other horses who also made names as national hunt stallions such as Gunner B (1973 Royal Gunner ex Sweet Councillor by Privy Councillor), Moscow Society (Nijinsky ex Afifa by Dewan). In addition to the previously mentioned leading jumps sire Old Vic, he also trained the King George winner King’s Theatre (1991 Sadler’s Wells ex Regal Beauty by Princely Native) who became champion NH sire.

Conclusions

Henry’s standing as a great trainer is not in doubt and only Michael Stoute has stronger claims to be regarded as the outstanding British trainer of the modern era. A trainers job is to train horses for the racecourse and he has no influence on whether they succeed as stallions. It is of no relevance to Henry’s standing as a trainer that he was not associated with any horses who proved to be great stallions. It is just one of those statistical curiosities. His  success as a trainer of stayers inevitably meant that he was associated with horses who ended up earning their oats as national hunt stallions. Henry’s greatest project, Frankel is now embarking on his stud career and he has every prospect of success, so there could yet be a great stallion associated with the Cecil name.

 

 

2013 value sires

Just as the stallion ranks are full of over-priced, over-hyped dross there are also a few examples of good value sires for the canny breeder.  Below are four sires that I believe represent good value for either owner breeders or commercial breeders and sometimes both.

1. Medicean (1997 Machiavellian ex Mystic Goddess by Storm Bird) 2013 fee £10,000

I wrote about Medicean last year when he stood for £8000 and after an exceptionally good year on the track a modest increase to £10000 is fully justified.  In my view he is now the best value sire around. 2012 saw him sire three Group 1 winners in Siyouma ex Sichilla by Danehill, Bayrir ex Balankiya by Darshaan and Capponi ex Nawaiet by Zilzal to bring his lifelong total to 9 Group 1 winners. A strong supporting cast included other Group winners Sapphire ex Polished Gem by Danehill,  Casaca ex Priena by Priolo, Mince ex Strut by Danehill Dancer, Regal Realm ex Regal Riband by Fantastic Light and Al Shemali ex Bathilde by Generous.  Those are the sort of results that outperform many sires standing at a multiple of that fee and will bring market recognition.  His 2012 sales results were decent with a median of 26,000 guineas.  His son Dutch Art has also made a very impressive start to his stud career,which might bring some reflected glory. Medicean’s overall stats at 4% stakes winners are decent and he represents great value for owner breeders, particularly anyone who likes the thought of a horse who will improve with age and racing or for commercial breeders as he is modestly priced for such a proven stallion, with solid sales results.

2. Dalakhani (2000 Darshaan ex Daltawa by Miswaki) 2013 fee €25,000

Dalakhani is now half the fee he was in 2009 and 2010. He is a proven sire of 5% stakes winners and the proven successor to his sire Darshaan. He has already sired 4 classic winners in Moonstone, Duncan, Reliable Man and Conduit. His sales median was 72000 gns in 2011 and 47000 guineas in 2012, so he should still be of interest to commercial breeders as a sire who offers a good prospect of commercial success.  In addition the risk for breeders is reduced as his fillies have almost the same median as his colts, which is not surprising given that Dalakhani is free from Northern Dancer and there are plenty of people willing to use his daughters to  try and follow the famous Sadler’s Wells /Darsahaan cross. In conclusion he is a high quality proven stallion, with very sound percentages who is reasonably priced on his achievements to date and who can be profitably utilised by owner breeders and commercial breeders alike.

3.Kendargent (2003 Kendor ex Pax Bella by Linamix) 2013 fee €6000

I wrote about Kendargent last year when he stood for €4000 and his very small first and second crops continued to give the impression that this is a sire going places.  If he continues his rate of progress with bigger and better crops in the future he might just go and become a Gallic rags to riches story to rival Ahonoora.

4. Azamour (2001 Night Shift ex Asmara by Lear Fan) 2013 fee €10,000

Azamour is a good sire with good percentages whose fee has dropped from €15,000 to a reasonable €10,000. 2012 also saw him sire his first Group 1 winner and classic winner in Valyra, who unfortunately died shortly after her French Oaks win. He has sired plenty of high class performers but lacked a real standout in the UK or Ireland, hence the drop in fee and for commercial breeders the fact that his 2012 median dropped to 12000 gns will have activated the alarm bells and he is not recommended for commercial breeders. However for owner breeders, I think he is a useful sire for the money who is well capable of getting a decent horse with some regularity.

