WEDNESDAY, 10 FEBRUARY 2016 GOFFS FEBRUARY STARTS WEDNESDAY QUEEN’S FAMILY REIGNS The early-year mixed sales circuit moves to Ireland Wednesday SUPREME FOR ELSWORTH for Goffs’s February Sale in Co. Kildare, and the two-day auction will see a full session of short yearlings offered on day one. Breeding stock and horses in and out of training will go under the hammer Thursday. Some of the highlight pages of the yearlings bred for the flat are lot 78, a Raven’s Pass half-brother to Group 3 winner Dingle View (Ire) (Mujadil); lot 90, an Equiano (Fr) half-brother to a Group 3 winner and a stakes producer; lot 144, a Dutch Art (GB) colt who is the first foal out of a half-sister to Grade I winner Relaxed Gesture (Ire) (Indian Ridge {GB}); lot 151, a Kodiac colt who is the first foal out of the Group 3-placed Slope (GB) (Acclamation {GB}); lot 160, a Camelot (GB) half- sister to five winners, including two stakes winners; lot 168, a Dark Angel (Ire) half-sister to Italian champion 2-year-old filly Singapore Lily (Ire) (Mujadil); and lot 189, a full-brother to the stakes-placed Coolnagree (Ire) (Dark Angel {Ire}). Cont. p3 Arabian Queen, left, and half-sister Australian Queen | Emma Berry By Emma Berry When the famously irascible David Elsworth stalks down the drive to greet you with the words, "I'm at war," the safe BILL OPPENHEIM: THE AGE ANGLE assumption to make is that today is not a good day to start In the final of our series mining the year-end 2015 APEX data asking him annoying questions. (covering seven years of racing, 2009-2015), Oppenheim It therefore comes with great relief to discover that the subject takes a look at the age indexes. of his ire this dank February morning is not the arrival of a TDN Click or tap here to go straight to TDN America. correspondent but a throng of screeching jackdaws circling the ramparts of his private fiefdom at Egerton House Stables. The main yard at Egerton, with its original ornate 19th Century tiling in each well-maintained stable, looks fit for a king, and indeed it once was in the days when it was inhabited by royal trainer Richard Marsh and his string, which included the Prince of Wales's homebred Derby winner Persimmon. Nowadays, the King's Yard is home to not one but two queens--Golden Horn's G1 Juddmonte International. conqueror Arabian Queen (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) and her year-younger half-sister Australian Queen (GB) (Fastnet Rock {Aus}). Bred by Elsworth's long-term patron Jeff Smith at his Hampshire-based Littleton Stud, the siblings are stabled alongside each other, alert ears pricked from pure bays heads while two pairs of intelligent, kind eyes survey their visitor. That, however, is where the similarity ends. Australian Queen's head is almost twice as long as that of her high-achieving sister and she stands at least a hand taller. Cont. p2 TDN EUROPE/INTERNATIONAL • PAGE 2 of 5 • THETDN.COM WEDNESDAY, 10 FEBRUARY 2016 Queen’s Family Reigns Supreme For Elsworth cont. from p1 run." It's fair to say that without being furnished with the details of Whether or not she tackles a mile and a half again later in the Arabian Queen's pedigree and race record, many probably year, Arabian Queen's early-season target could be the G1 Al wouldn't give her a second glance, though it would take a brave Shaqab Lockinge S. over a mile at Newbury in May. man to say it within earshot of her devoted trainer. Her trainer offers, "We're toying with the idea of starting off in Elsworth's mind is the Lockinge. There is a race in France but I don't really want to easily switched from take her there after last time. She's bouncing at the moment. I plotting ways to couldn't feed her high-protein grub at this time of the year as murder his resident she'd be unrideable. She bounces round the trotting ring and murder of crows by hacks down the canter and she's really doing very well. I can't casting it back to a wait to start to step her work up a bit but she's right where I glorious day on York's want her at the moment." Knavesmire last The twice-raced Australian Queen, who was runner-up in a David Elsworth and summer. seven-furlong maiden at Kempton last month, may be seen back Arabian Queen | Emma Berry "I'm competitive and in action as soon as Saturday at Lingfield. I'm fiercely protective of my horses," he confesses, the "She didn't show us