THIS week’s Breeding Insights column is unusual in that all of the winners I am taking a look at were successful overseas, in Australia, France, Japan and South Africa.

This time it is the grey six-year-old gelding Skalleti under the spotlight, and he recorded an overdue Group 1 win for his sire, and for himself.

Bred by Guy Pariente at Haras de Colleville, home to his sire Kendargent (Kendor), Skalleti was sold as a yearling at Arqana for €85,000. He races now for Jean-Claude Seroul, and is handled by trainer-on-fire Jerome Reynier. The gelding’s victory in the Prix d’Ispahan was Reynier’s first at Group 1 level, and he is a man going places. He is profiled elsewhere in this week’s paper.

The patience Reynier has shown with Skalleti has paid rich dividends. The gelding has won 15 of his 20 starts, nine of these successes at stakes level. He has only twice been unplaced, and last year he was runner-up in the Group 1 Qipco Champion Stakes at Ascot.

Skalleti has earnings now of some €950,000, and there is one race this year that he is being prepared for – back to Ascot to win the Champion Stakes.

While Skalleti may be the first Group 1 winner for his sire, he is not the stallion’s first Group 1 performer. The now 18-year-old Kendargent is responsible for 33 stakes winners, a number of which were placed at the top-tier of racing. One of these is Goken, now a successful young stallion who also stands at Haras de Colleville.

Broodmare sire

Kendargent is also making a name for himself as a broodmare sire, Group 1 winning juvenile Sealiway being his best maternal grandson.

As a racehorse, Kendargent was average, failing to win at two, gaining a single victory at three over a mile in France and being group-placed, and at four he won an allowance race over a mile in the USA. As recently as 2011 he stood for €1,000.

On the dam side of his pedigree, Skalleti is by some distance the best runner in four generations, but this is a family very much on an upward trajectory, thanks in no small measure to mating the minor French stakes winner Skallet with Kendargent.

Skallet is a daughter of Muhayim (A P Indy), and that sire’s main claim to fame is that he is a winning son of Shadayid (Shadeed). Skallet earned her blacktype at Bordeaux Le Bouscat, though she was Group 3-placed at some better-known tracks. Her three winners are all sons of Kendargent, and are all stakes performers.

Good year

Skalleti was born a year after nine-time winner and listed-placed Skalleto, while Skazino, whose 11 wins include this year’s Group 2 Prix Vicomtesse Vigier, was born in 2016. All three sons, all geldings, have had the distinction also of being successful in 2021.

Guy Pariente was ranked the leading French flat breeder in 2020, ending the domination of the farms of the Aga Khan and the Wertheimer brothers who had shared the title without interruption since 2008.

Nine horses bred by Pariente won at listed or group level last year in France, and seven of them were sired by a stallion at Haras de Colleville, namely Galiway or Kendargent. Haras de Colleville was created from scratch in 2007.

Lope De Vega and Night Of Thunder on fire

THIRTEEN is this week’s lucky number for one of Ireland’s premier sires, Lope De Vega. The 14-year-old Ballylinch Stud resident and flagbearer had his thirteenth Group 1 winner when the Australian-bred Vega One won the Tab Kingsford-Smith Cup at Eagle Farm.

Lope De Vega (Shamardal) shuttled for four seasons to Australia, and he left two Group 1 winners each in his first and last crops there. The initial crop featured five-time Group 1 winner Santa Ana Lane and the dual top-level scorer Vega Magic. Both of these horses won the Group 1 Darley Goodwood. Lope De Vega’s final crop down under also included the Black Caviar Lightning Stakes winner Gyrtrash.

Vega One was bred by Emirates Park and sold as a yearling for A$75,000 (about €47,000). His six wins and his placings have earned connections almost €950,000. He is one of a pair of stakes winners for his dam One Funny Hunny (Distorted Humor), the other being the Group 2 winning filly One More Honey (Onemorenomore).

One Funny Honey was born in the USA where she was placed. She was born a year and a half after her Australian-born dam Lan Kwai Fong (Bluebird), a Group 3 winner down under and runner-up in the Group 1 Victoria Oaks, was sold for $450,000 at the 2003 Keeneland November Sale.

If you read both of these Breeding Insights pages, you will find the word breakthrough a few times. Here it is again, this time to celebrate the first Group 1 winner for Night Of Thunder, one of the most exciting young stallions in Europe. It is also another case of a Group 1 win for a gelding, on this occasion in the Queensland Derby.

Shuttle success

Kukeracha, bred in New Zealand by Dr Chris Phillips, resident veterinary surgeon at Waikato Stud, is the horse who has given Darley’s Kildangan Stud resident Night Of Thunder (Dubawi) his first success at the highest level, though he is just one of a staggering 21 stakes winners for the stallion. His sole crop from shuttling to Australia resulted in 58 foals, and they also include Group 2 winner Cherry Tortini and Group 3 heroine A Beautiful Night.

Kukeracha was sold through Waikato Stud at the 2018 Karaka Yearling Sale in New Zealand where he was secured for NZ$130,000 (about €75,000) by bloodstock agent Guy Mulcaster. He is one of five winners from the A P Indy (Seattle Slew) mare Portrait Of A Lady, a winner on the second of her two starts in the USA. She is also dam of the Group 3 winner Cameo (Shamardal).

The third dam of the Derby winner is Alydaress (Alydar), successful for Sheikh Mohammed, Sir Henry Cecil and Michael Kinane in the 1989 Kildangan Stud Irish Oaks, and also winner of the Ribblesdale Stakes at Royal Ascot. She is out of the influential producer Balidaress (Balidar), dam of two other Group 1 winners in Desirable (Lord Gayle) and Park Appeal (Ahonoora).

At least 11 Group 1 winners descend from Balidaress, including Darley’s influential sire Cape Cross (Green Desert).