How the Chehboub family has become a major player in the French breeding and racing industry

Article by John Gilmore

Kamel Chehboub and Sealiway at the Haras de Beaumont

The Chehboub family have started an exciting new breeding development in Normandy, through purchasing the Haras de Beaumont stud. The deal also included a part of the adjacent Haras du Quesnay land, which is being sold by the Head family in two parts. The other part is being bought by Businessman Stephane Courbit. “We will know in a few months whether Haras du Quesnay will continue as a stud,” indicated Freddie Head. The stud, which was made famous by his father Alec Head, was originally bought by his grandfather William Head in 1958.  

Buying Haras de Beaumont and part of the neighbouring Haras du Quesnay has certainly created the environment for Kamel Chehboub to develop his racing and breeding interests. His daughter Pauline Chehboub is responsible for day-to-day operations.

The Chehboub family have for the past eight years, owned the Haras de la Gousserie, in the Loire region of France. That farm is due to be sold, with all the mares and stallions being relocated to Haras de Beaumont. As a result, the Chehboub racehorses, which previously ran under the name of Haras de La Gousserie, will now be changed to ‘Ecurie de la Gousserie.’

Rougir

Overall, it’s been an eventful past couple of years for the Chehboub family. Their filly Rougir, winner of the Gp 1 Prix de L’Opera, went through the ring at the Arqana Breeding stock sale December 2021 as a 3-year-old for a record €3m, selling to Peter Brant’s White Birch farm and Coolmore partnership.

Rougir is now trained in the United States by Chad Brown and has since justified the high price tag, with a first time out three-length facile victory at Belmont when capturing the Gr3 Beaugay Stakes in May and stepping up in October to take the Gr1 EP Taylor Stakes at Woodbine Canada.

Rougir’s sale was certainly a jackpot pay day for Kamel Cheboub and his Haras de la Gousserie breeding and racing enterprise. Rougir was bought as a yearling for €55,000 at the Arqana yearling sale, after previously being sold as a foal through the same auctioneers for just €11,000. 

Sealiway

The 2021 Champion Stakes winner Sealiway, which the Chehboub family owns in partnership with Guy Parente, will be a major attraction at Beaumont. His stud fee has been set at €12,000.

 Additionally, another high-profile Gp1 winner Intello, who the Wertheimer brothers own and previously stood at the Haras du Quesnay, will be transferred next door to take up stud duties at Beaumont for an €8,000 euro. 

“We thought it was an appropriate stud to place Intello, as Champion Stakes winner Sealiway will certainly be popular, which could also add interest from breeders to our 2013 Prix du Jockey Club winner, stabled in the same place,” said Pierre-Yves Bureau Breeding and Racing manager for the Wertheimer brothers.  

Sealiway was originally a €62,000 yearling purchase at Arqana. Both Rougir and Sealiway’s performances on the racecourse have certainly put Haras de la Gousserie on the map. They have also expanded their racing presence through acquiring a new yard at Chantilly, in addition to their other main training yard in Marseille. 

It’s a far cry from those early days more than 30 years ago for property businessman Kamel Chehboub, which first sparked his initial interest in racing. “My father first started going to the racetrack with friends who were punters and gradually began to enjoy the sport himself”, explained Pauline Chehboub.

“After a while, my father began to take shares in racehorses sourced from claiming races. The first was Onegar in 1987, bought out of Andre Fabre’s stable.” The big breakthrough came with the filly Lavayssiere, who was placed 5 times in 13 runs on the flat but proved a revelation at stud. Lavayssiere produced 5 Black Type horses from 8 runners, including her second foal Gp1 winner Spirit One, born in 2004.

“Spirit One and jockey Ioritz Mendizabel’s enterprising all the way win in the Gr1 Arlington Million race at Chicago in August 2008, trained by Philip Demcastel, was a tremendous boost to my father’s racing operations-enabling him to start developing the business and buy more racehorses.” The €403,504 pot of prize money for the Arlington Million victory, boosted Spirit One’s career earnings to €974,269, which included winning 5 races from 19 starts. 

