Two recent announcements from Darley have underlined the growing importance of Sheikh Mohammed’s Australian division.

The most surprising development was the news that Lonhro, a champion on the track and at stud in Australia, will be standing the 2012 northern hemisphere season alongside the likes of Street Cry, Bernardini and Medaglia d’Oro at Darley’s Kentucky branch. This move has been prompted by Lonhro’s rapid rise through the ranks since his first runners raced in the second half of 2007.

After finishing third on the general sires’ list in 2009/2010, he became champion sire in 2010/2011, when he finished comfortably clear of a pack which included the former champions Redoute’s Choice and Encosta de Lago. His accomplishments included a total of 14 stakes winners in Australia, with a pair of Group 1 winners heading his squad of six Group winners.

Although Lonhro’s initial results had led to his fee falling to AUS$33,000 in 2009, it quickly rebounded, to $88,000 in 2010 and $77,000 this year. His American fee has been pitched considerably lower, at US$30,000, no doubt in a move to encourage American breeders to take a step into the unknown.

Lonhro’s marketing in the States has focused on his toughness and soundness, at a time when the average number of starts by American horses has fallen to an all-time low of 6.11 (compared to 11.31 in 1960 and 8.03 as recently as 1992). Lonhro raced a total of 35 times in four seasons and racked up a highly impressive total of 26 victories, 25 of them at stakes level. He also displayed much of the versatility we’ve come to expect of Australia’s top performers. Although five of his Group 1 successes came over a mile and a quarter, he was fast enough to win Group races over five and a half furlongs at the ages of two and four.

Lonhro’s marketing in the States has focused on his toughness and soundness, at a time when the average number of starts by American horses has fallen to an all-time low of 6.11

He landed Horse of the Year honours, as did his similarly tough sire Octagonal, but he didn’t stay quite as far as the very versatile Octagonal, who numbered the AJC Australian Derby among his victories over a mile and a half. Incidentally, Octagonal was one of the first Australian stallions to be shuttled to Europe. He stood four seasons at Haras du Quesnay, siring more than 190 foals, but sired only one Group scorer in Laverock, winner of the Prix d’Ispahan and Gran Premio del Jockey Club.

It will be fascinating to see how well American breeders take to Lonhro. Darby Dan, a farm which owes a great deal to the Roberto line, imported Red Ransom’s Group 1-winning Australian son All American to stand the 2011 season in Kentucky but he attracted only 47 mares. Lonhro, of course, has a much higher profile and also has the might of the Darley operation behind him. We can expect to see some of Lonhro’s progeny running for Godolphin in Europe in 2015, which should be very interesting.

Two of Darley’s other Australian stars are heading to Europe, via the Dubai Carnival, to carry the Godolphin colours in 2012. Both are sons of Darley stallions which have divided their time between the northern and southern hemispheres, Sepoy being a son of Elusive Quality and Helmet being by Exceed And Excel.

Any news of an imported stallion gets me excited in these days of the shrinking gene pool. Unfortunately, the shuttling of stallions has led to bloodlines becoming homogenized and the only Australian blood in Sepoy’s pedigree comes via his second dam, Canny Miss. Helmet has a British-bred dam and his third dam is Anna Paola, the German Oaks winner who was among Sheikh Mohammed’s early purchases.

I covered one aspect of Sepoy’s pedigree in this column in the April 2011 issue. Since then this hard-to-beat colt has garnered further Group 1 victories in the Golden Slipper Stakes, Manikato Stakes and the Ascot Vale Stakes at the end of October. Sepoy’s eight stakes victories in 2011 have all come over sprint distances, which is pretty much what you might expect from a colt sired by Elusive Quality from a Danehill mare.

Speed was Elusive Quality’s main asset, as he demonstrated in setting a track record over seven furlongs on dirt at Gulfstream Park, plus a world record over a mile on turf at Belmont Park. Sepoy’s dam Watchful ran only twice, over six and seven furlongs at two. Her sister Camarena stayed well for a top-class daughter of Danehill, winning the Group 1 Queensland Derby over a mile and a half, but Camarilla, her daughter by Elusive Quality, shone as a two-year-old sprinter, winning Group races over five and a half furlongs and seven furlongs (the AJC Sires’ Produce Stakes). As Camarilla’s younger brother Induna was a Listed winner over 11 furlongs, perhaps Sepoy will stay beyond six furlongs, given the chance, but his target in Dubai is the Golden Shaheen over six.

Sepoy is a member of the fifth of six Australian crops sired by Elusive Quality between 2003 and 2008. His fee was at its highest in 2007, when Watchful was one of the 173 mares he covered at a fee of AUS$137,500. He sired 475 southern hemisphere foals but only five of them have so far become Group winners in Australia, one being Helmet’s half-brother Bullbars, a Group 3 winner over seven furlongs.