 

2013 stud fees- some overpriced examples

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and defining value is a very subjective measure. Looking at the published fees for 2013 there were a few fees that took my eye as representing particularly poor value.  I wouldn’t have time to list all the overpriced first season sires, so I’m restricting myself to those sires with runners……

Poor Value Sires

1. High Chaparral (1999 Sadler’s Wells ex Kasora by Darshaan) 2013 fee €25,000

I could just cut and paste my comments from last year regarding High Chaparral- yes he was a great racehorse, yes he has done very well in Australia/New Zealand but there is no way his European results merit a €25000 fee.  It is extraordinary to think that he has yet to sire a European Group 1 winner from his huge number of European conceived progeny. His sales returns have been good for the past two years but  sooner rather than later European breeders will wake up to the fact that he is only managing 3% stakes winners and is due a significant cut in fee. By way of comparison for the same fee you could access Dalakhani who has 5% stakes winners and has sired 5 individual European Group 1 winners.

2. Footstepsinthesand (2002 Giant’s Causeway ex Glatisant by Rainbow Quest) 2013 fee €10000

Not as egregiously bad value as his stud mate but nonetheless I think Footsteps has been a disappointment and is now overpriced.  He has managed only 2% stakes winners and if you take into account that his stud fee was over 20k for his first three years at stud, his record is not going to improve in the coming years. His median for the past two years has hovered around his stud fee so the commercial market is hardly in love with him. Interestingly he is the last and only Storm Cat line horse now in Coolmore Ireland but I’m sure if a suitable offer came from overseas, Coolmore would be happy to offload him and that particular experiment would come to an end without too many tears being shed by Ireland’s breeders. By way of comparison you could use Azamour for the same fee and he has 4% stakes winners.

3. Elusive City (2000 Elusive Quality ex Star of Paris by Dayjur) 2013 fee €12,500

I wrote about Elusive City last year when he was France’s most expensive stallion at €15000. He no longer holds this particular title but he still remains a sire who manages only 2% stakes winners and he remains considerably overpriced. You could pick 20 stallions who represent better value but two similarly priced Mr Prospector line stallions that are far better sires (albeit standing in the UK) are Medicean and Zamindar.

4. Teofilo (2004 Galileo ex Speirbhean by Danehill ) 2013 fee €35,000

I might be eating my words on this one, given that he produced three very nice two year old colts last year in Loch Garman, Havana Gold and Trading Leather. However I’m not arguing that Teofilo isn’t capable of producing high class horses but to me he didn’t do enough last year to justify a hike from €25000 to €35000. This is particularly the case when I felt that his three year olds were somewhat disappointing although admittedly the absence of his first crop star Parish Hall had a big impact on this.  His stud fee owes a lot to the growing belief in Galileo as a sire of sires and the fact that he shares the Galileo/Danehill cross with Frankel probably helps along with some strong Autumn sales results. People are taking a punt of fashion and on potential and  although he is an interesting sire his fee should have stayed at its 2012 level until he truly delivered on that potential.  By way of comparison at the exact same fee, his stud mate Cape Cross has demonstrated his ability to produce the goods and I would rather the proven over the possible any day.

the opposite of nostalgia

So now its official- Frankel is the top rated horse since the beginning of the international rankings.  So how did he achieve this feat? Well his stunning performances in the Queen Anne and Juddmonte International certainly played a part, but they were not in themselves sufficient to garner him that accolade.  The fact that the handicappers strangely rated his 11 length Queen Anne victory as being akin to 12.5 lengths and his 7 length Juddmonte victory as being akin to 9.25 lengths also helped, but was still not enough to give him the top honours. No he achieved the top spot by virtue of the handicappers rewriting history.