Spirit One entered the Haras de Lonray in the Herault southern region of France and later relocated to Sablonnets in the Sarthe department (western France) from 2013. The best of his 36 winning offspring was Eleuthera, who won the Gp3 Prix de Royaumont in 2013 and was subsequently purchased by Teruya Yoshida. Spirit One sadly died of a tumour at Haras des Sablonnets in April 2016.

Pauline Chehboub

Pauline Chehboub has been working for her father and Uncle Bouzid Chehboub’s racing interests for the past 7 years, after obtaining her commercial business licence. Previously in her youth she rode in show jumping events to a high level. “I was show jumping champion of France at 16 years old and have been riding since I was a child. So working within the horseracing industry was always something I wanted to do, especially as my father was very involved in the industry.”  

She added, “My father has had more than 20 years’ experience in this business, through regularly going racing, visiting the sales, and observing the training. Over the past few years, he has taken the trouble to pass on this valuable knowledge to me, concerning key points of what to first look out for in a racehorse and their development through observation, physique and origin.”

Pauline Chehboub is now manager of the family racing and breeding operations, which operates two training yards in Chantilly and Marseille, plus stud activities. She is often seen at the racecourse and regularly on the early morning gallops in Chantilly.

“It’s a seven-day-a-week job, with 35 horses in training at Chantilly, and a further 20 at Calas-Cabriès training centre in Marseille. Apart from keeping tabs on the racehorses, there is also the stud. Not forgetting the administration side, which includes discussing the well-being of the racehorses, future race entries with the trainer, accounts work, buying yearlings, horses to sell and the breeding nominations.” 

“In September 2021, we bought the yard in Chantilly on the Chemin des Aigles as we thought it was important to have a presence for all the main meetings in the Paris region, as well as in Marseille. In this way we can cut down on travelling, through having yards both in the North and South, with the better horses generally based in Chantilly.”

Marseille-based trainer Cedric Rossi trained for a number of different clients, including the Haras de la Gousserie up until December 2021. The subsequent revelation of alleged doping and stopping horses’ investigation by the police three days after Rougir went through the ring, concerning several people including Cedric Rossi, was a major shock for French racing. 

“Cedric Rossi was our principal trainer at the time, and after the alleged doping investigations, we transferred our horses to other trainers, with many at the time going to Richard Chotard and Sealiway to Francis Graffard at Chantilly,” said Pauline Cheboub.

“We transferred Sealiway to Francis Graffard’s stables in Chantilly this season, because his record shows the trainer has a lot of talent. Sealiway has not really had conditions in his favour this season. His best races have been when coming off a fast pace and on soft ground conditions, as in the Champion Stakes.” After a disappointing run in this year’s Arc de Triomphe, Sealiway was subsequently retired to stud.

The Haras de la Gousserie racing and breeding business has worked in a certain tried and trusted way. The stud was bought eight years ago; after the Haras de Lonray, in the South of France Herault region, where the Chehboub breeding stock was previously lodged, went into financial difficulties. Finally they chose to purchase Haras de la Gousserie in the Loire region because it also offered pre-training facilities. 

“We do not sell many of our breeding stock at the sale, as we breed to race. Each year we buy around 20 yearlings at the Arqana August and October sales, looking for French-bred horses with precocity and the possibility to win as two-year-olds, and not by yearlings with expensive leading stallion pedigrees.”

“The objective is to find some good horses each year to eventually add to our breeding stock. Those that turn out to be not future breeding prospects may end up in claiming races to be claimed, or sold through the in-training sales. We like to keep around 20 broodmares to breed from.” 

Now they hope to continue to develop and progress, after transferring their entire breeding stock to their new stud venture in Normandy.

It is clear the Chehboub’s racing and breeding operations has been developing over the past decade, through its policy of buying more and better quality yearlings at the Arqana August and October sales, that has borne fruit as results on the track clearly show. 

