Danehill Part 9: A legacy of speed, soundness and equable temperament

Cover image courtesy of Sportpix

Yet can there be too much of a good thing? We’re now at the stage where the Australian Thoroughbred population is flooded with Danehill (USA), so much so that the tagline ‘free of Danehill blood’ has become a go-to advertising tool for some stallion masters.

Currently, there are 25,217 named foals worldwide inbred to Danehill, a phenomenal figure considering the horse himself belongs to a relatively recent era. Of those, at the time of writing 18,928 have run and 10,460 (55.3 per cent) have won. Among the 549 stakes winners are 61 at the top level including several current heavy-hitters in Bluestocking (GB) (Camelot {GB}), Griff (Trapeze Artist), Los Angeles (IRE) (Camelot {GB}), Luxembourg (Ire) (Camelot {GB}), Ozzmosis (Zoustar), Puchkine (FR) (Starspangledbanner), Vandeek (GB) (Havana Grey {GB}) and Vibrant Sun (The Autumn Sun). That’s to go with a list of earlier highlights such as Alizee (Sepoy), Bivouac, Campanelle (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}), Fireburn (Rebel Dane), Subjectivist (GB), Sunlight (Zoustar), Verry Elleegant (NZ) (Zed {NZ}) and Zougotcha.

Indeed, in keeping with Danehill’s reputation as an influence for 2-year-old speed, three winners of the G1 Golden Slipper S. (Farnan, Fireburn and Stay Inside) are inbred to the horse as are five winners of the G1 Champagne S. (Captivant, Guelph (Exceed And Excel), Seabrook (Hinchinbrook), She’s Extreme (Extreme Choice) and The Mission).

However, as John Messara alluded to when touching upon Arrowfield Stud’s champion sire Snitzel, the overall figures leave something to be desired, notably the stakes winners to runners ratio of 2.9 per cent, which obviously drops to 2.2 per cent when compared against named foals.

“It’s been difficult for Danehill-line stallions operating in Australia, which is laden with Danehill genetics,” said Messarra. “We generally try to avoid Danehill inbreeding, because the overall figures remain poor in what is now a large sample size.”

Rather like Sunday Silence (USA) in Japan, Danehill has become so ubiquitous in Australasia that it’s not always straightforward for breeders to find options without his influence. Of the 420 or so stallions advertised at stud in Australia and New Zealand, by my reckoning there are almost 250 who contain Danehill in some shape or form in their background, around 150 of them as members of his sire line.

The list includes five of last season’s top 10 Australian sires in Zoustar (out of a Redoute’s Choice mare), Pride Of Dubai (out of a Danehill mare), Snitzel (son of Redoute’s Choice), Capitalist (second dam by Danehill) and All Too Hard (by Casino Prince). In New Zealand, the top 10 includes Proisir (son of Choisir), El Roca (by Fastnet Rock), Belardo (out of a Danehill mare), Zacinto (by Dansili) and Burgundy (by Redoute’s Choice).

Of course, Danehill has never been far from the sires’ championship since he landed the last of his nine titles in 2004-05. Since then, it has fallen to sons Redoute’s Choice, Flying Spur, Exceed And Excel and Fastnet Rock, and then more recently to his grandson Snitzel, whose dominance stretched from 2016-17 to 2019-20. Another son, Darley’s Commands, was the leading sire by number of winners for three consecutive seasons from 2009-10.

Fastnet Rock has also been crowned the season’s champion broodmare sire with an almighty total of around $37 million; Redoute’s Choice, Exceed And Excel, Snitzel and Flying Spur also sit within the top 10.

Looking ahead, we’re also at the point where some of the more popular stallions are also inbred to Danehill - Bivouac, Farnan, Stay Inside and Zougtocha being cases in point.

In Europe, Danehill’s influence unsurprisingly remains significant. However, he has long come up against greater competition from the line belonging to fellow Danzig (USA) speedster Green Desert (USA), who stood in Britain with great success for the Maktoum family. Between them, these two lines continue to drive a share of the commercial market in Britain and Ireland.

In the case of Danehill, he continues to exert a direct influence on the 2-year-old scene through Kodiac (GB), who rose from an initial level of €5000 (AU$8400) to become a record-breaking sire of juveniles for Tally-Ho Stud in Ireland. The typical Kodiac is a fast, butty type that comes to hand early, all characteristics that also sit behind his successful sire sons, a growing collection that currently includes Ardad (GB), Coulsty (GB), Hello Youmzain (Ire) and Kodi Bear (Ire). The latter was to the fore at Royal Ascot this year as the sire of G2 Queen Mary S. heroine Leovanni (IRE), herself inbred 3x4 to Danehill.

The late Dandy Man, one of the highlights of Mozart’s (IRE) sole crop, is also a regular fixture among the leading 2yo sires in Britain and Ireland.

Coolmore’s Holy Roman Emperor (Ire) and Kodiac today remain the only sons of Danehill in service in Europe. But that’s not to say that Danehill is ever far away; like Australia, his name is prevalent among the 155 flat and dual-purpose stallions advertised in Britain and Ireland, featuring in the background of 60 of them, 29 of them via his sire line.