At the end of his three year old career, Frankel was rated 136, a long way short of Dancing Brave’s 141. At the time Phil Smith, the British Horseracing Authority’s senior handicapper was quoted as saying “I don’t believe that Dancing Brave would get that rating now, but it’s in the book and that’s what [Frankel] has got to aim for, because we are not going to rewrite history.” Fast forward twelve months and rewriting history is exactly what Phil and his colleagues have done. I can’t find a suitable antonym for nostalgia but it is clear that the handicappers don’t think much of the greats of the past and  they don’t trust their predecessors. When Phil Smith explained that Shergar’s rating was a retirement ‘gift’ to a former handicapper it hardly counted as an endorsement of his predecessors and somewhat undermined a statement in their explanatory piece see link that “the purpose of this paper is absolutely NOT to say that the current Handicappers are right and those who compiled the ratings between 1977 and 1991 were wrong”. Some of the other arguments in their justification are also odd as for instance “Much easier travel coupled with an increase in valuable International races enabled connections of the better horses to avoid each other” could just as easily be an argument supporting the thesis that we have more competition not less between the best horses of the world. Also the statement that “The ownership of so many of the top horses in just a few hands meant competition and higher ratings suffered.” is as valid now as ever before. The statement that ” The extension of the Classification to 115 and above in 1985, to 112 and above in 1989 and to 110 in 1990 had a depressant effect as there was now a safety net in which to include the type of horse that had been overly promoted in the past”, again seems to imply that past handicappers were assigning ratings for reasons other than merit. Finally I’m not sure there is a solid basis to the statement that the increase in the number of handicappers means “It is much more likely that horses will be downgraded with a larger Committee” unless larger groups are somehow assumed to be more negative in mindset, and a strong voice is somehow incapable of swaying a committee.

In Orwell’s 1984, the Ministry for Truth was responsible for updating records to ensure that the recorded ‘facts’ of history matched the current needs of the regime. History was rewritten on a daily basis and documentation was destroyed or updated as required. To be fair to the handicappers they probably won’t resort to destroying my books containing old ratings.  There were three slogans outside the Ministry for Truth namely “WAR IS PEACE,” “FREEDOM IS SLAVERY,” “IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”, perhaps if there was a section dealing with sport, a fourth slogan “FRANKEL IS THE GREATEST” would have been included?

First Season Sires,Keynes and a little poetry

In this month’s international thoroughbred magazine I examined the profitability of first season compared to subsequent crops. The full text is shown below:

First season sire-watch the bidding go higher
Second season sire- will find a buyer,
Third season sire- results will be dire
Fourth season sire- playing with fire.

One of the mysteries of the bloodstock markets has to be the infatuation with first season sires. Inevitably 90% of new sires disappoint, yet buyers still covet to the next big thing. I analysed the commercial returns on the main UK and Irish stallions who retired to stud in 2006 and plotted the profitability of their first four crops. The results are shown in the table below and summarised in my above piece of doggerel. It may not appear in too many poetry anthologies but I think it gives some useful guidance to commercial breeders, when deciding on a mating.

Methodology and findings

My analysis was based on stallions who retired to stud in 2006 and who remained standing at stud in the UK and Ireland for the next four years. The averages for their yearlings sold at public auction were then plotted from 2008-2011. Stud fees and sales averages were converted to a common unit (in this cases UK guineas) and an amount of 7000 guineas was allowed for upkeep. The average sales price of each crop of yearlings was then divided by the production cost of those yearlings (stud fee+annual upkeep). The results show that the first crop of foals were the most profitable with an average sales price that was 1.42 times the productions cost and the third crop was the worse achieving only 1.07 times the production cost. The year three and four results are of course influenced by racecourse performance by the first two and three year olds for those stallions. In that respect it is no surprise to see Dubawi and Shamardal show positive results, as amongst the selected stallions they best fit into the 10% category of successful stallions.

