RATHASKER Stud’s purchase of Sultanina (New Approach) at the dispersal of Philippa Cooper’s Normandie Stud in 2022 was inspired. At the weekend, the colt she was carrying, Pierre Bonnard (Camelot), gained his third win in four starts when taking the Group 1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud.
New Approach (Galileo) was already making his name as a broodmare sire at the time, with such as Modern Games (Dubawi) and Earthlight (Shamardal) in Europe, and Mustang Valley (Vanbrugh) in New Zealand winning Group 1 races.
That list has been embellished with the likes of new Darley sire for 2026 Rosallion (Blue Point), Live In The Dream (Prince Of Lir), Lugal (Duramente), Scorthy Champ (Mehmas) and Shadow Of Light (Lope De Vega) adding their names. Now the latest to inscribe his name on this roll of honour is Pierre Bonnard (Camelot).
Maurice Burns spent 78,000gns to purchase Sultanina. Trained by John Gosden, she raced just six times, all at the age of four, and presumably she was showing enough to encourage connections to persevere with her. In fact, Philippa Cooper was reported as having told Gosden that she was the best filly she had ever bred, and Sultanina then won the Group 1 Nassau Stakes at Goodwood. In all, she won half of her starts and placed once.
Well mated
A talented racemare, Sultanina was naturally well mated at stud, but disappointingly her first two offspring never made it to the track, her daughter Manzanilla (Muhaarar) also being sold in the 2022 dispersal, and making 2,000gns more than her dam! Diavolo (Dubawi) was her first runner and he won once from six starts. Her slow start as a broodmare was not helped when Sultanina’s next foal, a colt by Sea The Stars (Cape Cross), was never named.
Normandie retained Sultanina’s fifth produce, Taramasalata (Too Darn Hot), who placed once in four starts last year. She was sent to France in the spring to be mated with Ace Impact (Cracksman), and is due to be sold, in foal, at the upcoming Tattersalls December Sale.
While the early part of Sultanina’s stud career was disappointing, due more to lack of opportunity than anything else, it has now taken a marked upswing for the better.
Sultanina’s three-year-old daughter Crepe Suzette (Saxon Warrior) is with John and Thady Gosden. She won at Wolverhampton back in April, repaying the decision to retain her as a foal when she was unsold at 72,000gns, and she has proven to be consistent since. She was runner-up on her next three starts, including beaten a head in the Listed Galtres Stakes at York, and most recently was third to Santorini Star and Consent in the Group 2 Park Hill Stakes.
Given that the two fillies who beat her that day in Doncaster have come out since and finished first and second in the Group 1 Prix de Royallieu at ParisLongchamp, Crepe Suzette must surely be deserving of a group race win.
New level
Now, Pierre Bonnard has taken the family to a new level. Beaten on his debut at Leopardstown, some eight lengths behind the winner in fourth, he has done no wrong since, and on his penultimate start was an easy winner of the 10-furlong Group 3 Zetland Stakes at Newmarket. His form surely puts him in line for a tilt at the Derby in 2026.
This year, Rathasker sold a half-sister to Pierre Bonnard, by their own sire Coulsty (Kodiac), at Goffs to Amo Racing for €200,000, and in the spring Sultanina was covered by Bungle Inthejungle (Exceed And Excel).
Sue Magnier has reaped huge rewards from naming colts in recent years after renowned artists, and Pierre Bonnard is the latest. The colt is winner number 13 at Group or Grade 1 level for Camelot (Montjeu), who failed narrowly to win the Triple Crown in 2012. A champion at two and three, he has had a very bust season at Coolmore, covering 184 mares (nearly 50 more than last year), at a fee of €75,000, a career high he first stood at in 2022.
Foodbroker Fancy
Philippa and Nicholas Cooper bought into the family of Pierre Bonnard, an €80,000 Goffs foal to Camas Park and €280,000 Goffs yearling to M.V. Magnier, when they acquired the David Elsworth-trained Foodbroker Fancy (Halling) at the end of her racing career.
