MARIE and Joe Donnelly had a memorable hour at Kempton the day after Christmas when they witnessed a Grade 1 double in their colours, thanks to the Willie Mullins-trained Kitzbuhel (Cokoriko) in the Kauto Star Novices’ Chase, and Nicky Henderson’s Sir Gino in the Christmas Hurdle. This took to seven the number of Grade 1 races won by the couple in the calendar year.
Winner and placed second from three starts over hurdles as a three and four-year-old in France, the six-year-old Kitzbuhel was bred by Michele Juhen Cypres, and raced for her in partnership. He won his first two starts from Closutton, on the second occasions taking the Grade 3 Red Mills Trial Hurdle at Gowran Park comfortably. He then ran fifth at Aintree and third at Sandown in a Grade 2 hurdle, less than a length behind the winner.
This season Kitzbuhel has started twice in the space of a month or so, winning at Punchestown in late November before his career best run at Kempton. The Dublin Racing Festival and the Brown Advisory at Cheltenham are his likely immediate targets, while he could try to match The Jukebox Man and go back to Kempton in December and challenge for the King George.
Kitzbuhel is the latest star for the leading French sire Cokoriko (Robin Des Chaps). He will stand this year at Haras de Cercy for €15,000, and has compiled a formidable record as a sire, with 36 blacktype winners, six of them at the highest level. Half of them gained their Grade 1 success in France, while Julius Des Pictons won the Sefton Novices’ Hurdle at Aintree, and Coko Beach landed the Thyestes Chase at Gowran Park.
One man who will be very happy with Kitzbuhel graduating at Grade 1 level is surely Louis Kennedy of Mountain View Stud in Tipperary. Last month he paid €50,000 for the gelding’s half-sister Je Garde (Kapgarde) at Goffs. She made just two starts, placed once, and in addition to Kitzbuhel, she is a full-sister to the Grade 1-paced hurdler Hors Piste (Kapgarde), and half-sister to the Grade 2-placed hurdler Itours Brun (Free Port Lux).
Solid family
This is a solid female line, regularly throwing up blacktype-placed winners, some in Ireland. Back in the family, the fourth dam Eureka III (Vieux Chateau), had nine foals and eight winners. Two notable runners in Ireland from this taproot are Hispanic Moon (Spanish Moon) and Jordans (Coastal Path). Both are Grade 3 winners and both placed at Grade 1 level.
Sir Gino has been well reviewed previously, and the notable thing about his pedigree is the fact that, in four generations, he is only the second runner to earn any blacktype.
The other is his grandam L’Eclipse Francaise (Jeune Homme). Sir Gino raced in France for his breeders and trainers, Carlos and Yann Lerner, winning on his debut at Auteuil in a listed hurdle at three. Two seasons ago he extended his unbeaten run to four with a win in the Grade 1 Boodles Anniversary Juvenile Hurdle at Aintree.
He reappeared last year with a breathtaking win in the Grade 1 Fighting Fifth Hurdle, won what is his only start in a chase, a Grade 2 at Kempton, and 364 days later Sir Gino is still unbeaten after his Grade 1 Christmas Hurdle triumph, his seventh on the bounce. He is one of just three offspring of his dam, a winner twice in France (once at two), and her other winner is a full-brother to Sir Gino.
Dead-heated
It’s Gino’s dead-heated for third in the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe with Soldier Of Fortune, behind the brilliant Zarkava and Youmzain. A Group 2 winner in Germany and a listed winner in France, It’s Gino (Perugino) placed in a couple of Group 1 races in his native country. He sired some stakes winners on the flat in Germany, but his better runners have been over hurdles and fences. Lalor, a Grade 1 hurdle winner who was successful at up to Grade 2 level in a bumper and over fences, emerged from It’s Gino’s second crop, while Sir Gino took his record as a stallion to a new high. More recently, Impose Toi became his third top-level winner in Ascot’s Long Walk Hurdle.
It’s Gino will stand for 2026 for just €3,800.
ONE of the highlights of the Christmas racing period is the Grade 3 Welsh Grand National, and victory went to the 2025 Grade 3 Irish Grand National hero Haiti Couleurs (Dragon Dancer). What a calendar year it has been for the Rebecca Curtis-trained nine-year-old, who must now be a leading fancy for the Randox Grand National at Aintree in April.
This latest success is the fourth in six starts in 2025 for the gelding, bred by Roger-Yves, Valerie and Nicolas Simon, and Haiti Couleurs was the final winner on the opening day of last year’s Cheltenham Festival in the Princess Royal National Hunt Chase.
Bought through George Mullins for €7,000 at Arqana at two, Haiti Couleurs was reoffered at the Tattersalls Ireland May Sale the following year, the sale held in August due to the pandemic, but he was unsold at €2,800.
Haiti Couleurs found plenty of fans when consigned by Harley Dunne at Tattersalls Cheltenham in January 2022 after running second in a point-to-point, costing Rebecca Curtis £68,000. He is now an eight-time winner in 14 starts, the star of his family, and one of a pair of blacktype winners in four generations. He is the last of eight foals from Inchala (Argument), just two of whom won. One of her two daughters, the unplaced Partie Time (Nononito), bred five winners.
Haiti Couleurs’ fourth dam Danse Royale (Baraban) had a dozen foals, all but one of whom raced, but just three won. Best of these was Lady Royale (Laniste), the third dam of the Welsh and Irish Grand National winner. Six of Lady Royale’s seven wins in France were over jumps, and she got blacktype when second on her debut in the Listed Prix Wild Monarch Hurdle at Auteuil in 1980. She was owned and trained by a young André Fabre!
Talented runner
At stud, all six of Lady Royale’s offspring ran, four of them won and the others were placed. She had a talented runner in Hidalgo Royal (Video Rock). He won his only start on the flat for the wife of former Aga Khan Stud’s manager Ghislain Drion, and went on to enjoy five victories over jumps, his biggest success coming in the Listed Prix Lutteur III Chase at Auteuil.
Haiti Couleurs is the best winner sired by Dragon Dancer (Sadler’s Wells), and that 22-year-old stood this year at Chris and Rachel Dawson’s Nunstainton Stud in Durham for a fee of £2,000. He moved from France in 2018, a year after Haiti Couleurs was foaled, and has just one other blacktype horse.
A listed winner at four in a 15-race career, his only victory, Dragon Dancer was a short-head second to Sir Percy, with Dylan Thomas third, in a blanket finish to the 2006 Group 1 Derby at Epsom, after which he travelled to the Curragh and was fourth in the Irish equivalent. Following Haiti Couleurs’ win at Fairyhouse in April, Dragon Dancer covered 17 mares in 2025, up from just nine a year earlier.