Kovalica
There aren’t many readily available stats for this sort of thing, but if Cheval D’Or wins the Queensland Oaks this Saturday, it’ll continue an extraordinary plundering of one city by one remarkable New Zealand family.
In 2019, The Bostonian – a son of Jimmy Choux (Thorn Park) out of Keepa Cheval (Keeper) – crossed the Tasman to Brisbane and took the Group 1 sprint double of the Doomben 10,000 (1200m) and the Kingsford Smith Cup (1300m).
Last Saturday, Kovalica – by another son of Thorn Park in Ocean Park and out of a daughter of Keepa Cheval in Vitesse – announced himself as a stayer of the future by cruising through the Group 1 Queensland Derby with breathtaking ease. He’s trained by Sydney-based behemoth Chris Waller, but it was his fourth win and third at stakes level from five starts in Brisbane, the ‘blemish’ being his third against older horses in the Doomben Cup a week earlier.
And now Cheval D’Or, by Almanzor out of that mare again in Keepa Cheval, and trained by The Bostonian’s conditioner Tony Pike, lines up for a family sweep of Queensland’s 2023 staying Classics in the Oaks, after a last-start maiden-breaking win in the Group 3 Trelawney Stud Stakes over 2100 metres at Pukekohe. It’s a quality field and she’s only an each-way chance at around $16, but her pedigree suggests she’ll go far.
In any case, this is a family that already counts as one of New Zealand’s finest in modern times. Lying behind Vitesse and Keepa Cheval – who won one race each – is Sheila Cheval (Mi Preferido).
She didn’t make it to the track at all, produced a middling six winners from 11 runners, and unlike her daughter Keepa Cheval, managed to throw only one stakes winner. But what a one he was: King Mufhasa. The son of Pentire won no fewer than ten Group 1s from 1200 metres to 1600 metres, including two to the west of the Tasman in Caulfield’s Toorak Handicap (1600m) of 2011 and Futurity Stakes (1400m) the following year.
For good measure, Sheila Cheval also threw Belle Joie (Mellifont), a six-time winning sprinter who when aged 17 produced Sacred Satono (Satono Aladdin), the Group 3-winning three-year-old who was sent to Sydney’s autumn carnival this year.
And thus this family has produced a versatility of sprinters, sprinter-milers and now what looks like one of the most exciting young stayers to have come along for some time in Kovalica.
He was bred by New Zealand’s Nearco Stud, the entity owned by businessman Greg Tomlinson which has some 40 mares on its books. They’re mostly housed at Curraghmore Stud, from whose draft Kovalica was sold to Waller associate Guy Mulcaster for $110,000 at Karaka in 2021.
Best known for breeding Hong Kong champion Beauty Generation (Road To Rock), Nearco also bred Kovalica’s dam Vitesse. Having seen the early success Archer Equine Investments had in mating her dam with Jimmy Choux to produce The Bostonian, Nearco felt emboldened to try Vitesse along similar lines.
She went to Jimmy Choux to produce a first foal in Serenella, who was retired unraced. Second-up, after The Bostonian’s first trip to Brisbane in 2018 that had yielded a Group 3 and a Listed victory, Nearco tried another Thorn Park son in Cox Plate winner Ocean Park.
There was an added factor, with Nearco owning a share in that stallion, but in any event, the result is Kovalica, who’s already favourite for this year’s Caulfield Cup and is on the fourth line of betting for the Melbourne Cup.
“The Bostonian was showing some early ability so we wanted to get that connection with Thorn Park with Vitesse,” Nearco’s bloodstock manager Regan Donnison told It’s In The Blood. “We didn’t necessarily think we’d get a Derby winner, but this family seems to throw up pretty good horses every generation.
“It’s a ballistic family. You go back to King Mufhasa two generations back, The Bostonian, and now you’ve got Kovalica, Cheval D’Or and Sacred Satono, so it seems the family has kicked again.”
Looking for clues as to why Kovalica stays and The Bostonian sprinted, the answer could go back to 1952, and the super American broodmare Somethingroyal (Princequillo). Better still, it could go back to 1837. That was the birth year of one of the most influential mares of all-time, Pocahontas (Glencoe).
