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Source: ANZ Bloodstock By Trevor Marshallsea
The blend of burgeoning Australian breed-shaper Fastnet Rock (Danehill) and American legend Storm Cat (Storm Bird) has produced another Group winner with Imperialist’s (Churchill) victory in Saturday’s Rough Habit Plate (Gr 3, 2000m) at Doomben.
Bred by Gordon Cunningham of New Zealand’s Curraghmore Stud and Arkle Bloodstock’s Demi O’Byrne, the gelding was bought for $170,000 by Chris Waller and Guy Mulcaster at Karaka 2023.
He already had a black type success to his name before Saturday, having won last year’s The Phoenix (Listed, 1500m) at Eagle Farm, and he’s now among the top market fancies for the Queensland Derby (Gr 1, 2400m) at the same track.
A victory there would bring Churchill (Galileo) a second Australian elite success, after that of Attrition in Caulfield’s Toorak Handicap (Gr 1, 1600m) of 2023.
That would come too late to save Churchill in this country, with the northern hemisphere 11-year-old taken off the Coolmore roster for this year after seven seasons of shuttling.
More power, then, to Cunningham and O’Byrne for producing his son Imperialist, one of Churchill’s five Australian stakes winners from 149 runners.
He came out of a Fastnet Rock mare they bought for just $30,000 via Inglis Online in 2020, who ended up winning three races for Lee Freedman and then his brother Anthony – Dancing Hare.
Freedman had bought her for $400,000 as a yearling, then, after a Bendigo maiden win, Cunningham, O’Byrne and bloodstock agent James Bester bought her as a racing prospect for $90,000 in 2017, at least savouring her last two wins, at Pakenham and Bairnsdale.
But racing performance wasn’t foremost in Cunningham and O’Byrne’s minds when they bought her. Pedigree was.
For starters, Dancing Hare – like Churchill – is from a rich European family. While her mother was unraced, her Listed-placed second dam Solo De Lune (Law Society) was an unqualified star of the breeding barn, spawning a particularly rich family. She had four stakes winners from 12 runners, including two Group 1 victors who threw more stakes winners.
Cerulean Sky (Darshaan) took Longchamp’s Prix Saint-Alary (Gr 1, 2000m) and threw Honolulu (Montjeu), Ireland’s Champion 3YO Stayer of 2007, who was Group 1-placed and claimed the Doncaster Cup (Gr 2, 2m 2f).
And Moonstone (Dalakhani) won the Irish Oaks (Gr 1, 1m 4f) before throwing no fewer than five stakes winners from just seven runners. They included the Group 1-placed US Army Ranger (Galileo) and dual Group 3 victor Nelson (Frankel), who’s now in Australia with Declan Maher and has won thrice over the jumps.
Solo De Lune also bore Listed winner L’Ancresse (Darshaan), who was the top filly on the 2003 International 3YO Classification, and left another three stakes winners. These included the Group 1-placed Master Of Reality (Frankel), known to Australians for crossing the line second in the 2019 Melbourne Cup (Gr 1, 3200m) before dropping to fourth on protest.
Aside from those mares, Solo De Lune’s lesser lights on the track have become stars of the breeding scene.
Claire De Lune (Galileo), who ran a Listed third, is the dam of US Grade 1-winning mare Full Count Felicia (War Front), who recently had her Australian debut after being bought by Yulong when running fourth of six in the Ranvet Stakes (Gr 1, 2000m).
French maiden winner Bright Halo (Bigstone) left one stakes winner but also the unraced Las Brisas (Shamradal), the dam of Australian dual Group 1 hero Ceolwulf (Tavistock).
And the unraced Danoise (Danehill) became the grandam of Wellington (All Too Hard) – Hong Kong’s triple Group 1-winning Champion Sprinter of 2021-22.
Further back, Imperialist’s fifth dam was the outstanding Arctique Royale (Royal And Regal), who won the Irish 1,000 Guineas (Gr 1, 1m) and took out the Moyglare Stud Stakes (Gr 2, 7f) and was second in the Pretty Polly Stakes (Gr 2, 1m 2f) before both were upgraded from Group 2 to Group 1 status.
All of these credentials lit up the Irish eyes of Cunningham, even though he wasn’t in his home country to see them, having long ago moved to New Zealand, where he established Curraghmore in 1994.
“Dancing Hare hails from an exceptional European family,” Cunningham told It’s In The Blood. “Solo De Lune was a very good producer, and it’s just a very deep family of high class, and you’ve even got Ceolwulf in there now too.”
