1 owner
Kia Joorabchian
2 trainer
Francis-henri graffard
3 thoroughbred horse
Saint des Saints
3 breeding
Wootton Bassett
4 jockey
Ryan Moore
OWNER
Kiarash Joorabchian at full speed in Newmarket
Owner Kiarash Joorabchian made a splash at the recent Newmarket yearling sales.
Under the purple and white banner of his AMO Racing operation, the British businessman acquired 25 foals for a total of £22.94 million, or €27.54 million.
Often accompanied by other young British fortunes and representatives of various Qatari stables, "Kia" Joorabchian set the Tattersalls yearling sales alight this October. He largely contributed to the 29% increase in turnover at this extraordinary sale, which saw the £200 million (€240 million) barrier broken for the first time in its long history.
In an interview with ITV Racing during the broadcast of the Newmarket races on October 11th, "Kia," who has been making headlines in British racing since the inception of his silks in 2003 under the Karmaa Racing banner, detailed the reasons for this buying spree...
“We knew that we had to overpay this week. We are competing against people who have been established for many, many years. And a lot of the horses we bought, like our Wootton Bassetts and stuff, they were out of foal sharing. We were facing people who were bidding at 50 cents to the dollar. And we knew that we had to go for it because the only way for us to compete is to get those high pedigree horses. And we just don't have that level at the moment (...)"
“It's great for racing, and I hope we've managed to trigger something that will allow us to compete with the big guys. I think it's great for other people in racing. They will go, wow, we can do that too and come in and expand. Because I think it's a shame just to have two or three people always at the top for the industry, for the sport, much more than for us. I hope that we have managed to lift it. For the vendors, we've spent a lot of hard time. You know, those vendors really struggled sometimes to get there. And I'm glad that we managed to boost it for the whole market.”
Kia Joorabchian's intervention is a strong signal for the racing world. His willingness to invest heavily and compete with established giants could reshuffle the deck. It will be interesting to follow the evolution of his strategy and its impact on the horse racing industry in the months and years to come.
Mini-box
Godolphin Remains in the Lead
The extraordinary raid by AMO Racing and various Qatari entities did not prevent Sheikh Mohammed from remaining king of the show at Tattersalls, through his Godolphin stable. When the last of the 351 yearlings was sold in Book 1 of the sale, which has four catalogues, the blue silks of the ruler of Dubai had filled 18 slips for a total of £22.02m, while his challenger peaked at £19.575m with 17 lots purchased. However, if we add the 7 purchases of Al Shaqab associated with AMO Racing, we get a total of £22.14m, a difference of £120,000. That's the price of an Aston Martin Vantage, the entry-level model from the winged emblem firm.
Not much, in short.
Quartile Table Illustration
The Top End Makes the Market
This interesting statistic shows the evolution of the four quartiles of the catalogue, from the most expensive to the least expensive. The average price of the more modest quartiles changes little. On the other hand, there is a great volatility in the extreme market, which varies from less than an £300,000 average to more than £450,000 over three years, i.e. almost 50%... Conversely, the last quartile has marginally decreased since 2022. Remember that each quartile includes a similar number of foals entered, i.e. consignors.
TRAINER
Francis-Henri Graffard covers all the bases
Francis-Henri Graffard's rise seems unstoppable. This season, for the first time, his stable has reached and surpassed €5 million in earnings. The major races of the season are behind us, and he sits in 2nd position in the trainers' championship behind the maestro Fabre, who appears to be his last and considerable obstacle before ascending to the throne of French Flat racing.
Now at the helm of the Aga Khan's stable, he has achieved some notable feats across the Channel this season, which would allow him, in a European ranking, to surpass his former mentor (before Alain de Royer Dupré) thanks to the €1.77 million gleaned by Goliath and Calandagan last summer in Britain. However, he would still be 2nd at the European level, €4 million behind Aidan O'Brien's €10 million.
The 47-year-old native of Le Creusot still has time on his side. He is eight years younger than the Ballydoyle giant and thirty years younger than the Chantilly Emperor.
What is also striking is Francis-Henri Graffard's ability to detail precisely on Equidia (French racing channel) the position and situation of each of his runners. He is a Master of Communication, but it is not the usual clichés that journalists mostly have to resort to when Flat racing appears on our screens. There will always be those who are reluctant to share, but in the end, we learn more from the detailed analyses of the trainer of Rouhiya, Vertical Blue, Zarigana and Zarir than from the false confidences of more popular stables.
