ALASTAIR Pim has been standing Free Eagle (High Chaparral) since 2024 at his Anngrove Stud, after an eight-year stint at the Irish National Stud. While it can be said that he didn’t deliver the results that his opening fee of €20,000 would have suggested on the flat, he has nonetheless sired horses with lots of talent, and his runners over jumps suggest he can be a significant sire in that sphere. He is deserving of more support at stud.
Take his best runner as an example of the quality he can produce. Birdman has featured previously on these pages, but the five-year-old gelding deserves to be celebrated more than he has been. He has now won £2.5 million ($3 million), boosted by the earnings from his victory last weekend in the Group 1 Champions Stakes at Flemington.
What is especially admirable about this win is that Birdman was running for the fourth time in 50 days, all in Group 1 races, and this was his second win in that short period of time. He reversed form on Saturday with Cosmic Crusader from their meeting two weeks earlier in the Cox Plate, having beaten him in the Group 1 Underwood Stakes in late September. On his only other run during the past two months Birdman was third in the Group 1 Might And Power Stakes.
Jessica Harrington
Birdman started his career in a Cork maiden at three for Jessica Harrington, followed up three weeks after that with a win in the Listed Yeats Stakes at Navan, and was two lengths adrift of Illinois when third in the Group 2 Queen’s Vase at Royal Ascot. He was sold not long after that to race with Chris Waller in Australia and hasn’t looked back.
The weekend victory brings Birdman’s haul of Group 1 wins to three, having also captured the Doomben Cup, and all his six wins down under have come in pattern races. Every one of his runs, bar two, have been in stakes races and he was running for the 24th time when lining up at Flemington. He is a model of soundness and consistency, and the best possible advertisement for Free Eagle.
Birdman is the best of three winners out of Carol, a winning daughter of Acclamation (Royal Applause). Daughters of the former Rathbarry Stud sire, mated with Free Eagle, have also given us the £600,000 earner and eight-time winner Bolthole (multiple listed winner and group-placed), seven-race winner Hickory and multiple winner Hover. A look at any of the databases shows that, whether it is on the flat or over jumps, sons and daughters of Free Eagle can be raced often. Soundness is obviously his second name!
Much success
Carol’s three winners are from her first four foals, and she has a couple of youngstock waiting in the wings. She was raced and bred by Cristina Patino and this is a female line that has given her much success over many years. Carol’s grandam Cara Fantasy (Sadler’s Wells) bred the Group 3 winners Palavicini (Giant’s Causeway) and Elusive Pimpernel (Elusive Quality), the latter was runner-up in the Group 1 Racing Post Trophy at two. Cara Fantasy is grandam of 2026 Group 2 German 1000 Guineas winner Timeforshowcasing (Showcasing), who has twice been placed in Group 1 races in France and Germany.
Back in the fourth generation is the most famous runner in the family, the champion Snow Fairy (Intikhab). The dual classic winner was triumphant at Group 1 level in Ireland, Britain, Japan and Hong Kong.
There are two opportunities to buy a Free Eagle foal this year; both colts are catalogued at the Goffs December National Hunt Sale. Both have strong female lines and should be on everyone’s list to look at.
ALREADY primed to be one of the highlights of the Arqana December Sale, the four-year-old Santagada (Soldier Hollow) boosted her value when she won the Group 1 Grosser Preis von Bayern at the weekend. She is consigned to the sale by Ronald Rauscher, and will appeal to potential buyers wishing to race, or to cover her in the spring.
This was the ninth and most important win for the Peter Schiergen-trained filly who has been a model of consistency for three seasons now. She is arguably still on an upward curve as a racemare. She won a Group 3 at two, four more at that level at three, while this year she has improved further to be successful in a Group 2 on her path to being successful now at the highest level.
Santagada represents the best of German breeding, and she would grace any broodmare band. The eighth Group 1 winner for her sire Soldier Hollow (In The Wings), her family is littered with classic and Group 1 winners. Bred by Gestut Hony-Hof, Santagada was catalogued as a yearling from Stauffenberg Bloodstock but withdrawn. She is owned by Gestut Park Wiedingen who raced her sire and he was a smart international runner and a successful sire.
Soldier Hollow
Also trained by Peter Schiergen, Soldier Hollow won the Group 1 Premio Roma twice and the Group 1 Grosser Bayerisches Zuchtrennen twice, and they were among 12 wins he posted. He travelled to the USA to run third in the Grade 1 Arlington Million. Soldier Hollow sired this year’s Group 1 German Derby winner Dardanos, his third winner of that classic, while his runners have made an impact outside Germany, with such as Sun Chariot Stakes winner Tamfana, and Ivanhowe who won at the highest level in Australia too.
Soldier Hollow has several sons at stud, but significantly for Santagada, his daughters are responsible for Schnell Meister (Kingman), a Group 1 winner in Japan where he stands, and the Group 1 German Derby winner Sammarco (Camelot).
Congratulations to Gary Robinson who owns Strawberry Fields Stud at Teversham, near Newmarket. Robinson bred the Derby winner Desert Crown and later sold his dam for 1,900,000gns. The following year at Goffs he spent just €19,000 to buy the 10-furlong listed winner Salve Venezia by the top-class German sprinter Areion (Big Shuffle). She is the dam of Santagada and Robinson welcomed a filly this year by Study Of Man (Deep Impact).
A champion
Santagada is a welcome Group 1 winner in this branch of the family. Her third dam Salve Regina (Monsun) was a champion at three when she gained her biggest success in the classic Group 1 Diana Deutsches Stuten Derby, the German Oaks. On her next outing she attempted to add the Group 1 German Derby but had to settle for second to Next Desert.
Had she won the 2002 Deutsches Derby, Salve Regina would have provided her dam Sacarina (Old Vic) with a remarkable achievement. Her full-brother Samum (Monsun) won the classic in 2000, while in 2006 their full-brother Schiaparelli included the race in his career tally of five Group 1 victories. Just how deep this family is can be gauged by the fact that it includes Group 1 stars such Sea The Moon (Sea The Stars), Seismos (Dalakhani), and Sosie (Sea The Stars).