Ardad

Overbury Stud has released the fees for its Flat roster, with Ardad (Ire) remaining at £12,500 in 2024 while the fee for Golden Horn (GB) has been increased to £10,000 (from £8,000) on the back of a season in which he was represented by the G2 Queen's Vase winner Gregory (GB) and G2 British Champions Long Distance Cup winner Trawlerman (GB). Golden Horn, who covered 173 mares this spring, stood his first season at Overbury Stud in 2023, having moved from Dalham Hall Stud after his purchase by Jayne McGivern....

NEWMARKET, UK--Trueshan (Fr) (Planteur {Ire}) may have been overturned in Wednesday's G3 Sagaro S. at Ascot, but the five-time group-winning stayer remains a great advertisement of the diversity of horses on offer across the range of breeze-up sales in Europe. We've seen plenty of those dubbed as 'Royal Ascot two-year-olds' over the last week or so, and as the British leg of the breeze-up action comes to a close at Tattersalls on Thursday, the focus generally adjusts slightly to more of a later-maturing specimen. It was at the Guineas Sale...

Top bloodstock agent Richard Brown has done his bit to alleviate any stresses vendors may have been feeling on the eve of the Doncaster Breeze Up Sale by explaining that he will be using a raft of metrics other than just times in an effort to find the next Perfect Power (Ire) (Ardad {Ire}) at this year's sale.  Monday's breeze took place on testing ground, with some two-year-olds handling it better than most, which will all be taken into account by the buying bench, according to Blandford Bloodstock's ace scout. ...

The winds of change have blown through Overbury Stud in the last year. Gone is the stalwart of the British National Hunt ranks, Kaya Tara (GB), who died in retirement in December at the age of 28. Last summer the Gloucestershire farm had welcomed the horse that many will hope could be his replacement, Golden Horn (GB), bought from Anthony Oppenheimer by Jayne McGivern as his burgeoning National Hunt statistics caught many an eye. Then, at the other end of the spectrum, in came Caturra (Ire) last autumn, the first...

It is perhaps at this level of the market that bookings have not yet been finalised for this year's matings. While a number of those named here have since moved up in fee bracket on the back of success with runners and subsequent market response, there is still plenty of value to be found in the hope that stallions coming through could be similarly upwardly mobile. The aim of this exercise has been to show the average profit for stallions at each of four different levels of the market according...

Covering numbers are more an indication of fashion than of success but, this being, as we so often hear, "a numbers game", it is worth having a closer look at the Flat stallions in Britain and Ireland who have been gifted books into three figures this year. We will also be looking in more depth at the French covering numbers in the coming days. According to the statistics recently published by Weatherbys in the annual Return of Mares, there were 62 stallions who covered 100 or more mares in 2022,...

The G2 Flying Childers S. winner Caturra (Ire) (Mehmas {Ire}--Shoshoni Wind {GB}, by Sleeping Indian {GB}) has joined the roster at Overbury Stud in a deal brokered by Richard Brown of Blandford Bloodstock. His opening fee will be £6,500. The 3-year-old will be available for viewing in Newmarket this week from Sunday to Wednesday at Crockfords, opposite the rear entrance of Tattersalls. The arrival of Caturra at the Gloucestershire stud has echoes of Ardad (Ire), the leading first-season sire in Britain in 2021. Both horses were bred by Tally-Ho Stud...

Ardad (GB), the sire of G1 Commonwealth Cup winner Perfect Power (Ire), will head the Overbury Stud roster at an unchanged £12,500 while new recruit Golden Horn (GB) has been set at £8,000.  The brilliant G1 Derby winner and European Horse of the Year in 2015, Golden Horn joined Overbury Stud in July after being sold to new investors from Darley and Anthony Oppenheimer. He will stand alongside 2015 Irish Derby hero Jack Hobbs (GB), whose fee has not been decided upon, and Frontiersman (GB), who will once again stand...

Coolmore's Sioux Nation topped the charts of the busiest Flat stallions in Britain and Ireland in 2022, with 255 mares covered, just head of Tally-Ho Stud's new recruit Starman (GB) on 254.  Weatherbys' recently published Return of Mares shows that Starman's stable-mate Mehmas (Ire) was sent 249 mares, the same number as Coolmore resident Wootton Bassett (GB), while the most active sire in Britain was Overbury Stud's Ardad (Ire), who covered 205. The only other British-based stallion in the top ten on numbers was the champion sire Frankel (GB), who...

Treble Group 1-winning sprinter Perfect Power (Ire) (Ardad {Ire}--Sagely {Ire}, by Frozen Power {Ire}) has been retired to stand at Darley's Dalham Hall Stud in Newmarket for 2023. Trained by Richard Fahey for Sheikh Rashid bin Dalmook Al Maktoum, the son of Britain's leading first-season sire of 2021, Ardad (Ire), first signalled his talent on the big stage when winning the G2 Norfolk S. at Royal Ascot just eight days after breaking his maiden. A glorious juvenile campaign saw him go on to win the G1 Darley Prix Morny at...

Even at this early stage of the season, we can be forgiven for mentally fast-forwarding to the first weekend of June at Epsom. It is after all the best weekend of the year, featuring the best race of the year.  There are plans afoot in Newmarket - plans being mooted by the Jockey Club, no less - to dig up one of the best turf gallops on the Heath to install a new all-weather racecourse and training facility. At a time when there's concern as to having enough horses to...

It is a question that has long fixated the bloodstock industry: which stallion can be caught as he rises to the top? As we know, those good stallions can be hard to find. Opportunity is naturally a key element to early success, but a stallion still needs to make the most of the chances afforded to him and for every one that lives up to expectations, there will be also be plenty who flop. As often said, horses are a great leveller and with that in mind, there is also...