Pedigree Insights: Dual Hemisphere Shuttling Success

Rivet | Racing Post

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There was a certain symmetry to the weekend's top events, with Group 1 victories in the Southern and Northern Hemispheres going to the progeny of stallions shuttled from the opposite hemisphere.

Firstly, the G1 Cox Plate fell to Winx, who was conceived after her sire Street Cry flew in from his Darley base in Kentucky on Aug. 2, 2010, for the sixth of his 10 annual visits to Australia.

For the record, Street Cry's fee in 2010 was A$137,500, the highest he ever commanded during his time in Australia. I think it is safe to say that Australian breeders weren't sure what to make of this top-class dirt horse in his early years, as he covered just 72 mares at a fee of A$38,500 on his first visit, in 2003. His fee was promptly slashed to $16,500 for the next three years, which helped to boost mare numbers.

Street Cry didn't visit in 2007 or 2008, but he was represented by his first Australian Group 1 winner when Whobegotyou landed the 2008 G1 Caulfield Guineas. When he returned in 2009, his reputation had been substantially boosted by the Northern Hemisphere efforts of such as Street Sense, Street Boss and Zenyatta. Within months of his return to Australia in August 2009, his son Shocking won the G1 Melbourne Cup, hence the rise in his fee in 2010.

I always thought of Zenyatta as a true one-off, but I am being forced to change my mind by Winx's extraordinary achievements over the last 18 months. Her winning sequence now stands at 13, so she still has some way to go before she matches Zenyatta's unbeaten run of 19. However, she was so impressive in taking her second Cox Plate by eight lengths that anything now seems possible.

The success of Winx and Street Cry was balanced later in the day, when Rivet, a son of the champion Australian sprinter Fastnet Rock, took the G1 Racing Post Trophy in England. I think it is again fair to say that breeders in Ireland and the rest of Europe were also somewhat unsure what to make of Fastnet Rock when he first shuttled to Coolmore for the 2010 season. They might have known a lot more about him had he been able to contest the two British legs of the Global Sprint Challenge in 2005, as planned. Travel sickness was cited for his failure to meet his engagements at Royal Ascot and Newmarket.

Consequently, Fastnet Rock returned south to start his stallion career at Coolmore Australia and he completed five seasons there before he was shuttled to Ireland for the first time. Maybe it was thought that Coolmore Ireland already had enough sons of the great Danehill, as the 2010 team featured eight of them, headed by Danehill Dancer, Duke of Marmalade, Dylan Thomas, Rock of Gibraltar, Holy Roman Emperor and Oratorio. Or it may simply be that his connections felt he had more than enough on his plate in his homeland, where he covered books of 208, 194, 257, 251 and 273 in his first five years.

The decision to shuttle him was a late one, as he wasn't transferred until Jan. 27, 2010, and he hadn't been included in the various stallion registers for the 2010 season. The motivation was that Fastnet Rock had made a highly encouraging start with his Australian progeny. Having taken second place among the first-crop sires of 2008/09, he was heading for a top 10 finish on the leading sires' table of 2009/10, despite being at a marked numerical disadvantage against most of those above him. His other attraction was that–as a champion sprinter–he was seen as a means of injecting speed into the Coolmore operation's considerable number of Sadler's Wells mares.

Press reports suggested that Fastnet Rock would cover between 50 and 60 mares in Ireland. In fact he covered 79–a modest number by Coolmore standards–and these small numbers made it harder to assess him when his Irish progeny began to race in 2013. He had only four winners in Britain and Ireland, with just one filly earning black-type.

It was easy for Europeans to overlook the fact that Fastnet Rock–a sizeable individual–had failed to win in seven attempts as a 2-year-old, despite being placed at Group 1 and Group 2 levels. And his Australian progeny had established that he wasn't all about speed. Mosheen's Group 1 victories included one over a mile and a quarter and another over 1 9/16 miles, while Atlantic Jewel and Super Cool were other 10-furlong Group 1 winners.

Of course, results as unspectacular as those by Fastnet Rock's first Irish juveniles were bound to have consequences. The first ripple effect was that his Irish book in 2014 stood at only 81 mares, compared to 146 in 2011, 179 in 2012 and 190 in 2013. The second was that he wasn't brought to Ireland for the 2015 season, although he had been advertised as part of the Irish team. No doubt a contributing factor was the absence in 2014 of anything better than a couple of Group 3 winners from his Irish foals.

