THE high-class Australian-bred sprinter Starspangledbanner had an essay in Racehorses of 2010 which concluded by reporting his retirement to stud at Coolmore in Ireland where he was due to begin his stallion career the following spring at a fee of €15,000. That, it seemed at the time, was the end of a highly successful racing career in both hemispheres, while in his new role it appeared he had plenty going for him. But events since then mean there is a lot more to say about Starspangledbanner, both as a racehorse and as a stallion.

The start of his stud career had already been delayed by his success on the track. A Group 1 winner in Australia over as far as a mile, Starspangledbanner was more of a natural sprinter as he underlined on joining Aidan O’Brien for whom he won the Golden Jubilee Stakes and July Cup. Instead of starting his stud career back in Australia later that year, as originally planned, those wins led to an extended campaign in Britain’s top sprints, and while he failed to add to those successes in either the Nunthorpe or the Sprint Cup, Starspangledbanner ended the season as Europe’s top sprinter and began his stud career in Ireland in 2011.

Fertility problems

But Starspangledbanner was beset by fertility problems early on which resulted in his first Irish crop numbering only 33 foals. He proved no more productive when shuttled back to Australia and the decision was taken to return him to training at Ballydoyle for the 2012 season.

From five starts that year, the last of them in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, he ran much his best race when second in the Group 3 Renaissance Stakes at the Curragh, but that was no better than smart form, and on what was to prove his last appearance on a racecourse he finished down the field in the Al Quoz Sprint in Dubai early in 2013.

Failed stallions are usually gelded before returning to racing – Godolphin’s Barney Roy who came back to win a listed race in France being an example in the latest season – but with his Australian shareholder Anthony Mithen keen to persevere with him as a stallion at his Rosemont Stud, Starspangledbanner remained an entire.

That decision proved to be a good one once his runners from his small first crop began to hit the track, with The Wow Signal in the Coventry Stakes and Anthem Alexander in the Queen Mary Stakes giving him two Royal Ascot winners. The Wow Signal went on to be his first Group 1 winner when winning the Prix Morny. The very smart seven-furlong performer Home Of The Brave proved to be another good horse from that same crop.

Meanwhile, back in Australia, Starspangledbanner started showing improved fertility from a smaller book of mares, though another setback, this time a bout of colic, delayed his scheduled return to stand at Coolmore. As a result, he remained in Australia in 2015, covering some mares to northern hemisphere time, and one of those resulting foals, the three-year-old Miss Liberty Belle, won at Chelmsford in September.

Starspangledbanner finally resumed stallion duties back in Ireland in 2016, so his latest batch of two-year-olds were only his second northern hemisphere crop of any size, five years after his first runners. From more than 40 two-year-olds in Britain and Ireland, Starspangledbanner had 18 individual winners who won 26 races between them. Like his first crop, they also numbered a Group 1 winner among them.

Pair of outsiders

Lil Grey and Millisle gave Starspangledbanner two shots at Group 1 success when both lined up as outsiders in a field of 11 for the Juddmonte Cheveley Park Stakes at Newmarket in September.

The pair had already met at home in Ireland the previous month when Millisle had the favourite Lil Grey, the Anglesey Stakes runner-up, back in third when winning a five-furlong listed event on soft ground at the Curragh.

Millisle shaped as though in need of another furlong on that occasion, having made a winning debut over the same trip in a maiden at Bellewstown in July and then finished second to the colt Think Big in a minor event, again over five, at Down Royal later in the month.

Millisle duly ran her best race when stepped up to six furlongs on her first start in Britain in the Dick Poole Fillies’ Stakes at Salisbury earlier in September, though having gone on over two furlongs out after disputing a strong pace, she was touched off by a short-head by Dark Lady, another who took her chance as a 16/1 shot in the Cheveley Park later that month.