dismissive comments regarding his diminutive filly following her the same precocity 50-1 defeat of the Derby winner still clearly rankling some six as Arabian Queen so months on. we sat on her until "We went there knowing what a good horse we had. I'm not she started to show saying I expected her to beat Golden Horn but I knew she'd beat something. I think plenty of them." she'll be a better The 76-year-old is fully entitled to feel protective of a member 4-year-old but I'll be of a family which he has come to know as well as his own surprised and through three generations. Arabian Queen's grandam Dashiba disappointed if she (GB) (Dashing Blade {GB}) was a dual winner and twice doesn't show a good listed-placed during the trainer's days at Whitsbury, while dam level of form this Arabian Queen | Emma Berry Barshiba (Ire) (Barathea {Ire}) joined the ranks shortly after season," says Elsworth's move to the edge of Newmarket and quickly became Elsworth. one of the stars of the new stable. With no 2-year-old from Barshiba, the trainer already has his "I've been fortunate enough to have those two fillies and now eye on Arabian Queen's yearling full-sister. He says, "Jeff usually this generation," he says. invites us to the stud to show us the yearlings and there's a "Barshiba only had one eye and she won the Lancashire Oaks smashing filly coming though. When I saw her at the farm I put a twice. It took the trainer a long time to identify her best tag round her neck saying, 'Elsworth, Egerton'." distance. She had stamina in her pedigree but she showed Though forever most readily associated with two of Britain's plenty of ability over a mile and was placed in group races at the most beloved geldings of the modern era--the outstanding distance behind good horses." steeplechaser Desert Orchid (GB) and Jeff Smith's warrior of a That coveted blend of speed and stamina has been passed on stayer, Persian Punch (GB)--Elsworth has long had a golden to her first foal, Arabian Queen, who was sharp enough to win touch with classy fillies, too. over five furlongs as a May 2-year-old on just her second start The multiple Group 1 winner In The Groove (GB) (Night Shift) and later that season claimed the six-furlong G2 Duchess of and G1 Cheveley Park S. winner Dead Certain (GB) (Absalom Cambridge S. {GB}) are just two examples of his talent in this regard and, as "Though she won over five and she was fast enough to be with many of the stable's incumbents, their bloodlines live on in beaten narrowly in the Queen Mary, she also stays, and that's current members of the string. Stand next to most trainers on what we want with every good horse," says Elsworth. "I'm not the gallops when a batch of unnamed youngsters canters past sure about a mile and a half but she certainly gets a mile and a and they'll reel off each one by name of their sire. Not so with quarter. She didn't do and wouldn't drink any water when we Elsworth, from whose lips detailed three-generation pedigrees took her away to France to run against Treve (Fr) in the Prix are uttered frequently. Vermeille so I don't think we can blame the distance for her Cont. p3 TDN EUROPE/INTERNATIONAL • PAGE 3 of 5 • THETDN.COM WEDNESDAY, 10 FEBRUARY 2016 "I like this filly, she's from In The Groove's family--I also trained Goffs February Starts Wednesday cont. from p1 her dam's half-sister Passified (GB)," he says of the Bahamian The sale lost its likely leading light last week when Mauresmo Bounty 2-year-old whose great grandam Pineapple (GB) was In (Ire) (Marju {Ire}), the dam of last year’s G1 Racing Post Trophy The Groove's half-sister. Then there's Justice Well (GB), a great winner Marcel (Ire) (Lawman {Fr}), was scratched after showing grand-daughter of Dead Certain. The racing career of her signs of foaling his full-sibling, and her sale will be handled grandam Dodo (Ire) (Alzao) was also overseen by Elsworth. privately by Goffs. The catalogue is not without other standouts "I tend to follow my nose when it comes to buying horses," he in the breeding stock section, however, and those include lot explains. "I like looking at the pedigrees ahead of the sales and 335, a winning Street Cry (Ire) filly out of Grade I winner Film then if I like the individual I instinctively tend to go back to a Maker (Dynaformer); lot 355, a winning full-sister to Street Cry family I know.