A LOOK at the current table of leading National Hunt sires for the 2020-21 season shows that 10% of them are sons of Montjeu.

What a loss he was to Coolmore and to the breed when he died at the age of 16 in March 2012. His death followed a short illness due to complications from an overwhelming septicaemia, an infection in the bloodstream.

At the time of his demise he had sired three winners of the Derby at Epsom, Authorized, Motivator and Pour Moi. Less than three months after he produced a fourth in Camelot.

The winner of six Group 1 races, Montjeu went on to become one of the world’s leading stallions for Coolmore. He retired to stud in 2001 after a racing career that saw him win the 1999 Group 1 Prix du Jockey-Club-French Derby and the Irish Derby, as well as the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

Trained by John Hammond in France to win 11 of his 16 starts, Montjeu was also a brilliant winner of the 2000 Group 1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot. His stud fee hit a high in 2008 of €125,000.

Michael Kinane, who rode Montjeu to five of his victories, said: “He was a really outstanding racehorse - one of the few outstanding racehorses I’ve ridden. That King George win was pretty good all right. He treated them with contempt that day and it was just a privilege to be on board. He had an aura about him and a few issues, and the great horses he’s sired have all had that as well - that’s what’s made them great.”

His roll of honour of winners at the highest level covers both hemispheres, and both codes of racing near to home.

His multiple Group 1 winning sons include the Arc hero Hurricane Run, five-time Group/Grade 1 winners Fame And Glory and St Nicholas Abbey, €6 million sale filly and Irish Oaks winner Chicquita, dual Champion Hurdle winner Hurricane Run and Grade 1 Triumph Hurdle winner Ivanovich Gorbatov.

Three of Montjeu’s sons won the Group 1 Grand Prix de Paris – Gallante, Scorpion and Montmartre.

The latter won his on what was to be the last of his five career outings in the colours of His Highness the Aga Khan, having been acquired when the dispersal of Jean-Luc Lagardare’s was completed. He won that day by four lengths. Now, at the age of 16 himself, Montmartre will be covering at Haras du Hoguenet for a very reasonable €6,500.

Busy at stud

In the years 2015 to 2017, Montmartre was at his busiest at stud, covering 166, 154 and 131 mares. That number fell to just 41 last year. Having been rated the best colt of his generation in France at three, he might have been thought of as a potential classic sire, but he went to stud for a fee of just €4,000.

On the flat he sired a single group winner in Bello Matteo, and he came from Montmartre’s second crop. That same crop also contained the Grade 1 Cheltenham winner Labaik, dual Grade 1 winning hurdler Petite Parisienne, Grade 2 winning chaser Bigmartre, and Grade 3 winning juvenile hurdler Kalkir. They are five of his dozen blacktype winners to date, and surely that will grow significantly when his biggest crops hit the track.

Why are we talking about Montmartre? Well, at the weekend his daughter Elimay carried J.P. McManus’ green and gold colours to victory for the third time over fences, running out the winner of the Listed BBA Ireland Limited Opera Hat Mares Chase at Naas. She is already a winner at Grade 2 and Grade 3 level over the larger obstacles. Now Elimay is possibly on course for the much-anticipated mares’ chase at Cheltenham.

Christophe Toulorge

A winner in her native France, Elimay first came to our attention when she sold for €310,000 at the Arqana Autumn Sale in 2017. She was bred by Christophe Toulorge, a stud owner in Normandy who stands the trotting world’s equivalent of Galileo – a horse called Ready Cash. However, having grown up knowing the Head family, he was tempted to dabble in the thoroughbred world.

Toulorge bred Ryde (Sillery) in partnership with Alec Head when her dam Camarange (Carmarthen) was 23 years of age. Ryde could boast of being a half-sister to a leading chaser in France in Naringe (Al Nasr), winner of the Prix Lutteur III Chase twice and the Prix Richard and Robert Hennessy Chase, all at Auteuil.

Ryde won three times over jumps and has been reasonably successful at stud, breeding three winners. Toulorge continued with the family when he and Alec Head failed to sell Ryde’s filly Hyde as a yearling. That daughter of Poliglote (Sadler’s Wells) was second over hurdles from just five starts, and for her first couple of years at stud she visited Montmartre and had two foals by him.

Goshen

Both offspring were fillies, and the first-born, Duena was placed a number of times. Elimay came next, and she was followed two years later by Goshen (Authorized). That gelding went to Cheltenham last March having won six races on the trot, three on the flat and three over hurdles. He started favourite for the Grade 1 Triumph Hurdle, looked all over the winner, and unseated Jamie Moore at the last.

Goshen, who was found late last year to have a fibrillating heart, will hopefully come back and get the blacktype that his performances suggest he is well capable off. He has a year-younger own-sister Harrisburg (Authorized) who won last year as a three year-old. Waiting in the wings are an unraced three-year-old filly Somoli (Camelot) and a yearling colt, Pompano (Nathaniel).

It is worth noting that among the dozen blacktype winners by Montmartre so far, half of them are mares.

While Matt Chapman may decry the value of mares races, and the allowances they receive, it is for the betterment of racing and breeding that more and more mares are being put in training. There is no outcry against classic races for fillies on the flat; there should equally be no objection to them under National Hunt rules either.