‘If they’re not buying the best ones, I certainly will be’
Redvers’ excitement grows over Zoustar’s first northern hemisphere yearlings as Kameko seeks to carry the late Roaring Lion’s baton at Tweenhills
Stallions who truly stamp their legacy in both hemispheres are naturally a rare commodity. In shuttling terms, Danehill (Danzig) bridged the gap between Europe and Australia before his sire-sons Exceed And Excel and Fastnet Rock assumed the mantle, while More Than Ready (Southern Halo) and Medaglia D’Oro (El Prado) lay claim to being the equine conduits between the US and Australia.
Unearthing another stallion to join those select breed-shapers is the thoroughbred equivalent of the Poincaré conjecture, but listening to David Redvers present his case for Zoustar’s (Northern Meteor) northern hemisphere credentials, it is hard not to be compelled by what lies ahead for this emerging force in the covering shed.
Of course, those connected to any horse are unlikely to prove the most objective source of scrutiny, but Zoustar’s southern hemisphere exploits need little introduction. A winner of the Golden Rose Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) and Coolmore Stud Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) on the track, the Widden Stud resident has already been crowned champion first and second season sire in Australia, his 16 stakes winners worldwide headlined by triple Group 1 heroine Sunlight and Singapore champion Top Knight.
With Zoustar’s first northern hemisphere crop now yearlings, ANZ Bloodstock News caught up with Redvers during a busy Sunday morning as the current foaling season hits top gear. We speak shortly after a “whopping great” Zoustar colt arrived overnight at his Tweenhills Stud in Gloucestershire, the northern hemisphere base of Zoustar and home of exciting new recruit Kameko (Kitten’s Joy). More on him to come.
Redvers, who also serves as racing manager to Sheikh Fahad Al Thani’s Qatar Racing operation, was in lucid and engaging form as we discussed a range of racing’s most pertinent topics, but his excitement was palpable when the talk turned to the son of Northern Meteor (Encosta De Lago).
“He is a wonderful opportunity for UK, Irish and French breeders and anybody who has been to the sales in the southern hemisphere knows what to expect when they open the door of a Zoustar,” Redvers says of the stallion who covered 149 mares at Tweenhills in 2019 and 124 last year.
“They all look very similar, with that wonderful head and hip. He puts this amazing action into his progeny, which really appeals to the market and is why the southern hemisphere sales prices are so strong.”
Anticipating the sales ring traction his European yearlings will command later this year, Redvers continues: “While a lot of people who will look at the Zoustars won’t have seen him race, won’t recognise the form, and probably won’t recognise Northern Meteor and Encosta De Lago if they have a parochial approach to racing, when they see the physicals and all of the amazing accolades landed on him, I think it’s going to be a bit of a no-brainer. If they’re not buying the best ones, I certainly will be.”
Zoustar will stand at £25,000 (approx. AUD$44,500) this year and he has already kicked off 2021 in taking fashion, producing the top lot at the New Zealand Bloodstock National Yearling Sale at Karaka, an NZD$800,000 filly who was knocked down to Coolmore and Te Akau Racing, while his 51 lots sold at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale grossed $14.76 million at an average of just shy of $290,000.
A third high-class book of mares awaits him in the coming months, with Redvers continuing: “For the most part, we haven’t tried to reinvent the wheel ourselves. We’re acutely aware of what’s worked with him down south and we’ve gone down the same route, sending him the majority of our sprinter-miler and precocious mares because that’s what he is – a very fast, champion three-year-old sprinter.”
Among Zoustar’s yearlings on the ground is a colt out of Wind Fire, a dual Listed-winning daughter of Distorted Humor (Forty Niner) who ran third in the Norfolk Stakes (Gr 2, 5f) at Royal Ascot, and a son of La Rioja (Hellvelyn), who won the Dick Poole Stakes (Gr 3, 6f) as a juvenile prior to finishing fourth in the Commonwealth Cup (Gr 1, 6f) at three.
“These two colts have stallion potential written all over them,” says Redvers, before quickly pointing out that another youngster on the farm, a filly out of the stakes-winning sprinter Arabda (Elnadim), is bred on the same cross as Zousain (Zoustar).
Now resident alongside his stallion at Widden, Zousain carried the Qatar Racing colours during his 13-race career, while his neck second to Sunlight in the 2018 Coolmore completed a trifecta for Zoustar, who also produced the third, Lean Mean Machine.
