At Tattersalls on Wednesday, MV Magnier confirmed that Delacroix will retire to Coolmore Stud for the 2026 breeding season.
The winner of the G1 Coral-Eclipse Stakes and G1 Royal Bahrain Irish Champion Stakes, Delacroix is set to appear first on Qipco British Champions Day where he holds entries for the G1 Champion Stakes and G1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.
The three-year-old son of Dubawi and the brilliant racemare Tepin is the winner of six of his 11 races and he was beaten just a nose when second last year in the G1 Futurity Stakes. Along with his two Group 1 victories this season, Delacroix won two Group 3 Classic trials at Leopardstown in the spring and was also runner-up to Ombudsman in the G1 Juddmonte International at York. That pair could clash again in the Champion Stakes.
The Coolmore team added another son of Dubawi to its string for next year when buying the second offspring of the G1 Nassau Stakes winner Lady Bowthorpe (Nathaniel) from breeder Emma Banks at Tattersalls. The chestnut colt was sold for 1,300,000gns from the draft of Fittocks Stud.
Magnier said of the yearling colt, “He's a lovely horse and Lady Bowthorpe was a very good race filly, as we all know. It's a great result for Emma Banks. She's a very nice lady and well done to her.”
He added, “Dubawi is still going very well and we are going to retire Delacroix this year. Delacroix is probably one of the most important horses we have retired in Ireland in a good while. He has everything: race record, pedigree, and he's a complete outcross, so we can really get behind him.”
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