In 2013, just 19 racehorses won €573,853  in prize money and premiums; and last year, 41 racehorses earned €2,107,125—nearly 4 times as much. 

They have now progressed to be one of the top ten racehorse owners in France, finishing 9th in 2021; and in early December, nearing the end of the 2022 season, they were once again in 9th position.

It would seem the Chehboub family name has now been firmly established, to become a major player in the French breeding and racing industry. Next year (2023) looks set to be another milestone year.

Haras de beaumont

Dermot Cantillon - What it takes to breed winners and run a racecourse

Article by Daragh Ó Conchúir

“My philosophy is if you’re in something and you can get into a position where you can bring change about for the common good, that’s a thing to aim for. I’m not one for being a hurler on the ditch, give out and not try and do anything about it.” 

Dermot Cantillon, The Irish Field (February 24, 2018)

Living true to his motto, Dermot Cantillon ran for election to Seanad Éireann—the upper house of the Irish Legislature (the Oireachtas)—two years ago. He was prompted to do so, even though he had no political background or experience, by a firm belief that horse racing and the bloodstock industry lacked representation despite their significance to national and local economies.

As an independent candidate, the Co Waterford native was up against the powerful party machines with their established lobbies and financial clout, so it did not come as a big surprise he did not make the cut. But he would not have been true to himself and his ideals had he not had a go.

Proactivity is a default setting for Cantillon, who along with his equally industry-immersed wife Meta Osborne, owns and runs Tinnakill House Stud in the Laois village of Coolrain. As a man who has walked the walk and continues to do so, he is always worth listening to on matters pertaining to the sport and business of thoroughbred racing.

Apart from being a breeder of multiple Gp. 1 winners and overseeing a flourishing enterprise for two decades, Cantillon has also helped steward the massive strides made by Naas Racecourse in 13 years as chairman. 

In addition, the 62-year-old is chairman of Irish Thoroughbred Marketing, a director of Goffs and board member of the Irish Equine Centre. Previously, he has served as chairman and president of the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association, chairman of Tote Ireland and director of Horse Racing Ireland. 

He also served as manager of the Smurfit family’s Forenaghts Stud outside Naas for 32 years until standing down two years ago. This is a polymath on breeding, selling and running racehorses.

Osborne is the daughter of Michael, the late Irish Turf Club (IHRB) senior steward and Irish National Stud managing director. He was also the creator of Dubai as an international racing venue and of Sheikh Mohammed’s stud operations in Ireland. Meta would follow in her father’s footsteps by becoming the first woman—and still the only one—to be Turf Club/IHRB senior steward and is a current HRI director. 

She is Kildangan Stud’s chief vet, having worked there for 34 years, while her family has been inextricably linked with Naas Racecourse since its foundation.

She and Cantillon make a good couple and that they don’t agree on everything is a positive. Among the many things they shared a page on was the desire to own their own stud. They bought Tinnakill in 2002 when it was a sheep farm, and the fecundity of the land and broodmares that have inhabited it since has propagated substantial success. Among the stellar cast of those bred there are Alexander Goldrun, Red Evie (dam of Arc-winning Breeders’ Cup heroine Found) and Casamento.

As a four-time Gp. 1 winner in four countries and three continents before injury brought his career to a premature conclusion last month, State Of Rest is the best though. 

Due to the colt’s astounding feats in adding the Prix Ganay and Prince of Wales’ Stakes this year to last season’s Saratoga Derby and Cox Plate triumphs, Juddmonte made a bid for the son of Starspangledbanner’s 10-year-old Quiet American homebred dam Repose, who is in foal to Frankel. 

“To be perfectly honest, like most Irish people in the industry, I’m a trader at heart,” Cantillon relates. “By definition then, if a big enough offer comes along, you’re gonna sell. Legacy is important but at the same time being able to meet your commitments for a long period of time and the security of that is also very important; and that won it over for me. She became too valuable a mare nearly to hold on to in proportion to the other mares I had. She was worth nearly more than everything else put together. That’s a total imbalance. 

