LOOKING set to be one of the highlights of tonight’s Arqana Arc Sale was Lot 21, a four-year-old gelding by Blame (Arch). This was an opportunity for someone to purchase a horse at the height of his powers, with an invitation to the Group 1 Japan Cup, and who gave his sale prospects an added boost when he won the Group 1 Preis von Europa at Cologne on Sunday. However, connections have now chosen to retain him.
Sibayan continues a great season of success for trainer Francis Graffard, and for the gelding’s owner-breeder, the Aga Khan Studs. They were recording their fifth Group 1 of the year; a feat not achieved since 2015.
It is yet another major race triumph for a gelding, a trend we appear to be seeing more and more across the globe. This was an eighth career win for Sibayan, his first at the highest level, and the win was no drawback to the sale prospects of a close relation at Goffs on Tuesday.
The second offspring of his Sea The Stars (Cape Cross) dam Sirrin, Sibayan was preceded by Sirana (Siyouni), twice a winner at two in France from only four runs. Runner-up on her debut, she didn’t race again after running in a listed race at the end of her juvenile season. Instead, she was sold at three in Arqana, realising €60,000, and sold to Brian Grassick Bloodstock. She found her way to Ireland.
Her first visit to the breeding shed saw Sirana covered by Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj), resulting in a filly who went under the hammer this week in Goffs Orby Book 1 from Ronan and Marcella Burns’ Herbertstown House Stud. She sold for €280,000 and was purchased by Al Wasmiyah Stud. Meanwhile, there is a colt foal by Lope De Vega (Shamardal) on the ground, These were bred by Mabaki Investments.
Consistency
Sibayan is a model of consistency. He has run 13 times, won twice at two, twice at three, and really blossomed this year with four victories. He captured a pair of Group 2s ahead of his maiden top-flight victory, landing the Prix Maurice de Nieuil and the Grand Prix de Deauville.
Sirrin has a three-year-old unraced colt Sirsar (Le Havre), a yearling filly by Too Darn Hot (Dubawi), and is in foal to Erevann (Dubawi). She was trained, like her daughter Sirana, by Jean-Claude Rouget, and made just seven starts, all at three. She won on four occasions, rounding off her career with listed wins at Toulouse and Maisons-Laffitte.
Tenth Group 1
Sibayan chalked up a 10th Group 1 win for a son or daughter out of a mare by Sea The Stars, and given his race record, stud record and now broodmare record, the Gilltown resident can lay claims to be close to perfection in an equine.
The 2009 Arc winner is damsire also of Group 1 winners Onesto (Frankel), Rathbarry’s new sire for next year Unquestionable (Wootton Bassett), Big Rock (Rock Of Gibraltar), classic winner Eldar Eldarov (Dubawi), Marakova (Acclamation), Vertical Blue (Mehmas) and Al Husn (Dubawi).
As you might expect, this is a family that has a long association with the Aga Khan. For the purpose of this piece, I will focus on the family’s first four generations. Sirrin is the best of five winning offspring from Sindirana (Kalanisi), and she won the Lingfield Oaks Trial back in 2006 when the late Aga Khan had some horses in training in England. Sindirana was trained by Sir Michael Stoute, and her best win came in the final year that the Aga Khan had horses with the Newmarket handler.
Sindirana is the grandam of the Group 1-placed sprinter Sonaiyla (Dark Angel) who won at up to Group 3 level. A full-sister to Sindirana, the two-year-old winner Sindiyma (Kalanisi) bred a pair of stakes winners who placed at the highest level, Marie’s Diamond (Footstepsinthesand) running third in the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot, and Skiandarabad (Dr Fong) placing in the Metropolitan in Australia.
Sinndar’s dam
This brings us to Sibayan’s fourth dam Sinntara (Lashkari). A Curragh listed winner in 1992, she was a prolific winner-producer, nine of her 11 runners visiting the winners’ enclosure.
Outstanding among her winners was Sinndar (Grand Lodge), the best three-year-old in Europe a quarter of a century ago. A Group 1-winning juvenile when victorious in the National Stakes, he won the Group 1 Derby at Epsom, the Irish equivalent, and crowned his brilliant season with a valedictory win in the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.
Sibayan’s sire Blame was at his best at four, his triumphs that year including three at Grade 1 level, the Whitney Handicap, Stephen Foster Handicap and the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
Standing at Claiborne, the 19-year-old has sired seven Group/Grade 1 winners, and in Europe he got Senga, winner of the Prix de Diane-French Oaks. An Eclipse Award winner at four, Blame has enjoyed steady success at stud, though he never commanded a stud fee of more than $35,000. He has completed his 15th season at Claiborne.
KINGMAN’S two-year-old daughter Royal Chapel’s win in the mile Listed Grand Criterium de Bordeaux credited her Juddmonte sire with his 100th northern hemisphere-bred stakes winner. He is the second-fastest stallion to record this feat, and is only second to Frankel in this achievement.
Owned and bred by Manzanita Stables, Royal Chapel was a promising fifth on her debut over seven furlongs at Chantilly, but made no mistake next time out when stepped up to a mile at Clairefontaine. Now successful over that trip again, she is likely to be seen next in the Group 3 Prix des Reservoirs at Deauville next month.
Royal Chapel is the second winner and foal out of Gingham (Quality Road), who was purchased for $1 million at the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale at three. The $420,000 yearling was signed for by Claiborne Farm after winning a listed race at Santa Anita and placing in graded stakes company on the west coast of America.
She was sent to Frankel (Galileo), and her first foal is this year’s three-year-old winner Gidleigh (Frankel), and last year Gingham had a colt by the same sire.
Gingham is a full-sister to the Listed El Camino Real Derby winner Blackadder (Quality Road), and he was bought for $250,000 by Manzanita Stables after he had won his stakes race. This was quite a reduction in value from his $620,000 yearling sale price. However, Blackadder never made it to the racetrack again. Gingham, Blackadder and three-year-old winner Graphene Cassock (Hard Spun) are the first three foals out of Chapel (Pulpit) who never troubled the judge in four starts.
Perfect record
Chapel spoiled what would have been a perfect record for Owsley (Harlan), being the only one of that mare’s nine foals not to win.
Owsley gained half of her eight career successes in graded stakes, and she twice won at Grade 2 level, at Belmont Park and Keeneland.
Her best winner was Chapel’s full-sister Senada (Pulpit), a stakes winner at Keeneland. Their half-brother Arthur’s Tale (Bernardini) didn’t win a stakes race, but was second in the Grade 1 Wood Memorial.
Another of Chapel’s full-sisters is three-time winner Remember Then, and she is making a mark as a broodmare. She is already dam of two stakes winners, and her three-year-old son Will Then (Ear Of Will) won the Grade 2 Jimmy Durante Stakes at Del Mar last year.
Kingman (Invincible Spirit) has a total of 102 stakes winners, and incredibly the two southern hemisphere-breds among them have both won at Group 1 level, Zardozi in the Victoria Oaks and King Colorado in the J.J. Atkins. Kingman’s Group and Grade 1 tally of winners stands currently at 14.