Seven Days

The early part of last week was spent covering the JRHA Select Sale in Japan, a trip that is always illuminating, to an auction that remains extraordinary. Number one of the list of most surprising things from the five days spent in Hokkaido was Teruya Yoshida picking up his guitar to serenade guests with a rendition of John Denver's Take Me Home, Country Roads. An excellent choice of song, well performed. The Shadai Farm principal should be encouraged to form a Travelling Wilburys-style bloodstock supergroup. Bluegrass enthusiast and songwriter Arthur...

Unbridled joy was present in bundles at Hamburg on Sunday as recent amateur-turned-apprentice Nina Baltromei urged Hochkoenig to victory on the line in the 156th Deutsches Derby, denying the Karl Burke-trained Convergent (Fascinating Rock) by the merest of margins. Hochkoenig is by the Lomitas stallion Polish Vulcano, who stands at the Darboven family's Gestuet Idee, which sponsors the Derby and is where the 17-year-old was bred. We'll be hearing from the stallion's breeder Albert Darboven in tomorrow's TDN, but for the breeders of Hochkoenig, racing photographers Marc and Gabi Ruehl,...

On the day that Kevin Prendergast was remembered at the Curragh in the naming of the International Stakes, and a day after Peter Easterby was laid to rest, another great of the training ranks was lost with the passing of Barry Hills. Then came the news from America that D Wayne Lukas had too departed. To read the tributes paid to these men, who did so much to enrich the colour of this storied sport, is something of a treat in itself - their parting gift, if you like -...

It has been a strangely discombobulating week in some respects. It started in Westminster last Monday with the All-Party Parliamentary Group issuing its stark warning of the triple threat to the industry posed by potential betting duty harmonisation, affordability checks and an overdue Levy reform. This came on the back of an industry update in Newmarket the previous week at which the TBA chairman Philip Newton warned of a potential catastrophic collapse in the supply chain of young Thoroughbreds in Britain. Then, stepping through the golden gates of Royal Ascot,...

These days, it seems that as soon as the runners have crossed the line in the Derby the crabbing begins about everything that's wrong with the winner, the race and the meeting itself. It's a funny old game when the people who follow the sport, and in some cases whose livelihoods depend on it, seek constantly to undermine the very thing that brings such enjoyment. Obviously there are concerns regarding falling attendances at the Derby, and at race meetings generally in different parts of the world. An ominous weather forecast...

Nine years after Almanzor dropped a massive hint that Wootton Bassett might just be a decent sire by winning the Prix du Jockey Club comes the next wave for the stallion whose fee has gone from as low as €4,000 to this year's high of €300,000.  As has been well documented, Wootton Bassett's current crop of three-year-olds are the result of his first season standing at Coolmore in Ireland after one of the biggest transfer deals of recent years saw him leave Haras d'Etreham, where he had made his name...

Poor old Kingman, eh? It was his bad luck to pitch up at Banstead Manor Stud in the year that all the fuss was about Frankel's first yearlings. Much of the interest in the intervening decade has been about Frankel, too, but that hasn't stopped Kingman laying down his own markers in achievement at stud, highlighted this past weekend with a one-two in the Irish 2,000 Guineas via Field Of Gold and Cosmic Year.  They are not by any means his first star performers - Persian King first held that...

"The greatest gift a breeder could have." That was how the late HH Aga Khan IV described his unbeaten masterpiece Zarkava. How fitting then, that months after the retirement of the 20-year-old daughter of Zamindar and the sad passing of her owner-breeder, Zarkava's granddaughter Zarigana, herself out of the Listed winner Zarkamiya (Frankel) and by the Aga Khan Studs' homebred French champion sire Siyouni, should pick up the baton.  In giving her breeder a seventh victory in the Poule d'Essai des Pouliches, Zarigana continues this line of extraordinary success for...

We've seen a Classic double double, but could we now see a double Triple Crown bid for Godolphin? The quest for the Triple Crown is usually more of 'a thing' in America, though its compact five-week challenge draws consternation from some quarters, and Bill Mott is biding his time before committing Sovereignty to a run in the Preakness Stakes on May 17.  Though the American Triple Crown is a more marketable concept than the sprawling near-five-month challenge that has remained unfulfilled in Britain for 55 years, certainly the Derby had...

Any week which included the return of Kyprios (Ire) should be considered a good week indeed. Yes, this time of the year is really all about exciting maiden winners and Classic trials, but any horse who can stick around in the Flat pack for as long as Kyprios has done must be cherished.  Four members of the final crop of his sire Galileo (Ire) have entries in the Derby and/or Irish Derby, but otherwise we will be relying on his older runners, including last year's St Leger one-two Illinois (Ire)...

It is nearly 20 years since Speciosa (Ire) became the first Classic winner to emanate from the breeze-up sales. The man who sold her, Willie Browne, had been plying his trade in that sector since 1978, and, as the breeze-ups close in on their 50th anniversary, it is good to see that the Mocklershill maestro is still very much at the top of his game.  In fact, last week's Craven Sale at Tattersalls was a good one for the founding fathers of the breeze-up game. There was Browne turning €70,000...

A little trip down Street Cry memory lane last week prompted a call to Dan Pride in Kentucky and one of the best lines anyone in the bloodstock community has ever offered up during an interview. In discussing the initial market hesitation around Street Cry's European lineage and not-quite-movie-star looks, Pride opined that it was a good early lesson that, in the stallion market in particular, horses can often makes fools of man. "It taught me that nobody knows nothing," he said. They are words to live by. When it...