WITH five individual group winners and three other listed scorers from his first three crops, Tamayuz has made an excellent start to his stud career.
In 2014 he was third on the list of third crop sires in Europe,
while he was also the leading sire of two-year-old stakes horses by percentage to runners. No wonder that his yearlings fetched prices up to €350,000 last autumn, with the very high average of €57,852.
Tamayuz had his first Group 1 success last September, when G Force was an impressive winner of the Betfred Sprint Cup at Haydock Park, a performance which earned him the title of the champion three-year-old sprinter in Europe in the World Rankings for 2014; he had both Gordon Lord Byron and Sole Power behind him that day.
One of the best sons of Tamayuz, the very speedy Sir Prancealot, was injured after scoring in the Group 2 Flying Childers Stakes at Doncaster and the listed National Stakes, as well as placing second in the Group 2 Prix Robert Papin, and he is already at stud.
However, Tamayuz has three other group winners with Brown Sugar, who scored in the Molecomb Stakes at Goodwood and the Sirenia Stakes at Kempton, the speedy Thawaany, winner of the Prix de Ris-Orangis at Deauville and second in the Group 1 Prix Maurice de Gheest there, and Meiner Eternel, a top juvenile in Japan after winning the Grade 3 Kokura Nisai Stakes and running third in the Grade 2 Daily Hai Nisai Stakes at Kyoto. Tamayuz has also sired three listed winners in France and Germany.
With a mark of 124, Tamayuz was the third highest rated after Raven’s Pass and Henrythenavigator among the European three-year-old mile colts in the World Thoroughbred Rankings for 2008. He was by a considerable margin the best in France, where he had been unbeaten as a two-year-old, and he scored a Group 1 double there in the Prix Jean Prat and Prix Jacques le Marois. He was also one of the few horses to defeat Raven’s Pass.
Homebred by Sheikh Hamdan and trained by Freddie Head, Tamayuz made a winning debut in the Prix de Fontenoy over a mile at Longchamp in September 2007, then a month later added the Prix des Aigles at Chantilly.
Improving steadily at three years old, Tamayuz completed his hat-trick in the Group 3 Prix de Fontainebleau at Longchamp in mid-April, but had no chance in the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Poulains after being badly hampered.
He soon made amends in the Group 1 Abu Dhabi Prix Jean Prat over a mile at Chantilly, running on strongly to defeat world champion Raven’s Pass by a length and a half, with Rio De La Plata third.
A month later at Deauville, again over a mile in the Group 1 Prix Fresnay le Buffard Jacques le Marois, Tamayuz cruised home two and a half lengths clear of the 1000 Guineas heroine Natagora and Major Cadeaux, earning for himself a Timeform assessment of 126.
That was his fifth win in his first six starts and he then ended his racing career by running a creditable fourth to Raven’s Pass and Henrythenavigator in the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot in late September.
A son of champion Nayef, Tamayuz has an exceptional pedigree, as he is closely related to Galileo, Sea The Stars and King’s Best on his dam’s side. Nayef was an outstanding performer over 10 furlongs, winning the Dubai Champion Stakes at Newmarket, the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot, the Juddmonte International at York and the Sheema Classic at Nad Al Sheba, all of them Group 1 events. He is a son of Gulch, who was by Mr Prospector and was a champion sprinter in USA. before siring 72 stakes winners, including Kentucky Derby star Thunder Gulch. Gulch is also the maternal grandsire of Refuse To Bend and Lawman.
Al Ishq, the dam of Tamayuz, is a daughter of Nureyev who won in France and has bred six other winners, two of which were stakes-placed. She is a half-sister to three blacktype winners, most notably Anabaa Blue, who won the Group 1 Prix du Jockey Club, the Group 2 Grand Prix de Chantilly and the Group 2 Prix Noailles and is sire of a Grade 1 winner.
Their dam Allez Les Trois won the Group 3 Prix de Flore and is a half-sister to the 2000 Guineas hero and leading sire King’s Best and also to the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Urban Sea, among whose eight stakes winning progeny are champions Galileo and Sea The Stars.
TAMAYUZ (GB)
Race record: Champion three-year-old colt in France at a mile. Winner of five races at 2 and 3 years, £482,505, all at 8 furlongs, from seven starts, inc. Prix Fresnay le Buffard Jacques le Marois, Deauville, Gr.1, Abu Dhabi Prix Jean Prat, Chantilly, Gr.1, and Prix de Fontainebleau, Longchamp, Gr.3; fourth in Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, Ascot, Gr.1.
Stud record: Retired to stud in 2009. Sire of 68 winners of 133 races and over €3,000,000 from his first three crops, including G Force (Betfred Sprint Cup. Haydock Park, Gr.1), Sir Prancealot (Flying Childers Stakes, Doncaster, Gr.2, and National Stakes, Sandown Park, L, second Prix Robert Papin, Maisons-Laffitte, Gr.2), Brown Sugar (Molecomb Stakes, Goodwood, Gr.3, Sirenia Stakes, Kempton Park, Gr.3), Thawaany (Prix Ris-Orangis, Deauville, Gr.3, second Prix Maurice de Gheest, Deauville, Gr.1), etc
Stands at: Derrinstown Stud, Maynooth, Co Kildare, Ireland. Enquiries to Stephen Collins, Jimmy Lenehan or Enda Stanley on (353) 01 6286228, or visit www.derrinstown.com.
Fee: €15,000 (January 1st SLF).
DERRINSTOWN STUD
THE Irish division of Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum’s Shadwell Estate Company, who purchased it in 1983, Derrinstown Stud is run in conjunction with the Shadwell, Nunnery and Beech House Studs in England and Shadwell Farm in Kentucky.
The manager Stephen Collins started at his family’s nearby Corbally Stud before gaining further experience in Newmarket and Kentucky, while Enda Stanley is in charge of marketing and nominations.
Four of the stallion boxes at Derrinstown are full for the 2015 stud season. Double Group 1-winning miler Tamayuz and top class sprinter Haatef have both made excellent starts and Arcano was one of the top 10 first crop sires of 2014 with the winners of 19 races. Intikhab has been prominent on the leading sires’ lists for many years now and has sired 22 stakes winners.