“We have a philosophy to buy taproot-type females in outstanding American and European families, and she was the embodiment of that in that her dam Monaassabaat, who we bought initially, was out of It’s In The Air, who was one of the best mares in America ever (five of her 16 triumphs were Gr. 1’s) and also a fabulous producer. So it was an overnight success that took 15 years.”

Despite the windfall, Cantillon will not be splurging unnecessarily, though he will look to improve the lowest bar. With around 40 mares, Tinnakill focuses on quantity; and thanks to their canny approach and eye for a bargain, that tends to produce some quality along the way.

“We don’t spend a lot at the sales. We buy mares from one grand to maybe seventy five. That’s the comfort zone for us, and that’s where we intend to stay. To be successful at that level, you need a lot of mares; and you hope some will make it big for you. The philosophy is probably to throw enough at the wall and some of it will stick.”

They are willing to sell their homebreds at any stage up to and including as a racehorse but will not be forced into accepting a price that doesn’t match their value.

“I see five different opportunities to sell along the way. The first one is in utero, the second one is the foal, the third is yearlings, the fourth is breeze-ups and the fifth one—the ultimate one—is in training. So within the philosophy of business, all five operate—and I’d say more so now, the fifth one. To show confidence in our own yearlings especially, we’ll keep 25 percent in them in partnership if whoever buys them asks us to do so. We’ll go to the next level on the understanding that if they prove themselves on the racetrack, they will get sold in a commercial way.

“We’d predominantly be known as foal sellers, and we sell a lot of foals in England and Ireland. People want foals that they can bring to the Orby and so on, and we sell those sort of foals. If they make money, so be it.

“We tend to keep any foal after the 15th of April. People have an idea of what a foal should look like—it’s a good, strong foal. As they head towards a May foal, the discount that you’re expected to take can be fairly big, so we don’t tend to bring the later foals to the foal sales; they tend to go on to the yearling sales. At the yearling sales, we bring mostly foals we failed to sell because we didn’t get what we thought the foal should’ve made, and also later foals.”

The demand for precocity and immediate results has inflated that specific market, but that means there is value for discerning buyers.

“What happens at yearling and foal sales is that people have a certain view of what a good foal or a good yearling should look like, and most people have exactly the same view. So if you have that particular product, you get a big premium. But for people buying horses, I think the value is slightly to either side and for a deviation of 10 percent, you might get a discount of 50. 

“So if you can forgive some slight physical flaws, these are going to be discounted significantly; and I think there’s great value if people can get away from perfection to look upon the foal and yearling more as an athlete with slight imperfections but at the same time, an athlete.

“I think for that reason trainers probably make the best buyers because they’ve seen it all, whereas often, agents are under pressure to buy the horse that ticks all the boxes.”

Fashion also applies to stallions and again, Cantillon is imaginative when it comes to where he sends his mares. He has said previously that he likes to go against the tide when selecting stallions.

“I like to breed to middle-distance horses. Last year, I bred five mares to Australia. I think he’s a very good stallion. He can get you a two-year-old, he can get you a good three-year-old, he can get you a horse you can sell to Australia for a lot of money if it shows some form. The demand for middle-distance horses is enormous and very lucrative.

“The only time I would be breeding to ‘expensive stallions’ would be a foal share. I wouldn’t be putting more than 30 or 40 grand into any mare, barring we owned a nomination. I do invest in a lot of stallion shares, and to a large extent, that dictates what my mare is going to.

“I think it’s a great business move. It’s not without risk, but you can buy a stallion share; and in most cases, you’ll get most of your money back within three or four years. And if it hits, you’ll get many multiples of it. So, I think, if you’re in the industry, you have a nucleus of mares that you can use these nominations on, it makes huge sense economically to invest in stallion shares.”

He sees the economics of horse breeding as being cyclical and thus predicts a significant downturn in two or three years, with the thoroughbred industry tending to “have a significant correction” within a couple of years of a societal recession.

