Cloth Of Stars

The curtain came up at Longchamp on Sunday, with the 'réouverture' being conducted in extremely testing conditions but nevertheless providing a welcome return to action at France's premier racecourse. The most important thing on arrival in the Bois de Boulogne is to make it into the track without being mown down by one or more of the cyclists within the relentless peloton that streams past the gates of Longchamp of a weekend. Everything after that feels like a blessing.  And indeed we were blessed with an almost dry and definitely...

The mighty Sea The Stars (Ire) seems to have had more sons retired to the National Hunt stallion division than to the Flat, and he is of course represented by some notable new recruits to the stallion ranks this year in Britain in two of his most celebrated sons, Baaeed (GB) and Stradivarius (GB). Another son, Crystal Ocean (GB), topped the charts for the number of mares covered in Britain and Ireland in 2022, though of those 338 he of course covered predominantly jump mares at the Beeches Stud in...

Cloth Of Stars (Ire), twice placed in the G1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe and a winner at the highest level when landing the Prix Ganay, enjoyed a breakthrough winner as a stallion on Monday with Kenmaya (Fr) scoring at Vichy. Trained by Christophe Escuder, Kenmaya bagged the opening juvenile claimer over six furlongs by a short head. She was ridden by Cristian Demuro and was getting off the mark at the second attempt. Kenmaya is just the fourth individual runner Cloth Of Stars, who stands for €7,000 at Haras...

The mantra of breeding the best to the best can really only be followed by those with access to mares classy enough to be courted by the world's elite stallions. And if you're fortunate enough to be in that bracket, then sending your Oaks winner to a Derby winner could be deemed an obvious place to start.  We lost the most influential Derby winner of the modern era almost a year ago but it will be a while before Galileo (Ire) retreats too far back in pedigrees. In his first...