Average vs production cost
Sire    1st crop    2nd crop    3rd crop    4th crop
Antonius pius    1.16    0.53    0.27    0.76
Arakan    0.93    0.63    0.55    0.27
Avonbridge    1.26    0.92    0.99    1.15
Azamour    1.85    2.17    2.11    1.60
Camacho    1.52    1.30    1.15    1.27
Chineur    0.70    0.81    0.83    0.63
Dubawi    2.03    1.72    2.67    4.52
Firebreak    0.94    2.89    0.71    1.77
Footstepsinthesand    1.38    1.42    1.16    1.03
Motivator    2.18    2.27    0.99    0.89
Oratorio    2.01    1.27    0.70    0.89
Pastoral pursuits    1.22    1.32    1.93    1.35
Rakti    1.17    0.53    0.48    0.23
Shamardal    2.15    2.03    1.77    2.99
trade fair    0.98    0.61    0.71    0.55
Whipper    1.66    0.92    0.35    0.65
Zafeen    0.95    1.36    0.75    0.30

Average    1.42    1.33    1.07    1.23

Weaknesses in Methodology
It is acknowledged that there are a number of weaknesses in the above analysis.
The sample size is quite small, but reflects the fact that some sires who started covering in 2006 either died, were sold or did not have enough sales representatives to provide four years results. In addition there was considerable movement in the euro/sterling exchange rate over the period and this had a significant impact on the results. Ideally an adjustment would also be made for the trend in the overall yearling markets in those particular years. The chosen upkeep cost of 7000 gns is also quite arbitrary and does not allow for the depreciation in the value of the mare. Finally it would perhaps be better to look at medians rather than averages to negate the possibility of associated parties paying very high prices for stallion offspring to achieve headline grabbing top prices that also increase averages.

Making sense of it all-Keynesian wisdom

As far as I know the economist John Maynard Keynes, never wrote about horse racing but had he done so he would surely have recognised some of his theories in operation in the bloodstock market. One of his concepts became known as the Keynesian beauty contest.  This described a fictional newspaper contest, in which entrants are asked to choose from a set of six photographs of women that are the “most beautiful”. Those who picked the most popular face are then eligible for a prize.
In terms of a winning strategy, Keynes wrote  “It is not a case of choosing those [faces] that, to the best of one’s judgment, are really the prettiest, nor even those that average opinion genuinely thinks the prettiest. We have reached the third degree where we devote our intelligences to anticipating what average opinion expects the average opinion to be”.

Commercial breeders are involved in such a game. They may not particularly like the first season sires they are using, but their own beliefs don’t matter, it is about trying to guess what everyone else thinks, everyone else will think. They are short term investors who exit before the fundamental value of the yearling (ie its racing merit) is known.  As Keynes also wrote “Successful investing is anticipating the anticipations of others” and when it comes to breeding it seems that people think, that people think it is worth paying more for the latest sires.
All of this irrational behaviour is possibly explained by the prejudices of trainers. As trainers handle more bad horses than good ones and one bad horse can turn them off a sire, then they are likely to dislike a lot of sires! With new sires, trainers have not had the chance to form such prejudices.

Conclusions:
It’s not easy being a commercial breeder. Survival requires profit and that requires suitable stallion selection.  The statistics above can help in that stallion selection. If breeders are to be tempted to use third and fourth season sires then breeders should be looking for substantial discounts on the published fees before the use of such stallions becomes attractive. The use of unproven stallions will continue as long as it is profitable. I will leave the final word to the great Keynes, who had sage advice, relevant to any breeders thinking about challenging the madness of the markets preference for unproven sires when he wrote “the markets can stay irrational, longer than you can stay solvent”.

Live fast,die young, leave a good looking crop?

In this months international thoroughbred magazine I examined the impact of death on the values of his final crops. The full text is shown below:

Art collectors have been known to pop open the champagne on hearing of the death of an artist. The reason is not extreme misanthropy, but rather the likely increase in the value of their collections. Values for art, bloodstock or any other commodity are supposedly set at the interface of supply and demand. Death sees an end to supply, so economic theory would predict an increase in values. With this in mind I thought it would be interesting to see whether stallion mortality offers opportunity for profit within the bloodstock world. Do buyers pay a premium for stock of the recently deceased and is there a “death effect” that could be exploited by pinhookers or agents?

Methodology:

In attempting to quantify if there is an upsurge in prices, I needed to compare the prices in the years after death with the prices just prior to death. To do this I looked at their final five year’s yearling prices and expressed each year’s sales average as a percentage of that five year average. For example if a stallions sales average was €10,000 in 2011, €15,000 in 2010, €8,000 in 2009, 15,000 in 2008 and €12,000 in 2007, then the average for the five year period is €12,000 and the 2011 result is 83% of the five year average (€10,000/€12,000) with the 2010 result being 125% of the five year average (€15,000/€12,000). By expressing the results in this way we are able to compare the effect for stallions who stood at very different stud fees.