There is no hint of doom in these utterances, given that he has always cut his cloth to measure, and he expects any shrewd operator to insulate themselves in preparation for what’s down the tracks. Indeed while he has expressed concern for the smaller breeders in the past, he believes the environment is more conducive to them getting a positive return for their investment now. 

“I think it’s a bit healthier than it was. The top end was very lucrative and is still very lucrative, but maybe there aren’t as many players at the very top end where there’s a lot of players in the middle tier now.

“I think that ITM and the sales companies in Ireland have done a great job in attracting American buyers. There was a significant increase in yearlings going to America from the Orby Sale last year. That’s a tremendous result. To some extent, the American market is replacing the Maktoum market in Ireland. And when you look at history, you always see that major players come and go; but the industry always survives, and I think now the American market is going to get better and better.

“There’s a couple of factors there. The injuries in turf racing are less, the number of participants in turf races are more, and that’s good from a gambling point of view. And the fact we’ve sent a lot of horses over to America now, they’re acting as advertisements for the next bunch, and they’re doing exceptionally well. So as night follows day, I think that at the upcoming yearling sales, the American influence will be huge.

“I think Charles O’Neill (ITM CEO) has done an outstanding job. To see him in action internationally is a joy to behold. That’s a role that takes a long time to get people’s trust. Our industry is based on trust, but he has it now; and a lot of markets have been opened up year-in, year-out by him visiting these places with his team. Over time there’ve been very lucrative transactions, especially for horses in training, as a result of that.”

Back at home the evolution continues, and Cantillon’s entrepreneurial son, Jack, has become a key part of a team in which manager Ian Thompson is also a vital cog.

“I think Jack is a good catalyst because he pushes you. A lot of the accolades have to go to him because I’d be at the sales sometimes and he’d be after buying a mare without me knowing. He’d never buy a mare I wouldn’t have bought myself, but he pushes the boat out more than I would and that keeps me on my toes.”

Among Cantillon Jnr’s interests is Syndicates.Racing, which focuses on the fractional ownership model and has been a resounding success on both codes in a very short span of time. The founder’s proud parents have shared the journey, and Dermot emphasises the importance placed on having a positive race-day experience. This is a central tenet of all the improvements that have taken place at Naas during his tenure.

“In terms of building the new stand, the whole concept of it was to bring the horse into the main focus. You look to your right, and you have the horses in the parade ring along with the actors—the jockeys, the trainers—you have that whole environment there. Then you look to the left, and you see where the horses will be participating. So the whole philosophy of that stand was to bring the horse more into focus.”

Osborne calls Naas her husband’s “fifth child,” and it has certainly flourished in an atmosphere that promotes and encourages imaginative thinking. Former manager Tom Ryan oversaw much of the improvement, and Eamonn McEvoy continues in a similar vein.

“The philosophy is ‘never stop.’ What’s next? Eamonn has done a super job. He’s a very progressive, inclusive person. He tries to bring everybody with him.”

Rewards have come in the form of the upgrading of the Lawlor’s of Naas Novice Hurdle to Gr. 1 status and being asked to take up the slack during The Curragh’s redevelopment. But there is clear impatience about the difficulty in climbing further up the ladder. Not yet having a Gp. 1 race on the flat is especially annoying.

“My big frustration is that within the whole structure of Irish racing there’s no pathway in how you can get better. How do you go from being classed as a second-grade track to being one of the elite tracks? I’ve asked this question five years, six years now, and nobody has been able to tell me. How do we change it so that the 13 Gp. 1 races in Ireland are not divvied out every year to two tracks? Why can’t other tracks that have a good proposition get one of those races? Why don’t we challenge the status quo for the benefit of Irish racing? Nobody’s been able to tell me why not except that they won’t rock the boat.

“Convention is an easy way of management, but it’s not the progressive way.”

In any high performance network, the existence of a clear pathway provides an incentive for improvement and as a consequence, raises standards. Why do more than trouser the media money if it doesn’t matter what you do?

