ASCOT RESULT OPENS UP THE FRESHMAN STALLION RACE
Taken from ThoroughbredInternet.com
THE TRIFECTA IN Sunday’s Princess Margaret Stakes Gr3) at Ascot was
produced by three freshman sires based in the UK, whose careers to
this point have followed rather different paths, writes Alix
Choppin.
The race was won in dazzling fashion by Sir Michael Stoute’s
Visit; a daughter of OASIS DREAM who was providing the sire
with a first winner at Stakes level. The Champion sprinter had been
knocking at the door for some time, and there must have been sighs
of relief at Banstead Manor Stud, so high are the expectations for
the regally bred stallion. Indeed, OASIS
DREAM started the season as 7-2 favourite on Cashman’s
first season sires market, such short odds only reflecting the
excitement caused by his first offspring at the foals and yearling
sales.
His first crop foals made up to 260,000 gns, with both major
players in the European thoroughbred industry showing a keen
interest in the young stallion. Almost 60 of this first crop
(numbering over a hundred individuals in total) went through the
European rings as yearlings, 12 of them changing hands for six
figures prices. John Ferguson’s winning bid of 550,000gns for a son
of Listed winner Side Of Paradise, from the top-class family of
Champion sprinter Last Tycoon, is only one illustration of the
quality of the mares attracted by the triple Group One winner in
his first season at stud.
Actually they don’t come much better-bred than the Princess
Margaret winner, a Juddmonte homebred filly whose price tag may,
all things being equal, have soared beyond the above mentioned mark
would that she had been offered at auction. Her dam, the triple
winner Arrive, is a full-sister to champion broodmare Hasili, dam
of five Group One winners including two other Banstead Manor
inmates in DANSILI and CACIQUE. OASIS
DREAM’s previous Stakes performers included some from
(relatively) more modest backgrounds, who had not quite set the
ring alight.
The Beverley Listed place-getter Eastern Romance cost Kevin Ryan
only 30,000 gns, while the French-bred Wilki, twice placed at Group
Three level including when third in yesterday’s Prix de Cabourg,
had been knocked down to FBA for EUR 50,000. The multiple Listed
placed and Anglesey Stakes (Gr3) runner-up Tuscan Evening proved an
even bigger bargain at 4,500 gns. With many more blue-blooded
juveniles still awaiting their first racecourse action, OASIS
DREAM has plenty to look forward to.
Date:
31 July 2007