This article first appeared in the August edition of Owner Breeder
Breeders know where they stand with Camelot. In seven crops aged three and above, he has become well recognised as a quality source of middle-distance talent. That is of course in keeping with the Montjeu sire line. They’re unlikely to be early but plenty are effective as late-maturing two-year-olds, as he was himself when cruising to victory in the 2011 Racing Post Trophy. However, it is as three-year-olds and beyond that they really come into their own, especially when given the opportunity over middle-distances.
Camelot has been a regular fixture among the leading sires since his first crop took to the track in 2017. That group of 151 foals, which had been bred off an opening €25,000 fee, came to include an Irish Derby winner in Latrobe as well as Athena, who was sent to the US by Aidan O’Brien to win the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks. Following the breakthrough win of Bluestocking in last month’s Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh, each crop since then has contained a Group 1 winner. Several have naturally been domestic stars, perhaps none more so than Luxembourg, a Group 1 winner from ages two to five who was last seen making all to victory in the Coronation Cup at Epsom. There has also been an Irish Oaks winner in Even So, successful in 2020, while it’s certainly a case of what might have been had Santa Barbara not died not long after her win in the 2021 Beverly D Stakes. Given Camelot’s propensity to throw middle-distance horses, a number have also unsurprisingly headed to the southern hemisphere, several of them such as Sir Dragonet (winner of the Group 1 Cox Plate and Group 1 Tancred Stakes having been sold as a tried horse) and Russian Camelot (a yearling purchase by Jeremy Brummitt who won the Group 1 Underwood Stakes and Group 1 South Australian Derby) with great success.
He has sired six stakes winners across Europe but it is the quality of the sextet that is most striking
The current season, however, threatens to be the most productive yet for the Coolmore stallion. He has sired six stakes winners across Europe but it is the quality of the sextet that is most striking given that it is headed by the Group 1 winners Luxembourg, Bluestocking and Los Angeles. Nor would it be surprising to see that trio joined in due course by Pensee Du Jour, a highly-tried filly last season by Andre Fabre who looks ready for another crack at Group 1 company following her recent win in the Prix Corrida. Another Fabre inmate, Sevenna’s Knight, has also developed into a stayer of note this season with wins in the Prix Vicomtesse Vigier and Prix Barberville to his credit. There could also be more to come from the Gavin Hernon-trained Dare To Dream, winner of the Prix Vanteaux back in April.
Last month’s Curragh’s Irish Derby meeting, at which Bluestocking and Los Angeles pulled off a Group 1 sweep for their sire in the Pretty Polly Stakes and Irish Derby itself, propelled Camelot into a top five position on the year’s leading British and Irish sires’ list. With Galileo receding from prominence, the 2024 championship has an open look to it and should Camelot maintain his momentum, then he could well play a role in the end-of-year outcome.
It could be said that Los Angeles and Bluestocking are fairly typical of what we have come to expect from Camelot. Los Angeles was forward enough to win a Group 1 at two, when successful in the Criterium de Saint-Cloud over 10f at the back-end of last year, but he has predictably come into his own this season, with a win in the Leopardstown Derby Trial and third in the Derby preceding his Irish Derby triumph. He has a bit of the Camelot fire about him – ‘he’s not for kids’ in the words of Aidan O’Brien – and is a sizeable individual, so should continue to improve as time goes on. Indeed, he has since added to his resume in the Great Voltigeur Stakes at York.
Los Angeles: contributing to a major year for Camelot. Photo – Bill Selwyn
As for Juddmonte homebred Bluestocking, she was a Group 1 performer for Ralph Beckett last season but has improved again at four this year. The Pretty Polly Stakes was her second win in as many starts for the campaign following a successful pipe-opener in the Middleton Stakes at York.
Both also further underline Camelot’s affinity for mares carrying Danehill, specifically his son Dansili.
There are 36 foals bred on the Camelot – Dansili, of which Los Angeles and Bluestocking are two. Pensee Du Jour is also out of a Dansili mare as is the Listed-winning, Group 2-placed Juddmonte homebred Yesyes. Dansili’s Arc-winning son Rail Link, a moderate sire, also features as the damsire of the Grade 1-placed Alounak.
In fact, the Danehill theme is prevalent throughout Camelot’s stud record. Danehill himself is the damsire of Even So and Santa Barbara. Luxembourg is out of a mare by Danehill Dancer while 2018 Criterium de Saint-Cloud heroine Wonderment is out of a mare by Konigstiger, a son of Tiger Hill rarely seen in pedigrees. Duke Of Marmalade (damsire of Group 2-winning stayer Cleveland and Group 3 scorer Lady Wannabe), Exceed And Excel (damsire of Group 3 winner Current Options), Fastnet Rock (damsire of Group 3 winner Youth Spirit) and Holy Roman Emperor (damsire of German Group 3 winner Wait Forever) are other examples of the Danehill line clicking well with Camelot.
Not only that, mares descending from the other important Danzig outlet, Green Desert, have supplied the likes of Athena, Russian Camelot and Sir Dragonet.
However, it has to be remembered that several of those listed above are the progeny of high-performing and/or producing mares. That is especially true of Bluestocking, who is out of the Matron Stakes winner Emulous from a good Juddmonte family also responsible for its Kentucky Derby winner Mandaloun. Athena also boasts a stakes-placed dam in Cherry Hinton, who is a daughter of none other than Urban Sea, also the third dam of Sir Dragonet via the blue hen’s Classic-placed daughter All Too Beautiful.