As readers of this column may remember, extensive research by American expert Marianna Haun has identified that the generic trait for a much-larger-than-normal heart – no bad thing in a stayer – is carried in what she called the “X-factor gene”. She determined this had originated when a gene mutated in Pocahontas.
Pocahontas threw three outstanding stallions, the best being Stockwell, a seven-time champion sire and a colossus of the breed through direct male line descendants Phalaris, Native Dancer, and a sire close to Tomlinson’s heart – Nearco.
That X-factor gene, maddeningly, bobs up randomly, but such big-hearted stayers as Phar Lap, Secretariat and Makybe Diva descend from Stockwell lines.
It’s feasible, then, that Kovalica could have benefitted from the gene, because he has the aforementioned Somethingroyal five times in his pedigree, from the seventh to the ninth removes.
Three times she’s in the top half through Ocean Park as the dam of her second most famous son, Sir Gaylord (Turn-To), who’s there through his finest son Sir Ivor, sire of Sir Tristram, who appears as the dad of Ocean Park’s damsire Zabeel.
And Somethingroyal is in Kovalica’s bottom half twice, once through Sir Gaylord and then through her finest work – Secretariat.
Secretariat is there through a daughter, Secretarial Queen, who’s in Keepa Cheval’s top half at the third remove. And the gender is important since Secretariat was far better as a broodmare sire than a sire, or as a sire of sires, thus meeting a fate that in fact befalls most stallions.
At the risk of running off on the home turn here somewhat, Secretariat had 54 stakes winners, with 45 of his sons producing a stakes winner. However, only four of his great grandsons to go to stud achieved the same feat. And so, Secretariat’s sireline influence dies out.
“Most stallions will live on through their daughters, not their sons,” former keeper of the Australian studbook Michael Ford tells us. “It’s only the pre-potent ones who live on through their sons, like the Danehills and Redoute’s Choices of this world. It’s probably only ten per cent of stallions or less who can live on through their sons.”
As a case in point, even the great Star Kingdom appears to be down to his very last sireline in existence, and that’s not looking great. It’s Toorak Toff, who comes from Star Kingdom-Biscay-Bletchingly-Cossack Warrior-Brave Warrior-Show A Heart, and who’s had three minor stakes winners from nine crops of runners.
Back to Kovalica, five appearances of Somethingroyal is handy, but perhaps a better presence is that of her sire – Princequillo. The British stallion is a noted big-heart progenitor, and he’s in Kovalica’s seventh-to-ninth generations 11 times – five in the top half and four in the bottom – through three sons and three daughters.
Hinting at some staying influence, the Oaks-bound member of this family, Cheval D’Or, has Princequillo seven times, while short-courser The Bostonian had him just the five.
Kovalica may also be at the forefront of a sharp upswing for Ocean Park, which seems to fit the timing. Waikato Stud’s Mark Chittick says the gelding is a product of a wave of stronger books of mares for the stallion, inspired by earlier progeny including multiple Group 1 winners Kolding and Tofane, who helped Ocean Park to a career-high 12th place on the Australian general sires table of 2019-20.
“Kovalica has come from around the beginning of Ocean Park’s larger and better books off the back of his earlier success. For a couple of years there, he served 170-odd mares, and not just better quantity but quality too,” Chittick said of his $30,000 stallion.
“He’s an incredible sire. He leaves very, very tough animals, and when he comes across a top-liner – and I think we can put Kovalica in that bracket – he leaves a very, very good horse.”
Not surprisingly, since another Cox Plate winner is Waikato’s flagbearer in Savabeel, Chittick rates that race very highly as a maker of stallions siring the hardest of offspring. He also notes Ocean Park, with 57.5 kilograms, gave substantial weight to the three-year-olds carrying 49.5 kilograms he beat into the minor placings of his edition – two future star sires in All Too Hard and Pierro.
“You have to be a good, tough horse to win those weight-for-age races in Australia, plus Ocean Park gave All Too Hard and Pierro a lot of weight in winning his,” he said. “They’re the type of horses we want to be producing to send back into that tough racing environment over there.”
Meanwhile, after Kovalica’s early strides, it will come as no surprise that Vitesse is back in foal to Ocean Park.