IT came as quite a shock, given that the field for the newly-crowned Group 1 Saudi Cup contained the recently installed Grade 1 Kentucky Derby winner Mandaloun, three-time Group 1 winner and defending winner Misriff, Group 1 Champion Stakes winner Sealiway and the 2021 Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Distaff heroine Marche Lorraine.

The shock was that the locally-trained Emblem Road, an American-bred son of Quality Road (Elusive Quality), gained his seventh win in nine starts, his first blacktype race. This win was worth some $10 million, while all his efforts prior to this won his owner, Prince Saud bin Salman Abdulazziz, about $200,000.

Emblem Road is a 13th Group or Grade 1 winner for the Lane’s End stallion Quality Road, His fee will be $150,000 this year, no surprise given that his top-level winners come from his first eight crops.

Last year he sired the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner Corniche, and that was his fourth winner at those racing championships. The first, Hootenanny, came in his first crop. Quality Road was successful four times at Grade 1 level.

The family of Emblem Road has a strong tie to Saudi Arabia. His dam was bred by the late Prince Khalid Abdullah and she showed no form in a pair of runs in the USA, being despatched to the Keeneland November Sale as a four-year-old carrying her first foal, Kunal (Temple City). Venturini cost Brian Moore of Brushy Hill Equine $62,000, but she has proven to be a money-earner since with her progeny.

Kunal won a couple of races and was stakes-placed in Canada, and he was followed by Emblem Road. Sold as a yearling for $230,000, the latter actually lost money when resold as a breezer, costing Bruno deBerdt $80,000. Her next offspring is a now two-year-old son of Nyquist (Uncle Mo) and he sold as a newly-turned yearling for $185,000.

When she was sold in 2016 Venturini’s only claim to fame was being a daughter of Khalid Abdullah’s Ventura (Chester House). That 10-time winner gained four of her victories at Grade 1 level, namely the Woodbine Mile Stakes, Just A Game Stakes, Santa Monica Handicap and the Matriarch Stakes. She also triumphed in the Listed Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint.

Monksland Stables

Since 2016 three of Ventura’s offspring are winners, notably the French Group 3 winning filly Fount (Frankel). Ventura’s half-sister Call Later (Gone West) is in Ireland with Tom and Clodagh Hassett of Monksland Stables, and she is the dam of stakes winners in England, Australia and South Africa, the best being the dual Group 1 winner Queen Supreme (Exceed And Excel).

This is a rich family when it comes to blacktype. Emblem Road’s fourth dam Roupala (Vaguely Noble) bred 10 winners, four of them stakes winners, and six of her daughters were responsible at stud for stakes winners.

Bob Baffert was runner-up in the Group 1 Saudi Cup with Country Grammer, but his three-year-old Pinehurst was in the winners’ enclosure following the Group 3 Saudi Derby, the winner denying Japan of a clean sweep of all the group races in the undercard.

Japanese-trained runners won the first two editions of the Saudi Derby, and it took a US Grade 1 winner to deny them the hat-trick.

Pinehurst won last year’s Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity, and was beaten this year in the Grade 2 San Vincente Stakes at Santa Anita. He will stay outside the US for his next outing which is expected to be the Group 2 UAE Derby on Dubai World Cup night.

Kentucky-bred

Bred in Kentucky by Fred Hertrich and John Fielding, Pinehurst was bred from a mare the former Hertrich paid $95,000 for after she failed to trouble the judge on her sole run. She was Giant Win (Giant’s Causeway), and two of her first three foals have won, the other being placed. She has a couple of young stock waiting in the wings.

The investment made by Fred Hertrich is paying dividends, and he sold Pinehurst as a foal for a healthy $180,000. A son of Twirling Candy (Candy Ride), Pinehurst gave Bob Baffert his 15th win in the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity. Just for comparison purposes Aidan O’Brien has won the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes 16 times!

Pinehurst’s sire stands at Lane’s End and the charge last year for using him was $40,000, though this has risen to $60,000 for 2022. Two of his six Grade 1 winners emerged last year, the Preakness Stakes hero Rombauer who was also third in the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes, and Pinehurst.

When Peter O’Callaghan of Woods Edge Farm sent Pinehurst to the 2020 Keeneland September Sale he doubled the colt’s value, with a bit left over to pay the keep charges. He sold on that occasion for $385,000, another fine example of the pinhooking skill of Gay and Annette’s son.

Further delight

Fred Hertrich and John Fielding have further reason to be delighted with Giant Win. When she was purchased, she was a full-sister to the Grade 3 stakes winner and $1.2 million yearling First Passage (Giant’s Causeway). Since then that mare’s daughter Berned (Bernardini) has become a Grade 3 winner, providing another boost to an already strong pedigree.

First Passage is the best of four winners from Win’s Fair Lady (Dehere). That stakes-winning half-sister to Harmony Lodge (Hennessy), a Grade 1 winner, sold in consecutive years as a broodmare for $2.2 and $2.3 million, each time without having a foal of racing age.

Twirling Candy won seven if his 11 starts, and got better with age during his three seasons racing, He added the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes over seven furlongs to a sophomore year victory in the nine-furlong Grade 2 Del Mar Derby. He shares his sire Candy Ride (Ride The Rails) with Gun Runner and Shared Belief.