“That versatility was incredible,” says Roger Charlton, who was assistant to Jeremy Tree when Danehill was trained at Beckhampton. “Yes he had a good pedigree. Yes he won a Group 1. But he wasn’t exactly Frankel. He was consistent at a high level once the light turned on. He just wanted to be a fast horse, having been a sleepy one to begin with.

“But what he did at stud was remarkable really.”

Scott Walker, yearling manager of Juddmonte Farms in Kentucky who helped oversee Danehill’s formative months as a young horse, is in agreement.

“He was highly thought of as a young horse,” he recalls of the then-yearling rated by the team as third best that year in a crop of 21. “And we knew there was ability. But we certainly didn’t know that he would turn out to be the stallion that he came to be.

“But that’s breeding, you never know. When you look back and analyse what he did, it was truly remarkable.”

Tree’s role alongside Humphrey Cottrill and James Delahooke in laying the foundations for Juddmonte as it is today cannot be underestimated. Danehill’s 3-year-old campaign was Tree’s last season at the helm of Beckhampton and he died in early 1993 before the horse had had any runners.

Charlton recalls Tree ‘begging and encouraging Prince Khalid not to sell’ Danehill as the £4 million (AU$6.7 million) offer came in. “Jeremy said to him ‘Danehill is exactly the type of horse that your mares want’,” says Charlton. “And Prince Khalid said ‘well we’ll breed another one’.”

As it turned out, both men were right to differing degrees. Dam Razyana (USA) (His Majesty {USA}) was understandably married to Claiborne farm’s Danzig for much of her subsequent stud career and went on to foal Eagle Eyed (USA), a Group 3 performer in France who won the G2 Arlington Classic in the US, and Shibboleth (USA), a G3 winner in the UK and US. Like Danehill, Shibboleth just about stretched to a mile, over which he ran a close fourth to Giant’s Causeway (USA) in the 2000 G1 St James’s Palace S. on his third start for Sir Henry Cecil, but was ultimately best over shorter.

Eagle Eyed later stood for Coolmore, where he appealed to commercial breeders as an affordable alternative to Danehill, but was average at best and swiftly moved on to Turkey.

Sadly, it’s a case of what might have been with Shibboleth. Due to be the son of Razyana to stand under Juddmonte’s umbrella at Banstead Manor Stud, he died after contracting laminitis in November 2002 not long after arriving in Newmarket.

There’s no doubt that Tree would have taken great pride in how the Danehill story turned out, just as James Delahooke did over the fact that Razyana was initially acquired for US$350,000 (AU$537,600) as a yearling despite hailing from the same family Northern Dancer (USA).

“I said to the Prince that somebody will probably have a million for Razyana,” Delahooke recalled once in an interview with the Racing Post. “They must have been asleep, mustn't they? How can you not buy that page?”

“It’s a great legacy,” says Charlton. “There was an understanding and respective relationship between the Prince and Jeremy, the Prince being a shy man and quite new to racing when Jeremy started with him. And when Mr Whitney died, a lot of the Whitney horses - those good fillies like Peace, Intermission and Rockfest - ended up at Juddmonte through that close relationship with Beckhampton.

“With Danehill, it’s a worldwide success that keeps multiplying. Horses like him don’t come around very often. It has been very special to watch.”

For Peter O’Brien, one of the people who came to know Danehill best during his years working with Coolmore, it was the horse’s temperament that helped set him apart.

“In my lifetime with horses, he’s the one I loved the most,” he says. “You could lead him on a bit of string. Anyone could have led that horse or looked after him.

“If he heard you getting a bridle before a covering session, you’d hear him whinny and he’d be stuck up against the rail of the stall with one eye peeking out going ‘is it me?, is it me?’.

“Fastnet Rock was the same, always the most laid back horse just like his dad. After he’d been broken in at Paul Perry’s, he came back to the farm and he was actually in a paddock by my house. I remember we put a gelding in with him to keep company and the gelding was in charge. He’s a lovely, quiet, soft animal.

“All of the Danehills had beautiful, lovely temperaments. When they first came in for training, it would all still be a bit of fun for them but for second prep, you could see the light go on and they’d be like we need to run fast now.

“Truly in my lifetime, I haven’t seen or worked with a horse like Danehill. From a stallion perspective, he was perfect.”

Danehill’s collection of 84 G1 winners stood as a record until it was surpassed in late 2019 by Galileo (Ire). His tally of 347 stakes winners has also been broken by that fellow Coolmore supersire yet it still naturally places him in rarefied air, especially as it equates to a 14 per cent black-type winners to foals of racing age strike-rate. And of course, had he not died aged 17, just as he had secured true international appreciation, then his legacy would be even more far-reaching that it is today.

“On a personal level, I feel privileged that Arrowfield will always be a key part of Danehill’s story, and especially the introduction of his bloodline to Australia,” says John Messarra. “And I am grateful for everything he gave us and continues to give us, notably through his sire sons and grandsons, but also many great racing moments and achievements.

“In saying this, I wish to make it clear that it is not just me; we have always had a wonderful team of people at Arrowfield and they all share responsibility for any success that we achieve.

“And, by the way, the Danehill story is far from finished yet!”