Two of her three wins were in listed races, at Goodwood and Newbury, and she ended her racing career by finishing second in the Group 2 Sun Chariot Stakes, three years before it was upgraded to Group 1. All four of her winners earned blacktype, three of them winners at that level.
Her daughter Soft Centre (Zafonic) dead-heated in the Listed Lupe Stakes, one of two wins she enjoyed from five starts. Pierre Bonnard’s dam Sultanina is the only one of Soft Centre’s winners to win a stakes race, in her case a Group 1. There is a third high-class runner in the immediate family. Sultanina’s half-sister Tutti Frutti (Teofilo) is the dam of Anisette (Awtaad), and that three-time US Grade 1 winner – Del Mar Oaks, American Oaks and Gamely Stakes – sold last year for $1.8 million.
FIRST crop foals by the unbeaten Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Ace Impact (Cracksman) will be on the market in the coming months, with three due to sell at Goffs and seven catalogued for Tattersalls. Needless to say, there will be a selection too at the Arqana December Sale.
Bred by Waltraut Spanner and her husband Karl, Ace Impact had also won the Group 1 Prix du Jockey Club-French Derby, and he was hugely popular in his first season at stud, covering more than 180 mares, while this year’s book was in excess of 150. Presumably the word about his first foals was encouraging, prompting continued support.
Ace Impact’s year-younger half-brother Arrow Eagle (Gleneagles), now a four-year-old, did something his sibling did, and that was to run in the French Derby and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. He raced in the classic after a second-place finish behind Sosie, and was not disgraced, though out of the money, when a little more than six lengths behind the winner, Look De Vega.
At four, Arrow Eagle has improved and he rounded out his season with success in the final Group 1 of the year in France, the Prix Royal-Oak.
Tackling the 15 and a half-furlong trip for the first time, he gained a confident victory. two lengths ahead of the Irish runner Queenstown, with Sevenna’s Knight just a short head behind in third. Arrow Eagle had previously finished a creditable sixth in the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.
This win, a seventh for Arrow Eagle, follows spring and early summer victories in the Group 3 Prix d’Hédouville and the Group 2 Grand Prix de Chantilly, both times at the expense of the subsequent Group 1 winner Sibayan. This was a second Group 1 win this year for the Jean-Claude Rouget stable. The trainer’s assistant Jean-René Dubosc said: “Last time [in the Arc] he pushed himself a bit too hard. Today, the step up in distance suited him well. He will now head off for a break until April.”
Six winners
Ace Impact and Arrow Eagle are among six winners for the €16,500 yearling purchase Absolutly Me (Anabaa Blue). She went on to win twice in France and placed in listed races in Germany and France. If the owners incorrectly spelt her name, they have made no mistake with her as a broodmare.
Her six winners are her first six foals, and she has an unraced two-year-old colt Armano (Waldgeist) with Rouget, a yearling colt Akeno (Almanzor), and a colt foal by Frankel. She visited Frankel again this year.
Absolutly Me has had nine foals, all but one of them colts. Rather unfortunately, Mr and Mrs Spanner sold the only filly, Adlon Rose (Nathaniel), in spite of her being a winner that year at the little-known Machecoul, and she was sold again at auction that December at Arqana for €10,000. Adlon Rose was reoffered at the same venue in 2023, with a son of Cracksman (Frankel) in utero, and retained at €300,000.
Gleneagles (Galileo) is having a fine year, thanks largely to the exploits of Calandagan, and now Arrow Eagle has become his sixth Group 1 winner. This year his daughter One Look was Group 1-placed after winning a couple of Group 3s, Galen was denied a Royal Ascot win by Haatem and is also a Group 3 winner, and Green Triangle won the valuable Gowran Classic. His 33 yearlings sold this year have done so at an average of three times his 2023 fee.