In selecting the stallions I looked at the list of leading sires from 2002 and selected those stallions who are now deceased and with no more yearlings to sell. Stallions with very small sales numbers were excluded as were stallions that were exported or standing outside of the UK and Ireland
The stallions died at various years from the late nineties up to the beginning of this decade and varied in age and stud fee when they died.

I also noted the year of birth of the stallion and the year in which his last crop were sold. This allowed for an assessment of whether the age of the stallion at the time of death had an impact on the result. Some caveats in relation to my findings include the fact that working from the leading sires list excluded less established or sires who had died very young and also my five year average figure was not a weighted average figure. The data-set generated is contained below

Summary of Findings

At first sight, the results do not support the hypothesis that there is a “death effect”. The final years sales results are only 95% of the five year average, the same figure as the penultimate year’s results. However this is an increase on the 87% figure for the third last crop sold, so you could argue that a slight bounce is evident.
The average age of the sires when the last crop was conceived was 17.8 years. To check if this was significant I went and compared the results for those sires who were aged under or over 18 at the time their last crop was conceived against the overall averages. Although there were variations they were not particularly significant, so the age at death does not seem material to the findings. I found this to be surprising as it is well known that the quality of a stallions book declines with age (even though a stallions ability to pass on his ability is not diminished with age). However lesser mares will mean lesser offspring and accordingly lesser prices and I would have expected this age related effect to be more noticeable in the statistics.

Conclusions

I could discern no obvious grim reaper premium but given that there was a slight bounce in the final two years figures, it is possible that there was a marginal effect. Against that one could speculate that once a stallion dies, he is less likely to receive support from his owners who may have purchased stock in the past to boost sales figures. Similarly stud owners are less likely to spend money advertising the successes of the deceased than the living, so this again may have a slight negative impact on sales prices.
It is not speculation to state that bloodstock is not art and horses don’t appreciate in value with age. However, bloodstock values are a matter of fashion and the last offspring of an old master have to compete with trendy first season sires for marketplace attention. I had expected an obituary notice to help in that regard but it seems that death cannot be described as a good career move for a stallion.

Camelot- a new legend?

Camelot has delivered Montjeu, his first Guineas winner. His success didn’t look likely until inside the final furlong, but in the end he was probably worth a little bit more than his official margin of a neck.  His success confirms the greatness of both Montjeu and Aidan O’Brien.

Aidan O’Brien

Camelot was Aidan O’Brien’s sixth 2000 Guineas winner, following King of Kings, Rock of Gibraltar, Footstepsinthesand, George Washington and Henrythenavigator. All of them were making their seasonal debuts and to me the ability to get a horse fully fit on the gallops is one of the hallmarks of a top trainer. The ability to learn from past mistakes and the knowledge that comes from training a lot of the members of the same family or offspring of the same sire can give trainers that extra edge. Aidan has trained more Montjeu’s than anybody else and he was quick to acknowledge that he made mistakes in prepping a previous Racing Post Trophy winner St Nicholas Abbey for the Guineas and he clearly didn’t repeat those mistakes with Camelot.

Camelot’s pedigree

Camelot cost 525,000 guineas at the 2010 Tattersalls October sales which made him the highest priced yearling by Montjeu sold that year.  For that sort of money you would expect him to be both handsome and especially well bred. His pedigree is undoubtedly high class although in truth it has lacked a superstar until Camelot, so we can assume he was a very taking physical specimen.

Tarfah

Camelot’s dam Tarfah was unraced at two, won three of her 4 starts including a listed handicap at Ascot as a three year old and then continued the good work by winning the listed Snowdrop stakes and the Group 3 Dahlia stakes in her first two runs at four. She failed to trouble the judge in the Windsor Forest run at York that year when Ascot was being redeveloped and was last seen disappointing in the Princess Elizabeth Stakes at Epsom in June 2006. She was reported as having burst a blood vessel that day and was not seen again on the track but retired with a very creditable record of 5 wins from 8 starts. Tarfah’s first foal was a filly by Galileo who cost 240,000 Guineas and named Ideal.  Trained by David Wachman, from her seven starts to date she won a 10 furlong maiden at Clonmel but is clearly a long way short of top class.

