IF I set you the task of writing a template for the ideal stallion prospect, it is probable you would come up with a profile of the Group 1 Lockinge Stakes winner Lead Artist. This Juddmonte homebred may have taken until the age of four to win at the highest level, but in that regards he is rather typical of many horses in his female line.
Lead Artist is a son of the outstanding Dubawi (Dubai Millennium), out of a group-winning mare by Frankel (Galileo), and he has as his third dam the outstanding Blue Hen mare Hasili (Kahyasi), one of just three thoroughbred matrons in history to breed five Group/Grade 1 winners – and she came so close to being responsible for six, or even seven. I am penning this piece in the same week that I will be meeting the Irish National Stud students to talk about great broodmares.
Unraced at two, Lead Artist has just one ‘blot’ on his nine-race career, and that came on his seasonal debut this year when the Gosden father and son team could offer no explanation for a poor showing behind Dancing Gemini in the Group 2 bet365 Mile at Sandown. On Saturday, Lead Artist showed how wrong that run was when he beat Dancing Gemini, last year’s Group 1 French 2000 Guineas second, by a neck. A pair of Group 3 wins last year, and excellent runner-up finishes to Kinross and Spirit Dancer at Group 1 level, showed us Lead Artist’s real ability.
Hopefully Lead Artist will continue to improve, and perhaps even enhance his race record, as the season progresses, and then find a place among the stallion ranks. He is likely to be seen next in the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot, which could essentially be a rerun of the Lockinge. The post-race comments of John Gosden made me like the colt even more, speaking as he did about his “natural speed”, and broodmare owners will have Lead Artist as one to watch as the year unfolds.
Dubawi, whose son Rebel’s Romance took his winnings to €11,848,045 at York last week and is now responsible for eight sons who have won €5 million or more, is on the road to another landmark as Lead Artist is Group/Grade 1 winner number 61 for Darley’s Dalham Hall resident. The problem with writing anything about the achievements of Dubawi is that, even just hours later, the numbers are obsolete.
Statistics
Nonetheless, in true Richard Pugh fashion, I will dazzle you with statistics.
Some 444 of Dubawi’s sons and daughters have earned blacktype on the flat, and 298 are winners in that category. The next two to achieve blacktype will take his tally to 300! For good measure, two of his sons were not only Grade 1 winners over jumps, but they were multiple winners. The Frankie Dettori-bred Dodging Bullets won three Grade 1 chases, including the Queen Mother Champion Chase, while Hisaabaat won a pair of top-table hurdle races.
Back to Lead Artist and the dam side of his pedigree. Most readers are able to recite this family’s achievements by rote. However, the fact that it consistently enjoys success should not mean that it does not get some highlighting.
Lead Artist’s win will have been music to the ears of Ann Marshall at Hamwood Stud, as she paid 280,000gns at the Tattersalls December Sale last year for Lead Artist’s grandam Responsible (Oasis Dream), carrying a colt by New Bay (Dubawi).
Last year, Lead Artist’s dam Obligate foaled a full-sister to him, and this year visited Too Darn Hot (Dubawi). Trained in France by Pascal Bary, Obligate had a short but successful racing career.
In November of her juvenile year, she won on her debut at Saint-Cloud, and continued her winning streak at three, opening with a listed win at Chantilly and following up with victory in the Group 2 Prix de Sandringham. Obligate finished two lengths behind the brilliant Laurens in the Group 1 Prix Rothschild, with With You second, and was out of the money on just her final start.
Two firsts
Lead Artist is the first foal out of Obligate, and she in turn is the first offspring of the unraced Responsible. That mare has a perfect to date with her first four runners being winners, and all by Frankel. The next to represent Responsible will be Contrite (Teofilo), her two-year-old daughter. Responsible was the tenth and last foal out of Hasili, and one of just two who did not run.
Hasili was a listed winner at two in France, and seven of her eight runners won blacktype races. Five were successful at the highest level, and the others were placed in Group 1 races. Four of the Group/Grade 1 winners were by Danehill (Danzig), namely Intercontinental, Cacique, Champs Elysees and Banks Hill, while dual Grade 1 winner and Grade 1 producer Heat Haze was a daughter of Green Desert (Danzig).
The pair of Group 1 placed offspring of the outstanding Hasili were the hugely successful Dansili (Danehill), beaten less than a length by Giant’s Causeway and Kalanisi in two of his four second-place finishes in Group 1 races, and Deluxe (Storm Cat) who was half a length behind Sarafina in the Group 1 Prix Saint-Alary.
ON a rewarding weekend for the Juddmonte team, Ger Lyons supplied them with a second pattern winner when Babouche (Kodiac) won the Group 3 Goffs Lacken Stakes, priming the filly for a shot at the Group 1 Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot. This Naas feature attracted two of last season’s best juveniles, and fellow Group 1 winner Whistlejacket was no match on Sunday for the winner.
Successful in four of her six starts now, last year Babouche was one of Europe’s best juvenile fillies after wins in the Group 1 Keeneland Phoenix Stakes and the Group 3 Anglesey Stakes. Babouche and her full-sister Zarinsk (Kodiac) are pattern-winning daughters of Pavlosk (Arch). The latter, a stakes winner at York at three, has a perfect record at stud, her first six foals all winning.
Zarinsk was twice successful at two, including the Listed Ingabelle Stakes, and the following year she won half of her six starts, the Group 2 Minstrel Stakes and Group 3 Cornelscourt Stakes at Leopardstown, and the Group 3 Brownstown Stakes at Fairyhouse.
Pavlosk has gone on to have two more fillies, the juvenile Hinder (Expert Eye) and a yearling by Bated Breath (Dansili). She was rested last year. As well as being dam of half a dozen winners, Pavlosk is one of six winners for her own dam, the French stakes-placed winner Tsar’s Pride (Sadler’s Wells). Three of the latter’s daughters became stakes winners.
Successful sires
Babouche is the first Group 1 winner in three generations of this female line, but that changes in the fourth remove. Her fourth dam was Zaizafon (The Minstrel), a Group 3 winner at two who numbered three stakes winners and four stakes-placed horses among a tally of nine successful offspring. Two of these stand out, and both became successful sires. They were the full-brothers Zafonic (Gone West) and Zamindar.
Champion at two and three, Zafonic won the three Group 1 races at two, the Dewhurst Stakes, Prix Morny and Prix de la Salamandre, and the following spring added the Group 1 2000 Guineas. Victory in the Newmarket classic saw him set a new course record. Zafonic retired to Banstead Manor Stud, where he sired such as Xaar, Zafeen and Iffraaj. He died after an accident at Arrowfield in Australia, robbing the breeding world of an influential sire at the age of just 12.
Tally-Ho Stud’s Kodiac is among a select group of stallions, with 103 blacktype winners. Eight of his 50 group winners have won at the highest level, and the 24-year-old stands at a fee of €25,000.