However, Francis-Henri Graffard's situation is not a sinecure. When we studied the reasons for André Fabre's success in our last edition, there are three lessons that the young trainer could draw inspiration from: you have to know how to manage an abundance of owners, you have to listen to Alain when he tells you to watch André, and you can't travel far alone.
Lisa-Jane Graffard, in a different register from Elisabeth Fabre, is undoubtedly a great ally in the stable's success.
And then, there is this obvious desire to try new paths possibly inherited from his Darley Flying Start curriculum, to sometimes go for races that his colleagues wouldn't have thought of, to explore?
May this desire last and take us far!
HORSE
Saint des Saints: The Idea of the Century
A great National Hunt stallion has just retired from duty at the Haras d'Étreham. Saint des Saints has twice topped the French National Hunt stallion rankings, finished in the top three ten times, and several of his progeny are now stallions themselves, such as the promising Jeu St Eloi and Goliath du Berlais. Even though he was conceived to become a stallion, Saint des Saints' success has exceeded the wildest hopes of his breeder, Nicolas de Lageneste.
Saint des Saints was born in 1998 in the Allier region of France, bred by Nicolas de Lageneste. He was the result of an original idea by his breeder, who was looking to create a stallion that had proven itself over jumps. At the time, this was not common, and sometimes fortuitous. When Saint des Saints entered stud in 2003, only the extraordinary Cyborg, who had raced over jumps at top level until the age of 6, and Saint Preuil had raced and won at Auteuil among the top fifteen National Hunt sires in France. In 1997, there was only one. Today, there are six. Four are even in the top five, including... Saint des Saints.
To achieve this result, Nicolas de Lageneste started by choosing the right dam: "I found her in a dispersal sale that took place after a normal session at Deauville," he explains. "Chamisène had an ideal pedigree to produce a jumps horse, a daughter of Pharly with a dam by Tanerko, who had good performances in the Fustok colours. She had finished 4th in the French 1,000 Guineas, which she had contested as a pacemaker, and she had won the Prix de Malleret for her own account. I got her for only 9,000 francs (€1,372). It must be said that she hadn't produced a foal for four years. I immediately sent her to Cadoudal, who was then leading sire..."
Chamisène was a real race mare. As Nicolas de Lageneste pointed out, she had set the pace for a certain Mystérieuse Étoile, also in the Fustok colours, who finished second in that infamous 1983 Poule d'Essai des Pouliches won by L'Attrayante, who became the dam of another winner of the Longchamp Classic, Madeleine's Dream. The 3rd that day, Maximova, would become the dam of Macoumba, winner of the Prix Marcel Boussac, and of the stallion Septième Ciel, and is the granddam of the Classic winner and stallion The Grey Gatsby. Chamisène had finished 4th in a dead-heat with Little Meadow.
She won her next three starts within eight weeks of her placing. For her last victory, she beat Alexandrie by two lengths over the 2,000 metres of the Prix de Malleret. And what did Alexandrie produce? Poliglote! One of the best National Hunt stallions in France in the early 2000s.
However, even if Chamisène managed to produce a foal, there was no guarantee that the gamble would pay off. "The foal was born puny, and his dam wasn't giving good milk," recalls Nicolas de Lageneste. "We had to give him a lot of supplements. He didn't have very good hocks, but that was a common trait of many Cadoudal offspring. So much so that Robert Fougedoire, who had come to see him, didn't want to take him. A year later, Jacques Détré saw him in much better condition and bought him. The rest, as they say, is history..."
Entrusted to Guillaume Macaire, who had already trained Saint Preuil, Saint des Saints would become one of the very best horses of his generation, but without being able to win a Group 1. A winner over steeplechase at the end of his 3-year-old season, then over hurdles, he dominated the following first half of the year over hurdles. He won all the trials for the Prix Alain du Breil but was beaten by Great Love on the day. In the autumn, the window of opportunity had closed because a certain Karly Flight, one of the greatest hurdling mares of our time, had arrived.
It was time to face his destiny at stud. The managers were not exactly queuing up to take him, though, due to a lack of top-level performance. "His owner, Jacques Détré, convinced Haras d'Étreham to take him, and we had to negotiate well, recalls Lageneste. I must say that they did a fantastic job because the horse didn't readily cover mares and it took a lot of patience."
