WHILE we are right in the depths of National Hunt racing, there is, and will continue to be, very significant flat races around the world in the months ahead. This column will still review some of the winners, and especially any that resonate with Irish readers.
Let’s begin with Royal Champion, a seven-year-old son of Shamardal (Giant’s Causeway) who died five years ago. The Karl Burke-trained runner, sports the yellow with black spots silks of his breeder Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum. He won his eighth race when landing the biggest prize of his career, the Group 2 Bahrain International Trophy, and in the process provided trainer Burke with his 20th group win of the year and 38th blacktype success.
This was not the colt’s first Group 2 victory, as earlier this year he won the York Stakes, a race in which the recent Group 1 winner Bay City Roller finished sixth, Other winning highlights came in the Group 3 Winter Derby and with success at Royal Ascot in the Listed Wolferton Stakes.
Some of these wins were during his time with Roger Varian, after which Royal Champion spent time in Australia with Anthony and Sam Freedman. He failed to win down under.
On his final start for Varian, Royal Champion found only Nations Pride too good for him in the Grade 1 Canadian International at Woodbine, and he also ran a fine race before his trip to the Kingdom of Bahrain, finishing a respectable third to Delacroix and Anmaat in the Group 1 Royal Bahrain Irish Champion Stakes, His victory last weekend pushed his career earnings to more than £1 million. Let’s hope he stays in training, and he has an entry in Saudi Arabia in February.
Hugely beneficial
Royal Champion is another example of a horse for whom being gelding was hugely beneficial. What a pity though, as he is closely related to one of the world’s great sires.
Royal Champion’s Group 2-winning dam Emirates Queen (Street Cry) is a half-sister to none other than Dubawi (Dubai Millennium). Sheikh Mohammed Obaid cashed in on the family’s success in July at Tattersalls.
There he sold the three-year-old filly Regal Agenda, by Pinatubo (Shamardal), for 375,000gns to Ace Stud. This was the fourth-best price at the sale and the second-best for a filly. Ace Stud, we know now, is the renamed Dullingham Park Stud, and is part of Yulong Investment’s global empire. In addition to Royal Champion, Regal Agenda’s siblings include another Group 2 winner, Outbox (Frankel). Like his half-brother Royal Champion, Outbox won eight races, and up to the age of nine.
Emirates Queen won the Group 2 Lancashire Oaks, while her dam Zomaradah (Deploy) won the Group 1 Oaks d’Italia and placed third at Gulfstream Park in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf, just a length off the winner. There is an exciting young horse in this immediate family. Emirates Queen’s stakes-placed half-sister Dubai Queen (Kingmambo) is emerging as a potent broodmare force, and her grandson Bow Echo (Night Of Thunder) is unbeaten in three starts at two this year, including the Group 2 Royal Lodge Stakes.
REMEMBER Belardo? I say this somewhat tongue in cheek.
The European champion two-year-old of 2014 retired to Kildangan Stud at the age of five, standing at €15,000, and completed six seasons at the Co Kildare farm before moving to Bearstone Stud in England. After three seasons there, covering just 18 mares last year and a measly six this, he was sold to continue his stud career in Turkey.
When I was growing up, it was often said that the best way to make a stallion who was struggling was to export him, and Belardo’s new owners must be pleased with how 2025 has gone for their new acquisition. He is due to stand next year at Yigit Stud in conjunction with the Jockey Club of Turkey after his sale was brokered by Michael Shefflin. A year ago, Shefflin bought Coolmore’s Arizona for the same connections.
Belardo is from the first crop of Lope De Vega (Shamardal) and was bred by Ballylinch Stud. He won the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes, after which Godolphin bought into the colt. He had a solid second season, finishing runner-up in the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. He made amends at four when winning the Group 1 Lockinge Stakes and was runner-up to Tepin, the dam of Delacroix, in the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes.
Top-flight winner
The first crop by Belardo contained three pattern-winning juveniles, Isabella Giles, Lullaby Moon and Elysium. Emerging later from that same crop was Gold Phoenix, the stallion’s first top-flight winner in the 2023 Frank E Kilroe Mile at Santa Anita. He sired his second-crop son Red Lion who this spring won the Group 1 Champions Mile at Sha Tin. His third crop includes triple US Grade 3 winner and Grade 1-placed Special Wan, who sold this month for $1.3 million.
Now, Belardo has come up with a third Group/Grade 1 winner in the shape of the New Zealand-bred Romanoff. Trainer Pam Gerard saddled the gelding to win the Group 1 Al Basti Equiworld Dubai New Zealand 2000 Guineas from a stablemate, and gave Gerard a second win after landing the race last year. Romanoff, was a NZ$75,000 yearling purchase at Karaka, and has had two wins and two placings from seven starts, earning more than six times his purchase price.