In-depth Analysis

By Andrew Caulfield

SIRE LINE

Surely not even Prince Khalid Abdulla can have imaged the impact that His Majesty’s daughter Razyana would have on his breeding operation. Bought for $350,000 as a yearling in 1982, Razyana unfortunately failed to fulfil the considerable promise of her second of 26 at Newmarket on her only juvenile appearance, but her place among the Juddmonte broodmare team was safe, as she was a grand-daughter of one of the most famous mares of modern times - Northern Dancer’s dam Natalma.

Bred to Danzig in her first season in 1985, Razyana got off to a spectacular start by producing Danehill, who was to come close to matching Northern Dancer’s extraordinary achievements as a stallion. Danehill revolutionised the Australian thoroughbred industry, becoming champion sire eight times in the ten years between 1995/6 and 2004/5, to be succeeded by his sons Redoute’s Choice and Flying Spur. And Danehill rose to similar heights in the northern hemisphere, despite having been priced as low as IR9,000gns in his third and fourth seasons. Among his achievements were six titles as champion sire of two-year-olds (in 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2005) and, after being runner-up no fewer than five times to Sadler’s Wells on the general sires’ list, he finally dethroned the perennial champion sire to achieve a hat-trick of championships in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Danehill was also champion sire in France in 2001.

As in Australia, where Danehill has been replaced as champion sire by his sons Redoute’s Choice and Flying Spur, it looks as though Danehill is going to be succeeded by his sons. It was his son Danehill Dancer who replaced him as champion sire of two-year-olds in Britain and Ireland in 2006 and it was Dansili who became champion sire in France in 2006, when he also became Britain’s champion sire of all-weather horses.

The important thing to remember about Dansili’s emergence as a potential successor to his exceptional sire is that – like Danehill – he has made his name with horses sired at comparatively modest fees during his first four years at Banstead Manor. He stood his first season at £8,000, his second at £10,000 and his third and fourth at £12,500. Even so, he has four G1 winners – Rail Link, Zambezi Sun, Price Tag and Passage of Time – in his first three crops, which contain 287 foals. Is it just coincidence that Danehill sired four G1 winners from a total of around 288 foals in his first four crops?

Dansili has only around 60 two-year-olds this year, from that often difficult fourth year, but this crop has already produced a high percentage of juvenile winners, including the highly-regarded Group winners Proviso (second in the G1 Fillies’ Mile) and Sense of Joy.

Thanks to the considerable success enjoyed by Dansili’s progeny on the racecourse and in the sales ring, his fee – like Danehill’s before him – has risen considerably. Fortunately for breeders, they have the option of using Dansili’s best son Rail Link, who represents the third generation of this remarkable male line to be bred by Juddmonte.

Rail Link’s arrival follows the death of another of Juddmonte’s Arc winners, Rainbow Quest, who established himself as Britain’s most prolific sire of Group winners. With his tremendous combination of impressive conformation, championship performance and a pedigree full of outstanding stallions, Rail Link is ideally qualified to step into Rainbow Quest’s shoes.

FEMALE LINE

When Nelson Bunker Hunt’s huge racing empire was dispersed in the depressed days of 1988, one of the mares on offer at Keeneland was the truly exceptional Dahlia. Although she had just turned 18 and was barren, this brilliant daughter of Vaguely Noble and Charming Alibi drew a bid of $1,100,000 from Allen Paulson, her price reflecting her outstanding achievements both on the track and as a producer.

Tough enough to race 48 times from two to six, Dahlia had been talented enough to win ten G1 races during a dazzling international career. In Ireland she won the Oaks; in England she scored consecutive victories in both the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the Benson & Hedges Gold Cup; in France she took the Prix Saint-Alary and Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud; and in North America she was triumphant in the Washington D.C International, Man o’War Stakes and the Hollywood Invitational Handicap.

Anyone who expected Dahlia’s five years of hard labour on the racecourse to compromise her broodmare career was in for a shock. Although not covered until she was seven, Dahlia produced 13 live foals, the last at the age of 26. She became one of the most successful broodmares of the modern era, achieving a magnificent total of six Group/Graded winners, including Bunker Hunt’s GI scorers Dahar, Rivlia and Delegant. Dahlia’s 1988 yearling filly by Northern Dancer, which drew a bid of $1,300,000 from Sheikh Mohammed, became a G2 winner under the name of Wajd and Wajd later produced G1 St Leger hero Nedawi, now a successful sire in Brazil. Allen Paulson also did well out of his purchase of the elderly Dahlia, as her first two foals for her new owner were the GI-winning Dahlia’s Dreamer and the GII winner Llandaff.

This family continues to come up with the goods, thanks largely to Dahlia’s close relative Golden Alibi (by Vaguely Noble’s Derby-winning son Empery out of the stakes-winning Charming Alibi, a veteran of 71 races). Golden Alibi is the third dam of two fairly recent G1 winners in France. The first, Linda’s Lad, took the 2005 Criterium de Saint-Cloud and the second, Rail Link, was victorious in the Grand Prix de Paris and the Arc in the process of proving himself Europe’s champion middle-distance performer of 2006. Another good winner from this family was Diamond White, the 1999 Prix de l’Opera winner who showed she had inherited all of Charming Alibi’s toughness by racing more than 60 times.

Golden Alibi’s recent successes justify her yearling price of $1,100,000 as a yearling in 1979.  Although Golden Alibi proved to be an irregular producer, she did leave a sizeable legacy in the shape of her Riverman filly Dockage. A very useful Listed winner over 9 furlongs in France, Dockage was very closely related to Dahlia’s Riverman colt Rivlia, a GI winner on turf from 1¼ miles to 1¾ miles in California.

Dockage started her broodmare career in fine style, her first three foals being Rail Link’s dam Docklands, the G3 July S. winner Wharf and Linda’s Lad’s dam Colza.

Docklands shared the same sire, Theatrical, as Dahlia’s GI-winning daughter Dahlia’s Dreamer. A winner three times over a mile and twice over a mile and a quarter, Docklands has proved very effective as a broodmare, the daughter of Theatrical now being the dam of six winners from her first eight foals, and three of the eight were good enough to contest G1 events.

Docklands was a natural choice to send to Dansili in his second season in 2002, as she had already done very well with another grandson of Danzig. A visit to Grand Lodge had resulted in her smart son Chelsea Manor, winner of the G3 La Coupe de Maisons-Laffitte over 1¼ miles at three and third twice at G1 level at four.

Docklands successfully visited Dansili again in 2007.

RACING CAREER

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.

Rail Link reeled off four successive Group victories and a striking aspect of his success is the number of past and future G1 winners he accounted for. In the G3 Prix du Lys he easily defeated the subsequent G1 winners Sudan and Prince Flori; in the Gr.1 Grand Prix de Paris, he won by two lengths, chased home by the future G1 winners Red Rocks, Sudan and Grand Couturier; and in the G2 Prix Niel he defeated the subsequent Gr.1 winners Youmzain (who was to fail so narrowly to defeat Dylan Thomas in the 2007 Arc) 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 G1 successes in the Champion Stakes, Hong Kong Cup, Japan Cup and Arima Kinen.

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.”