Now, Saint des Saints can rest in the blessed pastures of Bessin, nearby Etreham, with a sense of accomplishment. He can contemplate a destiny that, had he been born a man, would be the stuff of novels.
BREEDING
Wootton Bassett, the star that never stops shining
A top performer and winner of the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardère (Gr1) at ParisLongchamp, Wootton Basset, by Iffraaj and Balladonia, continues to shine. Whether through the racing performances of his progeny or their sale prices, he consistently makes headlines. Entering the stud in 2012 at a fee of €6,000, a few zeros need to be added to access the services of the Coolmore stallion, as he is now priced at €200,000! Here’s a numerical recap of a spectacular rise...
Purchased by John Magnier and his associates in 2021, while he was standing at the Haras d’Etraham, his fee dropped from €6,000 in 2012 to €4,000 in 2015, but his career took a whole new turn starting in 2016, thanks to a certain Almanzor. A purebred product of the Haras d’Etraham, he won the Prix du Jockey-Club before crossing the Channel successfully to win the English and Irish Champions Stakes. From then on, Wootton Basset's fee was doubled almost every year, reaching €200,000 this year.
From racing to sales, the statistics are increasingly impressive. If we mentioned Almanzor for the year 2016, this year it’s horses like Camille Pissarro that highlight Wootton Basset’s success. The trainee of master trainer Aidan O’Brien just made headlines over the Arc weekend by winning his first Gr 1, the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardère. Also trained by an O’Brien, but this time by Joseph, Apples And Bananas finished 3rd in the Critérium International at Saint-Cloud.
The years continue to follow a similar pattern for the Coolmore graduate. For the 2021 crop, we can mention Islandsinthestream, 2nd in the Critérium de Saint-Cloud (Gr1) in 2023; Grey Man, winner of the Prix François Boutin (Gr3) at Deauville the same year; and Al Riffa, born in 2020 and winner of the National Stakes (Gr1) at Curragh in 2022 before winning the Gross Preis Von Berlin (Gr1) this year. These results justify the ever-increasing sale prices.
Let’s start with the Arqana agency; at the last yearling sale, 30 lots were by Wootton Basset.
JOCKEY
Life of Ryan is now
Two jockeys stood out at the Arc weekend. First Christophe Soumillon, of course, who remains our best in France (Aidan O'Brien says so). He won the Royallieu (Gr1) at 20/1 and the Lagardère (Gr1) with Camille Pissarro at 9/1. Both for Ballydoyle. Then the Qatar Arabian World Cup (Gr1PA) with Al Ghadeer, for the rest of the world.
Ryan Moore is something else again. He has become so ubiquitous in the four corners of the racing world that you could mistake him for a prophet, the Beatles, or a smartphone brand. A very strange smartphone, whose volume would be stuck at a minimum (an interesting social innovation to improve public transport, by the way) but whose camera could detect a bad leader before you’re stuck behind it.
Ecce the Houdini of equine prisons.
His record for the Arc weekend is three wins including a Group 1 with Kyprios, the interstellar champion of stayers, and a 3rd place in the Arc with Los Angeles at 8.10.
In a long and fascinating interview with Paul Hayward for TDN Europe, the calm Briton explains that this 3rd place is a bit disappointing, because he was going there to win. He's not kidding. But he's not talking nonsense either.
These few lines, which we strongly encourage you to translate using the many translation aids, as graceful as Galorama, which abound today on the internet, testify to a lively and alert mind, and a sense of observation capable of exceeding the two ears pointed in front of him.
Ryan Moore is the opposite of an LFI MP: he speaks little but he speaks well.
And he’s more than often right.
Thirteen days after the Arc, this putative successor to Lester Piggott, a monster from a time when racing was still a main street feature, won a new Group 1 with Kyprios, at Ascot, in the Long Distance Cup (Gr1). Again, this stainless bronze equine, this Kyprios so prodigal, returned from hell in full light and better than ever. A Greek god.
"It's always the horses," explains his jockey in his interview, without false modesty, without flattery, because simply, this is the reflection of his reality: in Tokyo, Melbourne and San Diego, wherever he goes, it is on horseback that he makes his way. Also because he did not become such an icon by nursing his image or dreams of better tomorrows, but only thinking about what he is doing, and which he summarizes as follows: “to get from here to there as fast as possible.”