Redvers also notes how the Karaka sales topper is out of a Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) mare and a variation of that cross is evident in Zoustar’s yearling filly from Lightening Quick, a Group 3-winning daughter of Frankel (Galileo) who is herself out of Qatar Racing’s Cheveley Park Stakes (Gr 1, 6f) heroine Lightening Pearl (Marju).
She, alongside a filly out of Queen Mary Stakes (Gr 3, 5f) third and American Listed winner Out Of The Flames (Showcasing), is described by Redvers as “gorgeous” and “very fast-looking”.
“These are a good bunch of yearlings, but the current foals will be even better next year as they’re bred from the best mares he has covered so far. The only clear route is up,” he adds.
Con Te Partiro among a stellar maiden book for Kameko
The latest addition to the four-strong roster at Tweenhills is last season’s 2,000 Guineas (Gr 1, 1m) winner Kameko, who carried Sheikh Fahad’s claret with gold braid colours to success in the Vertem Futurity (Gr 1, 1m) at two, the only Group 1 hitherto run on an artificial surface in Europe.
Trained by Andrew Balding, Kameko also ran fourth in the Epsom Derby (Gr 1, 1m4f) after his Guineas success, faltering late as his stamina limitations ebbed away, while he was a luckless fourth behind Mohaather (Showcasing) in Goodwood’s Sussex Stakes (Gr 1, 1m) just three weeks later.
Introduced to breeders at £25,000, he is set to receive robust home support from Qatar and Tweenhills by covering 45 mares between the two outfits, including dual Group 1 winner Con Te Partiro (Scat Daddy).
Originally trained by Wesley Ward, Con Te Partiro was a Listed winner at two and a Royal Ascot winner at three, but her career scaled new heights when she joined the stable of Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott in 2019, winning the Coolmore Classic (Gr 1, 1500m) the following year prior to taking out the Queen Of The Turf Stakes (Gr 1, 1600m) on her penultimate outing back in April.
“We paid USD$1.5 million for her in Kentucky and not many first season sires get sent a million-plus mare in their first book. She’s just an extraordinary bit of kit and we’re looking forward to seeing what they can get up to,” Redvers says.
A Classic-winning colt with a bright future at stud inevitably leads the conversation towards the question of a potential shuttle deal, a topic that is particularly acute given the sudden and tragic loss of Qatar Racing’s Roaring Lion (Kitten’s Joy) in August 2019. Having covered his first northern hemisphere book that spring, the four-time Group 1 winner was due to stand at Cambridge Stud, but he was euthanised before the southern hemisphere breeding season began after suffering complications from two colic surgeries.
Asked if Kameko could be tasked with shuttling himself, Redvers says: “There are a couple of ongoing conversations, although nothing is ruled in or out at the moment. We won’t be making any decisions on his future until we know he is fertile and capable of doing the job, but all the signs are very positive at present.”
The symmetry between Kameko and Roaring Lion has occupied plenty of column inches, with both being Redvers-sourced Keeneland September graduates by Hill ‘N Dale Farms’ champion sire Kitten’s Joy (El Prado).
Redvers continues of Kameko: “At the time I thought we’d bought the cheapest horse we’d got for years and I couldn’t believe he only cost USD$90,000 as he was such a good physical. You still don’t expect him to do what he did, but he always looked very special to us.
“Andrew was training a couple of much more expensive horses for us at the time, but from a very early stage he kept talking about this Kitten’s Joy horse who was going to be the next Roaring Lion. It’s rather a wonderful story.”
Roaring Lion set to stamp legacy with sole crop
While Roaring Lion’s opportunity at stud was cruelly cut short, he did cover 133 mares at £40,000 during his sole breeding season.
The resulting offspring perked the interest of breeders in the foal market, with eight selling last year for an aggregate of £889,814 and an average of £ 111,226. However, Redvers only sees those numbers going one way.
“Because the stallion was dead, from a commercial point of view that creates a slightly stagnant foal market. I feel fairly confident that when we get to the yearling market there will be a completely different state of affairs, because trainers buy horses they want to train,” he says.
“We’ve got 35 or so by him on the farm and we’ll be looking at every single one in the ring. They have huge hips and there is a lot of his shape, girth, and head there.
“It’s going to be fascinating and I certainly know, if he was still alive, I would be walking around on cloud nine at the moment thinking we are on the verge of something great, but we’ve just got to make the most of what we’ve got and hope there is a proper one amongst them.”
Redvers also paid heed to Brendan and Jo Lindsay of Cambridge Stud, noting their foresight in relation to importing European bloodlines and the recent success of Almanzor (Wootton Bassett) at the first three southern hemisphere yearling sales of the year.
