Five foals and plenty of winners
Like all breeders, we’re battling on through what feels like one of the longest, coldest, wettest winters in recent memory and the Beast From The East hasn’t even arrived…yet.
We’re pleased and relieved to have five healthy foals on the ground so far. The first to be delivered was a gorgeous Showcasing colt for Ben Sangster, and we’ve foaled another two mares for Ben who have now gone home. Two of our own mares kept us waiting a while but have now produced two lovely fillies.
Amami, a well-bred daughter of Peintre Celebre from a good Wildenstein family, had her first foal, a cracking daughter of Dabirsim, and she was swiftly followed by another first-time mum, our homebred Spanish Guineas winner Vallila, who delieverd a filly by Bobby’s Kitten. We’re delighted with all five foals and have plenty more to come, both for ourselves and our clients.
We’ve only had one trip to the covering shed so far, and that was with Gemina, one of our boarders owned by Lady Howard de Walden, who visited Havana Gold at Tweenhills. Of course Havana Gold had a great season with his first runners in 2017, and it was great to see him again as he is a magnificent stallion.
In the meantime, there have been some good results on the track with horses William and I have bought for clients. Stuart Williams has been having a great all-weather season and it’s been especially pleasing to see some good results with two horses we bought for Geoff Price and Happy Valley Bracing & Breeding Ltd. Maratha won nicely just after Christmas and has been consistent all winter, taking his mark to 85, while our old friend Able Jack has won two of his three starts in 2018 and now has a rating of 84.
A really old friend, Hors De Combat, is still going strong at the age of seven and he recorded an impressive win at Meydan on 15 February for Chris Van Hoorn and Denis Coakley, taking his earnings to £217,479. We bought Hors De Combat as a yearling for Chris, just as we did Regicide, who brought up an amusing exacta when beating King Kevin at Lingfield the day after Hors De Combat struck in Dubai. This was his second victory for James Fanshawe, who has been very patient with him, and we hope to see him progress from that victory, which left him with an AWT rating of 89.