But while Churchill hasn’t set the world on fire as a sire, there was much in the twinning of pedigrees between he and Dancing Hare that enticed Cunningham and O’Byrne.
For one thing, it gives Imperialist a 3m x 3f duplication of the great sire Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer) – the gelding’s third sire, and father of his unraced second dam, Global Dance.
The duplication has been seen to its best effect in champion European mare Enable (Nathaniel), winner of 11 Group 1s, who had Sadler’s Wells at 3m x 2f.
“It seems like it’s not necessarily a negative at least, to have Sadler’s Wells duplicated,” Cunningham said.
But what most excited Cunningham was that putting Dancing Hare to Churchill would bring together her dam Fastnet Rock with Storm Cat – the sire of Churchill’s dam Meow.
The combination has been kicking major goals, in various quarters of pedigrees.
Directly, Fastnet Rock over Storm Cat mares has yielded six winners from ten runners.
But with Storm Cat, a 1983 throw, more likely found deeper in modern pedigrees, other variants make compelling reading.
Fastnet Rock over mares by Storm Cat’s grandson Shamardal (Giant’s Causeway) has produced seven winners from nine runners – including two stakes winners at 22 per cent of runners.
Fastnet Rock over Shamardal’s son Lope De Vega has one winner from one runner, but in reverse, Lope De Vega over Fastnet Rock has a thumping five stakes winners from 21 runners, at 23 per cent. That’s Lope De Vega’s highest stakes winners to runners ratio, for 13 or more runners.
There are only two horses by Shamardal over Fastnet Rock mares, but they’re both winners and one is a stakes victor in Swing Vote, who won a Dubai Group 3 last year.
In Australasia, the best example of mixing Storm Cat with Fastnet Rock is five-time Group 1-winning sprinter Santa Ana Lane (Lope De Vega). He has Storm Cat as his fourth sire and is out of a Fastnet Rock mare.
Fastnet Rock has also performed well over mares by another son of Storm Cat in Hennessy, with 20 winners from 24 runners at three stakes winners at 12 per cent.
What’s behind the success? It would appear Crimson Saint (Crimson Satan) has a lot to do with it.
Born in 1969, she won seven of 11 in the US, including a Grade 3 and three Listed contests. She became a superior broodmare, leaving four stakes winners and two more stakes-placed.
Crimson Saint’s best effort at stud was the highly influential Royal Academy (Nikinsky), who won four of his seven starts including Newmarket’s July Cup (Gr 1, 6f) and the Breeders’ Cup Mile (Gr 1, 8f) at Belmont, while running second in two more Group 1s.
Royal Academy also of course went on to become highly influential in the breeding world, siring 23 elite winners including – for Australian consumption – Bel Esprit, sire of Black Caviar among others.
Crimson Saint also threw the outstanding mare Terlingua (Secretariat), winner of seven races – all at stakes level up to Grade 2 – from 17 starts, and placed twice at the top tier. She ranks 17th among the progeny from the patchy stud career of the great racehorse Secretariat (Bold Ruler).
Royal Academy is Fastnet Rock’s damsire, via the more than handy Piccadilly Circus, whose two wins came at Group 3 and Listed level.
And Terlingua threw two stakes winners headed by Storm Cat. Since he’s Churchill’s damsire, this gives Imperialist a gender-balanced 5f x 5f duplication of Crimson Saint, just as all horses with Storm Cat and Fastnet Rock in either half will have a double-up of that mare.
Waller and Mulcaster appear fans of the blend, having also enjoyed success with Super Chilled, a daughter of Churchill from a Fastnet Rock mare who they also bought from a Curraghmore Karaka draft, who’s won five races, three in metro class, and been Listed placed.
“We went to Churchill primarily because he was a high class European horse, and he was a good physical match for Dancing Hare, since they were both good sized horses” Cunningham said.
“But we also felt there was a definite synergy in the pedigree, regarding daughters of Fastnet Rock and Storm Cat.
“Fastnet Rock has also worked well with Hennessy, and other sons of Storm Cat.”
Cunningham believes the blend of Storm Cat and Fastnet Rock – who’s about to go back-to-back for his second Australian broodmare sires’ title – just might be a key reason for Imperialist’s ability, even if the veteran breeder has learned not to put his house on it.
“Doubling up Crimson Saint certainly doesn’t do any harm, and there are also plenty of good horses by Fastnet Rock out of a line of Storm Cat,” he said.
“But it’s more casual observation than confidence. You know in breeding – the more we know, the less we know.”