Montjeu

Since the publication of Patrick Cooper's letter suggesting that the Irish Derby should be shortened in distance we have had a predictably mixed response in correspondence on the subject. You can find Cooper's letter in full here. In essence, it highlights the fortunes of two Frankel colts, the Irish Derby and Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud winner and Arc runner-up Westover and the Dewhurst and 2,000 Guineas winner Chaldean, both of whom raced for Juddmonte. The latter is now a Juddmonte stallion at Banstead Manor Stud, while Westover is about to...

Observations on the European Racing Scene turns the spotlight on the best European races of the day, highlighting well-pedigreed horses early in their careers, horses of note returning to action and young runners that achieved notable results in the sales ring. Monday's Insights features Lord of Love, the son of G1 Prix de Diane victrix Star of Seville (GB). 15.00 Kempton, £20,000, Mdn, 2yo, 8f (AWT) Lady Bamford's homebred LORD OF LOVE (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) is a son of G1 Prix de Diane victrix Star Of Seville (GB) (Duke Of...

Walzertakt (Ger) (Montjeu {Ire}), winner of the 2015 G2 Prix Maurice de Nieuil and G3 Prix Gladiateur for Gestut Aesculap and trainer Jean-Pierre Carvalho, moves to Chapel Stud to stand as a National Hunt sire in 2022 after four seasons at Haras de la Croix Sonnet in France. Chapel Stud Director Roisin Close said, "Walzertakt is a big, strong, good-looking horse, a very typical stamp of his sire Montjeu. His pedigree is rapidly turning into a German masterclass of breeding, full of champions and Group 1 winners of the highest...

The setting of new sire records in the modern era tends more than not to be a direct consequence of ever-greater book sizes. But they must still be acknowledged as legitimate breeding benchmarks as they will inevitably feature some outstanding performances. Just look at Mehmas (Ire)'s tally of first-crop 2-year-old winners this term. Currently on 56 winners, he is already 17 clear of Iffraaj's old record and in normal circumstances we might be entitled to expect his record to stand for many years. It may well do, but his strike...

The advent of Twitter over the last decade or so has made racing results quickly accessible to fans and observers anywhere in the world, so much so that it seems that a greater number of people in the U.S. are more familiar with European racing than ever before. Back when I was a kid, we'd have to wait for the Blood-Horse magazine to arrive in the mail to scan the 10-day old European results in the agate type in the back pages. Now, we get a video of a race...

John Magnier's Irish-based Coolmore is dominating Britain. That's not hyperbole, either. How's this for an illustration? The Irish entity, which generally campaigns its runners under the various partnership colors of Susan Magnier, Michael Tabor, and Derrick Smith, has won an astonishing 25 of the past 49 British Classics over the last decade (see the accompanying charts of the five races), with the G1 St. Leger at Doncaster yet to be contested. And it's possible that the partners could win that race, perhaps with Love (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), who followed up...

And still the arrow holds its course: that perfect blaze, tapered down from the fletching between his eyes until opening into the neatly pointed tip above his nostrils. His whole life has seemed to obey the inexorable momentum implied in that warpaint. Ever onwards, ever upwards. Sure enough, with perhaps the most telling of all his records secured outright by his daughter Peaceful (Ire) in the G1 Tattersalls Irish 1,000 Guineas on Saturday, Galileo (Ire) maintains his unwavering trajectory even into the evening of his career. With another spring of...

There are few areas in which any stallion can topple Galileo (Ire). It was only last year, however, that the champion sire drew level with his erstwhile stud-mate Montjeu (Ire) by number of Derby winners. The two sons of Sadler's Wells now have four apiece—and one Derby-winning paternal grandson each—but Montjeu was much quicker off the mark in this field and, following his death in 2012, he has not been represented by Classic-generation runners at Epsom in the last three years. As the Cheltenham Festival begins its four-day run today,...