“That’s exactly it. That’s what we’ve been told for generations, more or less. There are little tweaks where they give progressive tracks like Naas additional fixtures; and also, we’ve been able to increase our black-type races. But at the same time, there’s a glass ceiling there, and we need to break that for the good of Irish racing. We need to be progressive. We’re not progressive. We just maintain the status quo.

“There’s two ways we can get a Gp. 1. The first is to have an existing Gp. 1 transferred from another racecourse. The other way would be one of our races, over time because of the ratings, would qualify as a Gp. 1. At this point in time, there are one or two races that we would think could be due to be upgraded, but it hasn’t happened yet and that’s frustrating.”

There are some “outside the box” plans that are being considered at the moment that include some potential ground-breaking global partnerships. Further enhancements for the course are also in the pipeline.

As for the racing product itself, he believes maintaining quality is critical.

“My view of Ireland: we’re like what the All Blacks tend to be in rugby. If a horse wins a good two-year-old race in Naas, then he’s marketable to the whole world as that’s as good as you can get in terms of a young horse and where he’s performing. I have a lot of sympathy that everybody gets a run because I have some bad horses myself that can’t get into races, but I think it’s very important that we maintain the brand.”

He believes that the betting tax should be limited to winnings for off-course bookies but be increased to three percent. This would lead to a likely increase in funding for racing, he argues. It would also go some way to arresting the decline of the on-course betting ring that used to be central to the race-day experience.

“We need to give an advantage to bookies on track. There needs to be something which makes you go racing if you want to bet and a differentiation between off-track and on-track in terms of the three per cent could be a big help.

“When I was on the board at Naas first around 25 years ago, a very good race meeting could turn over a million pounds on-track. Now we’re looking at 150 (thousand). There’s a crisis. We need to do something radical about the crisis. My solution would be to have no tax on-course and increase the tax off-course on winnings.”

This might also help increase attendances, which despite what some industry leaders suggest, has to be a cause for concern with racing’s supporters getting older by the year.

“We’re nearly totally dependent on media rights money to operate the racecourse. You could do a strength-and-weakness analysis, and a massive weakness is its dependence on the media rights. Because of the media rights, we’ve maybe neglected the attendance.

“We now have a new audience, which is the digital audience and… people don’t travel to race meetings like they used to, so the emphasis has to be on the local audience, and we have identified that at Naas. We have taken a number of steps, and we’re going to take more to be more and more part of the Naas community. If we’re going to get people back racing, we see our growth within Naas and its environs.”

It is a recipe that has worked for a number of regional venues but has not yet been utilised, successfully at least, by too many. And as Cantillon has already suggested, media rights income has removed much of the incentive to bother doing so.

That said, he understands the disappointment of some of the smaller racecourses that feel the distribution of the media rights income has been inequitable. 

“Something like an extra seven-to-nine percent went back to central funds when the last agreement was made. I was in the room when the thing was voted on, and people were looking at how much extra they were getting; and they were so happy about how much extra they were getting, they didn’t really think of the implications of giving an extra seven or eight per cent to Horse Racing Ireland. Horse Racing Ireland said, ‘Oh that’ll all come back in grants.’ And as a totality, it came back in grants. But for certain racecourses, it didn’t come back proportionally because if a track couldn’t come up with 60 percent of the cost, they wouldn’t get the 40 percent grant; and I understand their frustration.”

The current deal concludes next year, and he yearns for a “unified approach” towards negotiating the next one. But whatever unfolds, positive or negative, Dermot Cantillon will be putting his best foot forward. He knows no other way.

Conformation and Breeding Choices

By Judy Wardrope

A lot of factors go into the making of a good racehorse, but everything starts with the right genetic combinations; and when it comes to genetics, little is black and white. The best we can do is to increase our odds of producing or selecting a potential racehorse. Examining the functional aspects of the mare and then selecting a stallion that suits her is another tool in the breeding arsenal.

For this article we will use photos of four broodmares and analyze the mares’ conformational points with regard to performance as well as matings likely to result in good racehorses from each one. We will look at qualities we might want to cement and qualities we might hope to improve for their offspring. In addition, we will look at their produce records to see what has or has not worked in the past.

