PRESS RELEASE
RAIL LINK AND THREE VALLEYS RETIRE TO BANSTEAD MANOR STUD
Rail Link, winner of the 2006 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, is to join
the stallion team at Banstead Manor Stud, where he will replace
Rainbow Quest, another Arc winner who developed into Britain’s most
accomplished stallion.
Rail Link will be standing alongside his highly
popular sire Dansili, who dominated the recent yearling sales at
Deauville, where his youngsters sold for €950,000, €800,000 and
€600,000. These prices reflected the tremendous success enjoyed by
Dansili’s first four crops, which have produced the Gr.1 winners
Price Tag, Passage of Time, Rail Link and Zambezi Sun, as well as
some very promising juveniles led by Proviso. The unbeaten Proviso
recently moved to the head of the 2008 1000 Guineas betting
following her victory in the Gr.3 Prix du Calvados.
Rail Link played a leading role in Dansili becoming
champion sire in France in 2006. After losing his rider on his
debut, Rail Link won the last five of his six completed outings to
share the title of best horse in Europe with George Washington on
the 2006 World Thoroughbred Racehorse Rankings. Timeform rated him
132.
A half-brother to the Group-winning Chelsea Manor,
Rail Link reeled off four successive Group victories. In the Gr.3
Prix du Lys he easily defeated the subsequent Gr.1 winners Sudan
and Prince Flori; in the Gr.1 Grand Prix de Paris, he won by two
lengths, chased home by the future Gr.1 winners Red Rocks, Sudan
and Grand Couturier; and in the Gr.2 Prix Niel he defeated the
subsequent Gr.1 winners Youmzain and Sudan. Then, in the Arc, he
showed the type of acceleration people have come to expect of
Dansili’s best progeny, to score from Pride, the Japanese superstar
Deep Impact and Hurricane Run. The second and third immediately
franked the form by jointly going on to Gr.1 successes in the
Champion Stakes, Hong Kong Cup, Japan Cup and Arima Kinen.
Another addition to the Juddmonte team is Dansili’s
relative Three Valleys, who had the distinction of setting track
records on three different courses.
The son of Diesis first caused a sensation at the 2003
Royal Ascot meeting, when he trounced the opposition by eight
lengths in the Gr.3 Coventry Stakes, to lower the juvenile track
record to 1:13.6. The next record came in 2005, in the Gr.2 Del Mar
Breeders’ Cup Handicap, where Three Valleys stopped the clock at
1:32.21 for a mile, and he again rewrote the record books at
Monmouth Park in 2006, when he took the Gr.3 Oceanport Stakes in a
time of 1:40.06 for eight and a half furlongs.
Three Valleys’ other achievements included crossing
the line first in the Gr.1 Middle Park Stakes, finishing a head
second in the Gr.1 Dewhurst Stakes and a fine third behind older
horses in the Gr.1 Citation Handicap on his American debut.
Only three horses were rated superior to Three Valleys
on the two-year-old classifications. By training on to add further
Graded successes at four and five, he showed the type of speed and
durability for which Juddmonte’s Kerali family has become famous.
Three Valleys’ dam Skiable is one of four daughters of Kerali to
have bred a Group winner, the others being Arrive (dam of this
year’s Princess Margaret Stakes winner Visit), Dissemble (dam of
the excellent American miler Leroidesanimaux) and Broodmare of the
Year Hasili.
When Champs Elysees won the Prix d’Hedouville earlier
this year, he became Hasili’s sixth Group winner from her first six
foals, the others being Dansili, Banks Hill, Heat Haze,
Intercontinental and Cacique. All six are by Danzig line stallions.
Three Valleys, by Diesis who also won, is out of a close relative
to Hasili, as both Skiable and Hasili are by stallions from the
Nijinsky sire line. With a pedigree largely free of Northern Dancer
blood, Three Valleys is sure to appeal to the many breeders with
speedy mares from the Danzig line.
Philip Mitchell, General Manager of Juddmonte
Farms, said:
“We are delighted to be standing Rail Link, as there’s
every reason to hope that he can fill the void left by Rainbow
Quest. Besides being a champion son of a champion sire, he’s an
excellent physical specimen. He’s a strong, powerful, really
good-looking colt, with the correct conformation breeders are
looking for. He also has a great attitude. Three Valleys will
offer breeders the opportunity to use a very fast 2 year old/miler
combined with arguably today’s best female line”.
Date:
22 August 2007