Fickle

Tarfah’s dam Fickle was trained by Michael Bell and ran five times as a three year old. She won her maiden at Brighton on her third start and won a listed race on her final start at Newcastle when she got the run of the race and sprung a surprise when winning at 20-1. With the black type secured it was presumably decided to retire her to the paddocks.  At stud Tarfah was by a long way her best offspring with her only other winner being the very modest Sistine who is closely related to Tarfah being by Dubai Destination (a son of Kingmambo).

Fade

Camelot’s third dam Fade was unraced but she proved a useful producer, leaving 8 winners from 8 runners including 3 other stakes performers besides Fickle in Faru (by Mtoto) , Birdie (by Alhaarth) and Fading Light (by King’s Best).

One over Parr

Camelot’s fourth dam One Over Parr (by Reform out of Seventh Bride) was very useful .  She won the Cheshire Oaks and the Lancashire Oaks, both Group 3’s and was a full sister to an Epsom Oaks winner in the 1974 winner Polygamy who gave Pat Eddery his first English Classic on the day that I was born ! As for the name One Over Parr history buffs might recall that Henry VIII’s sixth wife was called Catherine Parr hence with a dam of Seventh Bride, the name One Over Parr was very clever.

Kincsem

For those who really, really like to delve into a pedigree (and my thanks to the poster who notified me), Camelots 17th dam is no less than the Hungarian supermare Kincsem! Kincsem retired with a record of 54 wins from 54 starts and was dominant on the continent before crossing the Channel and claiming the Goodwood Cup in 1878. For a detailed account of her racing and broodmare career click here

Nicks

Tarfah is a daughter of Kingmambo and he has combined very well with daughters of  Montjeu’s sire Sadler’s Wells.  Kingmambo has sired Henrythenavigator, El Condor Pasa and Divine Proportions on this cross and his son King’s Best has produced Workforce out of a Sadler’s Wells mare.

Conclusion

Camelot is an unbeaten Group 1 winner at two and now a Guineas winner at three. The next logical target is the Derby and he is already an odds on shot in most books for the Epsom showpiece.  The assumption is that being by Montjeu he should have no difficulty in staying 12 furlongs and the triple crown is also now being talked about.  However before getting carried away with the hype, it is worth remembering that neither Tarfah nor Fickle were ever asked to race beyond 10 furlongs and as racehorses themselves the sires in the lower half of the pedigree were all sprinters or milers with the exception of Persepolis who won the Prix Lupin over 10 furlongs. The slight concern is that winning a Guineas shows Camelot to be an atypical Montjeu and perhaps he will also not stay as well as the other high class Montjeu colts.  I certainly wouldn’t be rushing to back him at odds on  for the Derby, however for the sake of racing I fervently hope that he goes on to claim the holy grail that is the triple crown, and for which we have been waiting 42 years to find a successor to Nijinsky.

CAMELOT (GB) 2009 c b
Montjeu
(IRE) 1996		 Sadler’s
Wells (USA) 1981		 Northern
Dancer (CAN) 1961		 Nearctic
(USA) 1954
Natalma
(USA) 1957
Fairy
Bridge (USA) 1975		 Bold
Reason (USA) 1968
Special
(USA) 1969
Floripedes
(FR) 1985		 Top
Ville (IRE) 1976		 High
Top (IRE) 1969
Sega
Ville (USA) 1968
Toute
Cy (FR) 1979		 Tennyson
(FR) 1970
Adele
Toumignon (IRE) 1971
Tarfah
(USA) 2001		 Kingmambo
(USA) 1990		 Mr
Prospector (USA) 1970		 Raise
A Native (USA) 1961
Gold
Digger (USA) 1962
Miesque
(USA) 1984		 Nureyev
(USA) 1977
Pasadoble
(USA) 1979
Fickle
(GB) 1996		 Danehill
(USA) 1986		 Danzig
(USA) 1977
Razyana
(USA) 1981
Fade
(GB) 1988		 Persepolis
(FR) 1979
One
Over Parr (GB) 1972