JIM Browne’s Kilnamoragh Stud has been having a good run of form with horses, and he was in the winners’ enclosure at Leopardstown on Sunday after the first race.
The Johnny Feane-trained three-year-old gelding Playin Cool (Belardo), a Browne homebred, was making his third start since the beginning of September, and he has shown improvement with each outing. He got his head in front on this occasion, winning the nine-furlong maiden on heavy ground by a neck, with the favourite Maestro Bernstein (by Wootton Bassett out of Found) back in third. At the time of writing, Playin Cool is still scheduled to be sold as Lot 55 in Monday’s Autumn Horses In Training Sale at Newmarket.
Playin Cool is the second winner, after Poster Paint (Postponed), for the Medaglia D’Oro (El Prado) mare Colour Play. She cost Browne €32,000 when sold by Godolphin in 2020, and this year she has been covered by Saxon Warrior (Deep Impact).
Belardo (Lope De Vega) moved to Bearstone Stud from Kildangan Stud for the 2023 season, and his last Irish-conceived crop are now two-year-olds. Playin Cool was his first winner of the day on the card at Leopardstown, and was followed by success in the Listed Trigo Stakes for his progressive daughter Shaool. She was running for the 12th time, the first in stakes company, and despite going up 12 pounds for a recent win at the Curragh, she won this readily. Hopefully Shaool will stay in training next year and be aimed at group company.
Special Wan
Jim Browne enjoyed a big race win earlier this year as a breeder, thanks to a daughter of Belardo. Special Wan has now won a pair of Grade 3 races in the USA this year and finished third in the Grade 1 Just A Game Stakes. She will be popular as a racing prospect, with a Grade 1 win a possibility yet, and she is also well-bred.
In fact, Playin Cool’s grandam, the European champion juvenile filly Blue Duster (Danzig), is a half-sister to the French stakes winner Slow Jazz (Chief’s Crown), grandam of Special Wan.
Shaool is the 17th blacktype winner by Belardo, himself a European champion at two who came back at four to add the Group 1 Lockinge Stakes to his win in the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes. He has two Group 1 winners, often overlooked as they gained their biggest wins away from Europe. Gold Phoenix won the Grade 1 Frank E Kilroe Mile Stakes at Santa Anita, while this year Red Lion (formerly Fiach McHugh) went one better and landed the Group 1 Champions Mile at Sha Tin, having finished second last year.
PERHAPS the answer to the question about whether Kalpana (Study Of Man) stays in training at the age of five will be answered by the time you read this, but I sincerely hope that connections stay true to their sporting nature and continue with her. She is a dual Group 1 winner, and is perhaps unlucky not to have more. She could be up to winning a few more next year.
Barry Mahon spoke about his hopes that she will race again. Speaking on Sky Sports Racing, he said: “The owners have talked to Andrew [Balding] and they’ve gone away now to have a think about it. It’s very much up in the air and we’ll have to sit and wait and see what they come up with.” Prior to her win on Saturday, she filled the runner-up spot in the Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh, the Group 1 King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot and the Group 3 September Stakes at Kempton, before a frustrating effort when seventh to Daryz in the Arc.
Mahon added: “Kalpana has been a star all year. Obviously, she hadn’t got her head in front but to do it on Saturday was special; to win a second British Champions Fillies & Mares, and it was relatively straightforward to be fair. She just seems to love it around Ascot. Her three career-best efforts - the Champions Filly & Mare last year and this year, and the King George, were there. She’s a special filly and it was an exciting day.
Special filly
“She’s run into some great horses, Aidan O’Brien’s filly who beat her in the Pretty Polly [Whirl] is a very talented filly, and Calandagan has franked the King George form. Even Marco Botti’s horse [Giavelletto] in Kempton, he’s a very good horse and is a Group 1 winner in Hong Kong. She’s run into some tough opposition and to come back 13 days after running the Arc is not an easy thing to do. To put up the performance she did shows she’s a special filly.”
Kalpana is also special in terms of her breeding. The flagbearer for Lanwades’ Stud’s Study Of Man, she is one of eight stakes winners he has sired with his first crop. Kalpana is the outstanding performer, and only blacktype earner, among the five winners bred by the stakes winner Zero Gravity (Dansili).
Sold by Juddmonte in the year of Kalpana’s birth for 35,000gns, Zero Gravity was a wildcard entry for the December Sale last year, from Whatton Manor Stud, and retained at 575,000gns.
In foal to Chaldean (Frankel), Zero Gravity foaled a filly on April 13th, bred in partnership by Newsells Park Stud and Merry Fox Stud, and they will be hoping that Kalpana is joined on the winners’ podium in due course by Zero Gravity’s two-year-old filly Seet (Too Darn Hot), a 475,000gns yearling purchase by Shadwell last year.
Patience pays dividends for Fleur De Chine
MENTION of Kalpana elsewhere reminds me that there was another four-year-old daughter of Study Of Man (Deep Impact) who had an important win recently. Kirsten Rausing’s homebred Fleur De Chine won the valuable Irish Stallion Farms EBF Gowran Classic in June of last year, and looked as though she would progress through the ranks.
She made the frame in a couple of listed races after that, trained by Jessica Harrington, and the choice to keep her in training to win a blacktype race looked well justified. That decision was quite possibly questioned following the first four starts for Fleur De Chine this season, as she failed to make the frame, but it all came good at Naas when she won the Listed Irish Stallion Farms EBF Bluebell Stakes. Mission accomplished.
In addition to providing Study Of Man with his tenth stakes winner, and his seventh of this year, Fleur De Chine gave an important update to a family that means a great deal to Miss Rausing. The filly is one of three winners for the juvenile winner Chinoiseries (Archipenko), and one of the others was the Group 3-placed Empress Wu (Sea The Moon). Chinoiseries was born two years after her full-sister Madame Chaing (Archipenko), and 11 years ago that mare took the honours in the Group 1 British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes.
Listed Oaks Trial Stakes
Forty years ago, the Listed Oaks Trial Stakes was won by 12/1 shot Kilinski (Niniski), owned by Sheikh Mohammed, trained by John Dunlop and ridden by Brian Rouse. This was her only win, but she was runner-up in the Group 1 Yorkshire Oaks and fourth in classic at Epsom. Interestingly, this female family has thrown up a number of good winners by Archipenko (Kingmambo) who stood for eight seasons at Lanwades, dying at the age of just 13.
Kiliniski is the third dam of Huetor (Archipenko), winner twice of the Group 1 Doomben Cup in Australia. His half-sister, Villa Marina (Le Havre) won the Group 1 Prix de l’Opera. Go back to the fourth generation of Fleur De Chine, and up pops the full-brothers, Time Warp (Archipenko) and Glorious Forever.
Both bred by Kirsten Rausing, Time Warp’s three Group 1 wins included the Hong Kong Cup, a race Glorious Forever also won.