And it is that same Allegretta family that sits behind Los Angeles, in this instance through Allegretta’s Group 3-winning daughter Allez Les Trois. The branch belonging to this Riverman mare took off during the noughties when one foal, Anabaa Blue, won the Prix du Jockey Club and grandson Tamayuz became a Group 1-winning miler. More recently, it supplied the 2021 Irish Derby winner Santiago, one of the best sired by Authorized and therefore a grandson of Montjeu like Los Angeles.
With Urban Sea’s sons Galileo and Sea The Stars its headline acts, this is a family that is rarely out of the headlines; indeed, it was also represented at the Irish Derby meeting by Truly Enchanting, winner of the Airlie Stud Stakes.
Obviously this family has long been held in extremely high regard. Yet despite that, it took a reasonable 48,000gns for the BBA Ireland to secure Frequential, a granddaughter of Allez Les Trois, on behalf of Lynch Bages and Longfield Stud when she came up for sale from Godolphin at the 2017 Tattersalls February Sale.
Frequential was a regular visitor to Camelot throughout her stud career prior to her death aged just nine last year. Even without the exploits of Los Angeles, her third foal, the cross would have to be deemed a success off the back of her earlier runners Hector De Maris and Be Happy, both of whom were Group 3-placed for Ballydoyle.
The cross of Camelot over Frequential also results in 3×3 inbreeding to Kingmambo. Los Angeles is perhaps surprisingly the only Group 1 winner inbred to the Niarchos family’s former Kentucky-based stallion but the tenth stakes winner overall, sitting atop a list that includes the high-class Camelot quartet Bolleville, Cleveland, Lady Wannabe and Moll.
Camelot in his pomp winning the 2012 Derby. Photo – George Selwyn
Nothing hazy with star family
The Aga Khan’s acquisition of the stock belonging to Brook Holliday during the 1980s provided his stud with access into the powerful Cleaboy Stud family of Lost Soul. It was a select collection that didn’t possess the numerical weight of the Dupre and Boussac horses, a powerful group which had been incorporated in the operation around a decade before. But the stock had consistently rewarded the cultivation of Major Lionel Holliday and latterly his son Brook over many years and as such, at the time of the handover did contain an important mare in Hazy Idea, a daughter of Holliday’s St Leger winner Hethersett who had already produced the Flying Childers Stakes winner Hittite Glory and National Stakes runner-up Rubric.
Inbred to Holliday’s 1947 Oaks runner-up and important producer Netherton Maid, Hazy Idea was a versatile filly for Major Dick Hern on the track, winning three races, including one over 6f, as a two-year-old and the 1970 March Stakes over 1m6f at Goodwood at three. She was an aged mare at the time of the acquisition and the Aga Khan was able to breed only three foals out of her. However, they did at least include Hazaradjat, a winning Darshaan mare who has gone on to spawn something of her own legacy.
Today that encompasses 25 stakes winners, among them the Aga Khan’s Derby winner Harzand (out of Hazaradjat’s Group 3-winning daughter Hazariya) and champion Hurricane Lane (a member of the branch belonging to Handaza).
Harzand: family belonging to the Derby winner has hit a purple patch this year.
Currently, this family going through something of a purple patch. At the top of the list is Emily Upjohn, last year’s Coronation Cup heroine who recently returned to form when running a narrow second in the Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh. That strapping daughter of Sea The Stars is out of Hazaradjat’s Listed-placed daughter Hidden Brief, whose half-sister Handaza is the granddam of Hanalia, winner of the Listed Naas Oaks Trial in June for the Aga Khan, and third dam of Normandie Stud’s homebred Henry II Stakes winner Sweet William.
Last year’s top miler Big Rock, meanwhile, belongs to the same Hazariya branch as Harzand as does the Listed Diana Trial heroine Hope And Believe, who was on course to take her chance in the German Oaks at the time of writing.
Not only that, a handful of exciting two-year-old prospects have shown their hand. Gun Of Brixton, a homebred belonging to Haras Voltaire who is out of Hazariya’s placed Invincible Spirit daughter Cat Kate, has won his last two starts at Saint-Cloud and Clairefontaine for Andre Fabre. That Frankel colt looks worthy of a step up to Group company as does the Aga Khan’s homebred Hazdann, a son of Night Of Thunder who put a luckless Gowran Park debut behind him when successful in a Curragh maiden on Irish Derby day for Dermot Weld. He is out of Hazmiyra, a winning Pivotal granddaughter of Hazariya.
Following that success, Princess Zahra Aga Khan offered an interesting insight into the family in an interview with Racing TV.
“It’s wonderful to see this family producing two-year-olds,” she said. “I didn’t think this family was going to produce them. It was very much a Classic-producing family but then I think breeding them to speed a bit more every generation is working and they’re getting a turn of foot. Hopefully we can continue this trend.”
While Urban Sea and her dam Allegretta are becoming ever-ubiquitous in today’s pedigrees, this family’s affinity with horses carrying that blood is still noteworthy. That is particularly true of Sea The Stars, who appears as the sire of Harzand, Emily Upjohn, Sweet William, Hanalia and Hamariyna (winner of the Derrinstown Stud 1,000 Guineas Trial in 2019) and damsire of Big Rock.
As for Frankel, he is the sire of both Hurricane Lane and Gun Of Brixton while Tamayuz, a member of the Allez Les Trois branch of the Allegretta family, is the sire of Hazaradjat’s Group 3-winning granddaughter Hunaina. And while Hazdann’s sire Night Of Thunder belongs to the Dubawi tribe, he of course is out of a Galileo mare. Hazdann is evidently held in some regard given he holds an early entry in the National Stakes, so it would be no surprise if he proved capable of fulfilling his breeder’s hopes and added high-class two-year-old form to this family in due course.