We have become accustomed to some of Danehill’s sons being dominant bays, like Danehill himself, but Helmet’s sire Exceed And Excel isn’t one of them. The free-running Helmet is a chesnut with a broad blaze and some socks, rather like Nideeb, Exceed And Excel’s winner of the Winter Derby last March. Interestingly, Helmet and Nideeb are bred along similar lines. Whereas Helmet is out of a Singspiel mare, Nideeb is out of a mare by Singspiel’s sire In The Wings.

Nideeb’s Winter Derby win was one of three he scored on all-weather tracks last winter, and Belgian Bill, another Exceed And Excel out of a Singspiel mare, put up his best effort when second in a valuable prize on Veliefendi’s Polytrack in September. This provides some hope that Helmet will adapt to the Tapeta track at Meydan when he challenges for the UAE Derby.

Caerleon’s influence felt from afar
Justice was finally done when Buena Vista forced her neck in front of Tosen Jordan to take the Japan Cup. The five-year-old daughter of the 1999 Japan Cup winner Special Week had crossed the line nearly two lengths clear in the 2010 Cup, only to be controversially demoted to second. The 2009 winner of the Japanese Oaks has the proud record of having won Grade 1 races over a mile, a mile and a quarter and a mile and a half as a mature filly and her Cup win means that she is now a top-flight winner at two, three, four and five.

Her victory is a reminder of the considerable contribution that her broodmare sire Caerleon has made to Japanese racing, even though this champion son of Nijinsky never left Fethard in Ireland.

It was Shinko Lovely, a fifth-crop filly bred by the Firestones in Ireland in 1989, who helped set the ball rolling. After winning three important stakes races at three, she won the Grade 1 Mile Championship at four, in the process of building earnings equivalent to more than $4,500,000. By then Caerleon had already enjoyed Grade 1 success with L-Way Win, winner of Japan’s top juvenile prize, the Asahi Hai Sansai Stakes, in 1992.

Another leading Japanese two-year-old emerged from Caerleon’s 1993 crop, this time in the shape of Buena Vista’s dam Biwa Heidi. She won the top fillies’ race, the Hanshin Sansai Himba Stakes, and also won a good prize over a mile as a five-year-old.

This 1993 crop cemented Caerleon’s reputation in Japan, as it also featured Fusaichi Concorde, winner of the Japanese Derby. Officially bred by Shadai, he was purchased in utero when Patrick Barbe paid 100,000gns for the Ballymacoll-bred Ballet Queen.

Yet another Japanese Grade 1 winner came Caerleon’s way when his son Zenno El Cid won the 2001 Mile Championship. He also enjoyed local Group success with Daiwa Caerleon, Ibuki Perceive and Kurokami, and there was constant demand for Caerleon’s stock from Japan, where the firm turf tracks proved very suitable for them.

There was also demand for his Group/Grade 1-winning stallion sons, but this venture didn’t enjoy similar success. The runaway Derby winner Generous eventually returned to England, via New Zealand, and the Arc winner Marienbard is now covering jumping mares in Ireland.

Buena Vista is one of four stakes winners produced by Biwa Heidi

Happily, it has been a different story with Caerleon’s broodmare daughters. Buena Vista, who is one of four stakes winners produced by Biwa Heidi, is their second Japanese Horse of the Year. Her predecessor was Taiki Shuttle, victor in 1998, the year he helped put Japanese bloodstock on the map by winning the Prix Jacques le Marois.

It almost goes without saying that they owe part of their success to Sunday Silence and his sons. Red Desire, a Manhattan Café filly who had some close battles with Buena Vista, defeated Gloria de Campeao in round three of the Al Maktoum Challenge in Dubai and later finished a creditable fourth in the 2010 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf.

Buena Vista’s sire Special Week was thoroughly tested. He became the second of Sunday Silence’s six winners of the Tokyo Yushun – Japanese Derby – and was placed in the other legs of the Triple Crown. He did even better at four, when he won the two-mile version of the Tenno Sho and the Japan Cup.

It is worth pointing out that Special Week’s Japan Cup success was gained at the main expense of challengers from Hong Kong (Indigenous), England (High-Rise) and France (Montjeu), with other challengers from France, England and Germany further back. It is a shame that this fine international race seems to have become a victim of the burgeoning success of the Hong Kong Vase and Cup. There were only three European raiders this year and the seven European runners in 2010 had such unexceptional credentials that their starting prices were 40-1, 66-1, 86-1, 98-1, 108-1, 119-1 and 130-1. No European challenger has managed to break the Japanese stranglehold since Alkaased scraped home by a nose in 2005 and Japanese horses have won 12 of the last 14 editions, the only other interloper being Falbrav in 2002. Prior to that, horses trained in the USA, Ireland, England, France, New Zealand, Australia and Germany had triumphed in 12 of the first 17 runnings.

Is this change in fortunes a reflection of the improving standard of the Japanese-bred thoroughbred, or of a decline in the quality of the foreign raiders? While the latter may sometimes have something to do with it, I strongly believe that the Japanese defenders are now simply much harder to beat.