In order to provide a balance between consistency and randomness, only mares that were grey (the least common color at the sale) with three or more offspring that were likely to have had a chance to race (at least three years old) were selected. In other words, the mares were not hand-picked to prove any particular point. 

All race and produce information was taken from the sales catalogue at the time the photos were taken (November 2018) and have not been updated. 

Mare 1

Her lumbosacral gap (LS) (just in front of the high point of croup, and the equivalent of the horse’s transmission) is not ideal, but within athletic limits; however, it is an area one would hope to improve through stallion selection. One would want a stallion with proven athleticism and a history of siring good runners.

The rear triangle and stifle placement (just below sheath level if she were male) are those of a miler. A stallion with proven performance at between seven furlongs and a mile and an eighth would be preferable as it would be breeding like to like from a mechanical perspective rather than breeding a basketball star to a gymnast.

Her pillar of support emerges well in front of the withers for some lightness of the forehand but just behind the heel. One would look for a stallion with the bottom of the pillar emerging into the rear quarter of the hoof for improved soundness and longevity on the track. Her base of neck is well above her point of shoulder, adding additional lightness to the forehand, and she has ample room behind her elbow to maximise the range of motion of the forequarters. Although her humerus (elbow to point of shoulder) shows the length one would expect in order to match her rear stride, one would likely select a stallion with more rise from elbow to point of shoulder in order to add more lightness to the forehand.

Her sire was a champion sprinter as well as a successful sire, and her female family was that of stakes producers. She was a stakes-placed winner at six furlongs—a full-sister to a stakes winner at a mile as well as a half-sister to another stakes-winning miler. Her race career lasted from three to five.

She had four foals that met the criteria for selection; all by distance sires of the commercial variety. Two of her foals were unplaced and two were modest winners at the track. I strongly suspect that this mare’s produce record would have proven significantly better had she been bred to stallions that were sound milers or even sprinters.

Mare 2 

Her LS placement, while not terrible, could use improvement; so one would seek a stallion that was stronger in this area and tended to pass on that trait. 

The hindquarters are those of a sprinter, with the stifle protrusion being parallel to where the bottom of the sheath would be. It is the highest of all the mares used in this comparison, and therefore would suggest a sprinter stallion for mating.

Her forehand shows traits for lightness and soundness: pillar emerging well in front of the withers and into the rear quarter of the hoof, a high point of shoulder plus a high base of neck. She also exhibits freedom of the elbow. These traits one would want to duplicate when making a choice of stallions.

However, her length of humerus would dictate a longer stride of the forehand than that of the hindquarters. This means that the mare would compensate by dwelling in the air on the short (rear) side, which is why she hollows her back and has developed considerable muscle on the underside of her neck. One would hope to find a stallion that was well matched fore and aft in hopes he would even out the stride of the foal.

Her sire was a graded-stakes-placed winner and sire of stakes winners, but not a leading sire. Her dam produced eight winners and three stakes winners of restricted races, including this mare and her full sister. 

She raced from three to five and had produced three foals that met the criteria for this article. One (by a classic-distance racehorse and leading sire) was a winner in Japan, one (by a stallion of distance lineage) was unplaced, and one (by a sprinter sire with only two starts) was a non-graded stakes-winner. In essence, her best foal was the one that was the product of a type-to-type mating for distance, despite the mare having been bred to commercial sires in the other two instances.

Mare 3 ….

BUY THIS ISSUE IN PRINT OR DOWNLOAD

January - March 2020, issue 68 (PRINT)

£8.95

Quantity:

Add to Cart

January - March 2020, issue 68 (DIGITAL)

£4.95

Add to Cart

WHY NOT SUBSCRIBE?

DON'T MISS OUT AND SUBSCRIBE TO RECEIVE THE NEXT FOUR ISSUES!

Focus on the Flat - Are commercial breeders targeting the right market?

Click on the cover to buy this back issue now!

First published in European Trainer issue 57 - April '17 - June '17