What £3000 Sire Is Making Waves In England?

In the fast-changing, fashion-driven world of bloodstock, everyone wants to find the sire that will be the next big thing. Of course, most sires will be long-term commercial failures, but some will become runaway successes, including some that start from a very low base in terms of nomination fee.

One only has to look at the likes of Danehill Dancer (started at a fee of IR£4,000, rose to a high of €115,000), Pivotal (started at STG£6,000, rose to high of STG£85,000) and Kodiac (started at €4,000, currently €45,000) for examples of how a stallion's fortunes can go through the roof. Of course, these examples are very much at the extreme end of the stallion success scale, but a sire doesn't have to see his covering fee increase by a factor of 10 to be profitable for breeders to support, and the benefits of getting on board with such a stallion before they are more widely appreciated should be obvious to all. However, it should also be obvious that pinpointing such a sire is much easier said than done.

Mind, there is a low-profile, slow-burning sire based in England that is giving all the indications that he could be about to cast off the shackles of such descriptions and be given a real opportunity to establish himself as a commercial success. His name is Hellvelyn, and the achievements of his progeny that have come from relatively small crops sired off a nomination fee of just £2,500 have been catching more than a few eyes of late.

Hellvelyn is by Ishiguru, who is an interesting case himself. A son of Danzig that cost $1.15 million as a yearling, he proved to be a high-class sprinter for Aidan O'Brien, winning a Group 3 over five furlongs as a 3-year-old prior to starting off his stallion career at Tweenhills Farm for a fee of £3,500. Despite the low starting point, he made a solid start with his first crop that led to a rise in his fee to £4,500, but just as his momentum was starting to build, he had to be put down at the age of 11 in 2009 due to complications arising from a knee injury. However, it looks as though his only sire son, Hellvelyn, might just be about to belatedly fulfil the promise shown by his father.

Hellvelyn was a standout as a yearling, realising 100,000gns at Doncaster in 2005, which made him by far the most expensive yearling ever sired by Ishiguru. However, he didn't waste any time in showing himself to be a bargain, proving to be a high-class 2-year-old in winning the Coventry S. at Royal Ascot and finishing second to Holy Roman Emperor in the Phoenix S. at The Curragh.

Having missed the spring of his 3-year-old season due to minor setbacks, he was kept to sprinting and showed himself to be better than ever by putting up a fine performance to beat the older sprinters in a listed race at Beverley. At the end of that season, he was moved to the care of Kiaran McLaughlin in America and while he won out there, he never recaptured the same level of form.

Thus, when he retired to stud at Bucklands Farm & Stud in 2011 as a 7-year-old that hadn't run in England in the better part of four years, it was with more of a whimper than a roar of expectation. Standing at a nomination fee of £2,500, as the following statistics show he attracted a solid level of support in his first three seasons, averaging in the region of 50 live foals from those seasons. While they didn't set the sale ring alight as yearlings, they certainly outperformed the expectations set by their sale results on the racecourse.

Every sire, no matter how high or low their profile, needs a star performer in the early part of their career to bring them to widespread attention. Such a performer can obviously be harder to come by for a sire that hasn't had the benefit of being visited by high quantities of quality mares, but Hellvelyn duly produced one last year in the shape of La Rioja.

Trained by Henry Candy, she won a maiden at Newbury prior to bolting up in the Group 3 Dick Poole Fillies' S. at Salisbury. She confirmed she has retained her ability as a 3-year-old this season by finishing fourth in the G1 Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot, and looks to have more good days ahead of her.

As an aside, La Rioja was a wholly appropriate star performer for her sire, as like Hellvelyn himself, she was the most expensive yearling ever produced by her sire, realising 50,000gns at Tattersalls. Even more appropriate is that it was David Redvers that bought her on behalf of Qatar Racing Limited, as it was Redvers that stood Ishiguru at Tweenhills Farm.

As good a flag bearer as La Rioja has been, what has perhaps been most impressive about Hellvelyn's performance so far is the number of 2-year-old winners he has sired. From his first three crops which were modest in terms of size and quality of mare, he has sired 18 individual 2-year-old winners. This includes no fewer than six winners from just nine individual runners in 2016, which puts him right up there on the sire of 2-year-olds table with the likes of Acclamation and Dark Angel. When one considers just how low the average and median yearling prices were for his current crop of juveniles, that is a staggering performance.

There is little reason to think that there won't be better to come from his current 2-year-olds either, with the unbeaten Mrs Danvers looking sure to compete in stakes company for Jonathan Portman; the Darren Bunyan-trained Mister Trader surely being better than he showed when sent off favourite for the Windsor Castle S. at Royal Ascot; the Rod Millman-trained Hellofahaste looking capable of better, having finishing second in a listed race at Newmarket on her latest start; and the Sylvester Kirk-trained Springbourne having won by no less than six lengths on his debut at Bath in June.

Unfortunately, Hellvelyn won't have a lot of new blood to run for him in the next couple of seasons, as his 2014 covering season resulted in just 19 live foals and he only covered 15 mares in 2015 and 10 mares in 2016. That said, the future is very bright for him, as the exploits of La Rioja and the exploits of his 2-year-olds thus far this season will surely result in him covering an even higher quantity and quality book of mares in 2017.

Given what he has achieved to date from limited opportunities, the prospect of what Hellvelyn will produce from his future crops is very exciting. He has certainly come up the hard way and he deserves every bit of goodwill that such a path will surely earn him from breeders.