It is also highly possible that his connections simply thought it was an appropriate time to give this hard-working stallion a rest. His combined Northern and Southern Hemisphere totals stood at 370 mares for 2011 and 387 mares for 2012, while in 2013 the total rose to an eye-watering 402.

Events were to show that Irish breeders had been hasty in their assessment. Those two Group 3 winners of 2014 were none other than Qualify, who progressed to win the G1 Oaks, and Fascinating Rock, who enjoyed a major payday in the G1 QIPCO Champion S. Fastnet Rock also enjoyed Group 1 success in 2015 with Diamondsandrubies (G1 Pretty Polly S.) and there was a pleasing support team of other group and listed winners.

The 2016 season has also been rewarding for Fastnet Rock's older Irish-conceived progeny, with Fascinating Rock taking a second Group 1 prize, while Cougar Mountain, One Foot In Heaven, Zhukhova and Somehow also enjoying group success. But it has been his current batch of 2-year-olds which have outshone their predecessors. The filly Intricately became the first of them to win a Group 1, when she got the better of those smart Galileo fillies Hydrangea and Rhododendron in the Moyglare Stud S. And now the determined Rivet has added the Racing Post Trophy to his Group 2 success in the Champagne S.

Rivet's latest victory, which made amends for his fifth in the G1 Dewhurst S., played its part in an extraordinary couple of days for Fastnet Rock's Irish progeny–especially the 2-year-olds. Rosarno set the ball rolling when he took a mile maiden at Newbury four days ago, becoming the first of three winners that day for his sire. In addition to Rivet, the following day saw the million-dollar filly Crimson Rock made a winning debut in another Newbury maiden, and the day ended with another 2-year-old, Tamit, being named a 'TDN Rising Star' following her impressive debut over 1 1/16 miles on turf at Keeneland.

I mentioned earlier that part of Fastnet Rock's appeal was his potential to do well with Sadler's Wells mares. Sure enough, the promising fillies Crimson Rock and Tamit are out of daughters of Sadler's Wells. Fastnet Rock currently has 120 foals of racing age out of Sadler's Wells mares, with 6% of them becoming black-type winners. But it is his partnership with Galileo's daughters which is proving very exciting. He has 74 racing-age progeny out of Galileo mares (some of them based in Australia) and they feature the Group 1 winners Rivet and Intricately, as well as the Oaks winner Qualify, the Group 2 winner Turret Rocks and the Group 3 scorer Zhukova. Altogether there are nine black-type winners–an impressive 12%.

With Danehill as his sire, mating Fastnet Rock to Galileo mares goes some way towards replicating the enormous success that Galileo has enjoyed with daughters of Danehill and now Danehill Dancer.

Rivet comes from a very successful female line. His third dam is Dancing Rocks, a high-class grand-daughter of Nijinsky, which means that Rivet's pedigree features 4 x 5 to Nijinsky, in addition to 4 x 4 to Northern Dancer.

Despite having a May 22 birthday, Dancing Rocks won both her starts as a 2year-old. As might be expected, this daughter of Green Dancer then improved considerably from two to three, to the extent that she defeated the outstanding Time Charter in the G1 Nassau S., interrupting Time Charter's winning run which included the Oaks and the G1 Champion S.

Several of Dancing Rock's daughters did well as broodmares, none more so than Glatisant. This Rainbow Quest filly produced a Classic winner, in the G12000 Guineas winner Footstepsinthesand, and a Group 1 winner, in the G1 Phoenix S. winner Pedro The Great. Remarkably, Glatisant's daughter Frappe has matched this achievement by producing Power (G1 Irish 2000 Guineas) and Curvy (G1 E.P. Taylor S.).

The other daughter of Dancing Rocks with several group winners among her descendants is Rivet's second dam, the General Assembly mare Council Rock. Her best effort was that very fast filly Superstar Leo, a half-sister to Rivet's dam Starship. While not as speedy as Superstar Leo, Starship won over seven furlongs at two and twice over a mile at three. Galileo, though, is generally a generous source of stamina and Starship's previous group winner, Alexander Pope, won the G3 Gallinule S. over a mile and a quarter, even though he was by Danehill Dancer, another fast son of Danehill. It would therefore be no surprise were Rivet to stay beyond a mile.

 

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