Not for the first time, the BHA’s practice of taking pre-race blood samples close to race-time, as part of its anti-doping policy, was called into question after the Dick Poole before which five of the runners, according to the BHA, had samples taken. Such testing does not yet take place in Ireland, and Millisle’s trainer was unhappy that her filly’s sample was taken little more than half an hour before the race. In 2018, French trainer Carlos Laffon-Parias had claimed that his Queen Anne Stakes runner Recoletos had been upset by being tested less than two hours beforehand.

Favourite

The Queen Mary and Duchess of Cambridge Stakes winner Raffle Prize was sent off favourite for the Cheveley Park at a shade of odds-on for Mark Johnston who had been responsible for the last British-trained winner Lumiere in 2015 before Aidan O’Brien’s fillies had won the three most recent editions. Raffle Prize might have started shorter still if the Cheveley Park had come after the Middle Park on the same card, instead of before, as she had gone down by a neck to the winner of that race, Earthlight, in the Prix Morny on her latest start.

Earthlight’s trainer André Fabre was represented in the Cheveley Park by the progressive Tropbeau, winner of the Prix Six Perfections and Prix du Calvados, both over seven furlongs at Deauville, and at 9/2 was Raffle Prize’s chief threat according to the betting.

With the ground on the firm side and a significant tailwind, conditions were liable to produce fast times, and with a strong pace, set initially by one of Aidan O’Brien’s two runners Tango, before Raffle Prize took over before halfway, the juvenile track record was lowered briefly before Earthlight went quicker still in the Middle Park. The way the race was run suited Millisle ideally – in the end – enabling her to pull off a surprise win with another improved effort. Held up early, she looked an unlikely winner at halfway when clearly outpaced, but began to make headway running into the Dip and found plenty on hitting the rising ground to overhaul Raffle Prize, who had been up with the pace, inside the final furlong.

Millisle forged clear to win by a length and three-quarters, with Raffle Prize holding on for second by half a length from Tropbeau, though those placings would have been reversed if the French filly, who finished with running left, had found a clearer run through from the rear.

Stamina

Stamina for the 1000 is often far from guaranteed where Cheveley Park winners are concerned, but there’s plenty of encouragement from the dam’s side of Millisle’s pedigree that she will stay a mile to go with the visual impression she left at Newmarket that she will be suited by further than six furlongs.

Millisle is the ninth winner and reportedly the final foal out of her dam Green Castle who, for the most part, had visited stallions who are much more of a stamina influence than Starspangledbanner.

Indeed, Green Castle’s first foal Fleur De Nuit (by Montjeu) gained her first win in a bumper before winning twice over a mile and three-quarters on the flat in Ireland. The dam’s best winner before Millisle was the useful mile and a half winner Ithoughtitwasover by Montjeu’s son Hurricane Run, while Millisle’s other winning siblings include the seven-year-old Chaplin Bay (by Fastnet Rock), twice a winner over seven furlongs for Ruth Carr in the latest season.

Green Castle was clearly hard to train as she had only two starts for John Oxx and didn’t make it to the track until she was four. Both her starts were at around a mile, and she seemed to show useful form when second in a minor event at the Curragh on the second of them.

Her own dam Green Lucia was even more of a prolific producer of winners at stud, with Green Castle the only one of her 13 foals who raced not to win. Pick of those was the smart Luchiroverte, runner-up in races like the Jockey Club Stakes and Princess of Wales’s Stakes for Clive Brittain.

Green Lucia was a smart mile and a half performer, placed in the Irish Oaks and Yorkshire Oaks, and a half-sister to the Prix du Jockey Club and Irish Derby winner Old Vic, while their dam Cockade, who won a mile maiden at Salisbury, was a full sister to the 1972 2000 Guineas winner High Top.

While the lengthy Millisle won on soft ground at the Curragh, as well as good to firm at Newmarket, her trainer expressed reservations about running her in the 1000 on ground softer than good because of the emphasis that would put on stamina. As for Starspangledbanner, his fee has been increased to €22,500 at Coolmore in 2020.

Racehorses of 2019 by Timeform is priced at £79 and features over 11,000 horses, including every British flat runner last year, plus many of the Irish and the best of the French. Web: Timeform.com