|
56.
Coolmore pays tribute
to Danehill
|
15/05/2003 |
|
DANEHILL’s
tragic demise on Tuesday afternoon can hardly be over-dramatised. Personal loss
aside — and to all at Coolmore who knew and loved the horse, that loss is
considerable— the breeding industry worldwide has also lost a true giant among
breed-shapers.
It is scarcely exaggerating the case to state that, just as the Australian
economy once ‘rode on the sheep’s back’, so the Australian Thoroughbred
industry has over the past decade ridden to global prominence on Danehill’s
back.
Sales results tell the story better than we can. Whether it was Rob McAnulty,
Adrian Nicoll or Demi setting new sales records, John Ferguson buying
Untouchable or Ivan Allan the Savana City colt, whether Sabine Plattner securing
Laisserfaire, the plot remained the same: when the international big guns rolled
into town, it was the Danehill's they had set firmly in their sights.
DANEHILL
It
was race results, of course, that created this monster, let loose with a Golden
Slipper winner from the very first crop (Danzero)… and the second (Flying
Spur)… and the third (Merlene), followed by Catbird and Ha Ha. Speed indeed.
But there was also a Guineas winner in that first crop (Danewin — and you can
chalk him up, morally at least, as a dual Derby winner to boot). There were
Guineas (Flying Spur) and Derby (Nothin’ Leica Dane) winners in the second
crop too, last-named very nearly a 3yo Melbourne Cup winner as well.
Other Guineas and Derby winners include Arena and Blackfriars. And so it
continued, season after season. The G1 winners kept coming, whether 2yo or 3yo,
colt or filly, speedster or stayer. Oaks winners abounded, like Joie Denise and
Asia, like Magical Miss and Danendri, runner-up also in the AJC Derby. Camarena,
indeed, went one better than Danendri in actually winning a Derby, whilst mighty
mare Dane Ripper defeated males and females alike, age no barrier, in
Australia’s heavyweight championship, the MVRC Cox Plate.
On the world stage, too, the Australian-bred Danehills took centre-stage.
Laisserfaire won all five of her starts at G1 level in becoming champion
sprinter of South Africa. Fairy King Prawn was not only horse of the year in
Hong Kong, he is a legend in that territory. Jeune King Prawn was another Hong
Kong hero who has now returned to stud in Australia.
DANEHILL has already been champion sire six times. And champion juvenile sire
six times. He has had 32 Group One winners in Australia alone (among his 49
worldwide) and 108 SWs here (among some 208 worldwide). He has thrice been
Europe’s champion juvenile sire and was in 2001 the Thoroughbred Times’s
world champion sire. Only yesterday morning respected daily EBN ranked Danehill
the world’s number one sire, ahead of his Coolmore compatriot Sadler’s
Wells.
Demi O’Byrne, of course, has been telling anyone who’ll listen for the last
five years that “Danehill is the best sire anywhere in the world.”
That belief gained ground with each passing year, as Danehill’s NH profile
grew. Classic winner followed classic winner as the likes of Desert King, Banks
Hill, Aquarelliste, Landseer, Mozart and others — not forgetting his
masterpiece Rock of Gibraltar — won many of the best races in England,
Ireland, France and America. Only last week in France, sons of Danehill in
Clodovil and Catcher in the Rye took out the quinella in the G1 French 2000
Guineas. With most of his best mares having come only over the past few years,
Danehill stood poised to conquer the world.
DANEHILL’s legacy will continue, however, well beyond this tragic day. He has
some 116 weanlings still in Australia, and 40 or so SH foals in- utero still to
drop. He is already established as a prepotent sire-of sires — and what price
now his greatest-ever son, superstar Rock of Gibraltar, surely his
heir-apparent?
And for those not quite in that service-fee league, son Danehill Dancer offers a
proven sire of G1 winners (like Choisir and Where or When) in both Australia and
Europe.
Now go out and get into those Danehill mares — any way you can! For if you add
to his pedigree, his inbreeding to Natalma, his physique, race-record and
sire-success the fact that he covered the very best mares in the Stud Book, then
factor in the quality of stallion to which his daughters are being bred, you
will appreciate why he could become one of the greatest broodmare sires we’ve
seen. He is already showing signs of that, Unworldly and Sunday Joy just two
examples (among Gordo, Mr Trickster, Dama de Noche, Subscribe, etc.) at the tip
of a volcano about to erupt.
Coolmore News
|
