ENGLISH TEXTS
With the arrival of these new trainer means there is now more and more British and Irish owners looking to signed up to France galop with their silks and either bring horses over or buy French and make use of the owner premiums. The most intriguing and possibly most surprising set of silks to be donning the national hunt sphere in France at Auteuil and Compiegne is that of Coolmore or more specifically Susan Magnier, wife of John Magnier. John Magnier the son in law to Vincent O’ Brien is the original member of the coolmore trio which is made up of Michael tabor and derrick smith. The Magniers have been breeding racehorses sin e 1850 and have stood legends such as Sadlers wells, Galileo, Montjeu and on the national hunt side Cottage. Bred by Baron Edouard de Rothschild, Cottage became a National Hunt stalwart after a decent racing career in the UK and ended up as leading sire not long after his death in 1941. He bred three grand national winners and cottage rake who won the Cheltenham Gold cup three times. He was also the first sire to have sons of his win the gold cup and grand national in the same year, a feat which had not been matched until this year. The horse to replicate that achievement is current Coolmore stalwart and leading national hunt sire Walk in the Park. Walk in the Park is Cool- more’ s leading national hunt sire and having been a solid racehorse for John Hammond in France, his biggest result was finishing 2 nd in the Epsom derby. the son of Montjeu however didn’ t go to stud straight away and even tried his luck on his final start over hurdles at Auteuil. Since then though we have seen the rise of a legend and is now the sire of 85 flat and national hunt stake performers, 32 group winners and 15 other stake performers. His latest two stars are the two that allowed him to emulate the great Cottage by having a Cheltenham Gold cup winner with Inothewayurthinkin whose also his highest rated son and Grand national winner Nick Rocket. Walk in the Park isn’ t however getting any younger and now at the age of 23 with most likely only a few years left, John Magnier has decided to follow the French trend of producing stallions by sourcing well-bred sons of Walk in the Park and sending them to France to race. Over the last couple of years sons of great stallions have been very sought after once then go to stud especially if they have had a Steller racing career. Martaline, saint des saint and Kapgarde and Doctor Dino have ruled the roost when it comes to the stallion sphere in national hunt and now their sons are beginning to follow in their footsteps. Martaline has Moises has, Beaumec de Houelle and Nirvana du berlais. Saint des saint has Jeu st eloi who’ s now in Ireland, Goliath du berlais, Magic dream and Na has. Kapgarde has Paradiso and Doctor Dino has Master D’ oc. I’ m sure now it’ s obvious to see why it’ s a trend Mr Magnier has decided to try and follow with a son of his own stallion and who better than a son of walk in the park to give it a go with. The one thing these sons of the great stallions have in common is there were all graded winners at Auteuil; and Coolmore are under no illusion that the end product that they bring back to Ireland will have to have performed and succeeded at the highest level to earn a place alongside his father at Grange Stud. The Man aiding Mr Magnier in this venture and helping source the colts from a young age is Gerry Ahearn and I spoke to him about the project.“ Mr Magnier is a huge Walk in the park fan and has been for a long time and has been telling us we’ ve been underestimating him for a long time because we didn’ t realise, I suppose how good he was. So we started worrying a little about where would we get the next one from and it all stemmed from watching France and where their stallions come from and how they are made and we just asked ourselves why can’ t we do that we a walk in the park. So we started looking at well-bred sons by him and the first year we bought seven or eight with the view of hopefully one of them
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