“Another reason I’m particularly heartbroken about Roaring Lion’s untimely demise is that Cambridge is a very exciting and dynamic operation to be involved with,” he says.
“A large pat on the back to them for investing massively in Almanzor. The manner in which they approach things shouldn’t be a complete surprise when you consider that Brendan and Jo Lindsay are stratospherically successful business people, and they have approached Cambridge in a similar way, appointing some of the best people to their team.”
Redvers on…Brexit
“From a bookings point of view, between France and Ireland we’d normally have 30-40 mares come to our stallions a year. We’re in single digits for 2021 because the uncertainty is creating a bit of havoc. The VAT issue is also a nightmare. For example, we have a very smart Deep Impact filly out of Lightening Pearl who is due to go into training with Johnny Murtagh in Ireland. She’s probably worth £1 million standing on her head, but if you’ve got to pay £200,000 VAT and not see it again until she returns to the UK, it takes the price of another couple of yearlings out of your cash flow. I’ve also got a lot of mares currently booked to go to Ireland but we wanted to foal them here first because of the Great British Bonus scheme. After Brexit, we can’t ship the mares until the foals are 30 days old, which is a double whammy with the VAT issue, so it might well be that we’ve got to cancel those contracts and keep the mares here. We might find that if things don’t sort themselves out quickly, a lot more UK-based mares come on stream that are currently pencilled in to Irish or French stallions, so things might net-out. But it’s all a bit tiresome and all everyone wants to do is get back to a tripartite-type agreement where there is free movement of bloodstock between us and we can all trade and push on.”
Redvers on…prize-money and early retirement
“The only disappointment with Kameko is that we had to retire him to stud at the end of his three-year-old career, purely on commercial grounds. He’s put on about 56 kilos since he arrived at Tweenhills in November and he looks absolutely magnificent. You’d love to see him back in training at four and running in Group 1 races like the Lockinge and the Queen Anne, but the prize-money he could win would barely cover his insurance premium. In these post-Covid times, the prize-money in Britain has been pretty poor, but at least historically in the Group 1s it’s not been too bad. Yet in 2021 it was terrible, and who knows how much money we left on the table just in a race like the Guineas. To put a Guineas winner back in training at four, you’ve got to be thinking you’ve got a chance of winning at least £1 million or £1.5 million or more, because if something happens and he gets hurt, you’re going to hurt his value by many times that. It’s a shame he won’t get the chance to cement himself as a genuine champion, which all of us closest to the horse genuinely believe he is.”
Redvers on…virtual sales
Redvers, alongside his long-standing associate Hannah Wall, teamed up with Rosemont Stud’s Ryan McEvoy and agent Suman Hedge in sourcing colts for the newly established Victorian Alliance at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale. Overall, the partnership bought six lots for an aggregate of $3.6 million, including a $1 million son of Zoustar from Widden Stud.
“It has been a fascinating experience because I’ve never worked a yearling sale online. I’ve come to the firm conclusion that you can’t buy yearlings alone by that method, but if they are presented really well, it can certainly help you to form a strong opinion, and sometimes it can be an advantage being slightly detached because you look at things in a slightly less emotive fashion. It’s really opened my eyes to online sales platforms and the need for industry to embrace that going forward. Necessity being the mother of invention, the Kiwis have really nailed the process. The void between the way horses are being presented online in the UK and Ireland and the way they are being presented in New Zealand is quite an education. Part of it is a generational thing, and there are one or two young stud managers in the northern hemisphere who understand what is required. The older generation have always done something in a certain way and are just pining for that time to return as fast as possible, rather than embracing change. From our point of view, we need to take heed very rapidly, because unless we get our funding structure sorted out over here, we’re going to become a nursery for other racing jurisdictions anyway. Those of us who are growing the horses, racing and marketing them need to wake up to the future marketplace.”
Redvers on…the Australian marketplace
“What is extraordinary is that so many of the big operations have started working together because it’s so competitive. Everyone has a chance of finding the next champion and it’s almost a meritorious and democratic system. What I find so exciting is that you can go
to a yearling sale, identify all of the horses you love, and almost not have to bid on a single one, and simply go around the parties who have bought them and take five or ten per cent shares in all of the ones you really rated. You have a serious chance of having the whole lot paid for if you know your onions and are working with the right teams. It’s a much healthier and more dynamic system than the one we have in Britain, where the marketplace essentially revolves around meeting the needs of two or three families.”