Sexton Files: A welcome outcross option

This article first appeared in the October edition of Owner Breeder magazine

There were 130 Flat-orientated stallions standing for above £1,000 in Britain and Ireland in 2025, the bulk of the more desirable names in the hands of various major operations and just over 60 per cent of them carrying either Sadler’s Wells (primarily through Galileo), Danehill and/or Dubawi blood.

All of which makes the emergence of Sands Of Mali as one of the year’s ascending young sires all the more welcome. There’s undoubtedly a pedigree snob or two out there who would label his  background as unfashionable. But isn’t it refreshing to see a successful young horse with an outcross pedigree? And after all, it makes him easy for breeders to use.

To recap, Sands Of Mali is a son of the French stallion Panis, a Group 3-winning sprinter who is probably a more effective stallion than his most recent fee of €2,500 at Haras des Faunes gives him credit for. In fact, so encouraging were his early results from his time in the south of France that he came to the attention of the Head family’s Haras du Quesnay, who stood him for four seasons from 2007. In all, Panis is the sire of 15 stakes performers and while Sands Of Mali is by far his best representative, he’s also thrown a Classic-placed colt in Veneto and a trio of Group 3 winners, so he’s far from being a one hit wonder.

Panis offers access to the Mr Prospector sire line via Miswaki, an important horse to the breed as the damsire of Galileo and Sea The Stars, and is out of a mare by Doonesbury, a grandson of  Buckpasser.

Meanwhile, Sands Of Mali’s dam Kadiana is a daughter of former Tally-Ho Stud stallion Indian Rocket, a fast son of Indian Ridge, and out of a mare by the Lyphard stallion Sicyos. With Vitiges and Kashmir appearing next in his pedigree, Sands Of Mali is a complete outcross in five generations, something that is rarely seen today.

Sands Of Mali was shrewdly sourced as an Osarus yearling by Con Marnane, resold by the Bansha House maestro for £75,000 as a breezer and went on to become a top-flight sprinter for Richard Fahey, winning the Group 2 Gimcrack Stakes at two and Group 1 British Champions Sprint Stakes at three.

By the time he retired to Ballyhane Stud in 2021, he had earned his share of the headlines, not all of them positive, notably when passing through the Tattersalls December Sale for 600,000gns as owners Cool Silk Partnership and Phoenix Thoroughbreds sought to dissolve their alliance. Then a rising five-year-old, he was sent back into training with Fahey under the full ownership of Cool Silk, but a series of niggles prevented him from regaining his best form.

The horse was busier than he’d ever been this year

Thus, when he was retired to stand at Ballyhane Stud in 2001, Sands Of Mali had gone over two years without a win. However, a fast first-season sire is nearly always guaranteed to set the  commercial pulses racing and launched at an inexpensive €6,500, his first crop of 84 foals is his largest by quite some way. That is, however, until next year’s crop is born.

By all accounts, the horse was busier than he’d ever been this year and deservedly so in light of the fact that his first crop contains the Group 1 Commonwealth Cup heroine Time For Sandals,  Group 3 Ballycorus Stakes winner Copacabana Sands, last year’s Listed Windsor Castle Stakes winner Ain’t Nobody, who recently ran an excellent second in the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes, fellow Listed scorer Ellaria Sands and the stakes-placed Songhai and Aviation Time.

Both Time For Sandals and Copacabana Sands were sold at the 2023 Tattersalls Ireland September Sale and neither cost the earth; Time For Sandals was bought by her trainer Harry Eustace with DPA for €35,000 while Copacabana Sands made just €7,000 to DNA Equine. Both possess good back pedigrees yet in an illustration of how Sands Of Mali might be upgrading his mares, neither are out of extremely successful producers. Time For Sandals, for example, is a granddaughter of the top sprinter Pharoah’s Delight but was a half-sister to just three minor winners from six foals of racing age at the time of her sale.

As for Copacabana Sands, she is a granddaughter of Cheveley Park Stud’s Group 1 producer Red Camellia, yet her dam, the 2008-foaled Montjeu mare Buttonhole, had just two winners to her credit when her daughter came under the hammer.

Interestingly, Time For Sandals is out of a mare by Bachelor Duke, meaning that she is inbred 3×3 to Miswaki. A similar pattern is also in the background of another fast Panis, Group 3 Prix de Cabourg winner Out Of Time, whose dam was by Midyan.

As admirable as Sands Of Mali’s start is, however, how often have we seen similar stallions fail to build upon the success of their first crop? That is especially true of those horses operating at the middle to lower levels of the market, where crop sizes tend to fall off a cliff as the stallions in question come closer to having their first runners. Sands Of Mali is one such horse. He has 45 two-year-olds on the ground this year, yet once again he’s making the most of those opportunities.

Leading the way among those juveniles is Ipanema Queen, winner of the Listed Curragh Stakes over five furlongs in August. Bred like Time For Sandals by Rathbride Farm, she was an even cheaper yearling than Copacabana Sands, fetching just €4,500 from Hyde Park Stud at last year’s Goffs Autumn Sale. Following her debut success at the Curragh in the spring, she now races for Barbara Banke’s Stonestreet Stables LLC and Amo Racing. Another juvenile, Sands Of Spain, has also won close to £40,000 for Andrew Balding.

The market has latched on to the promise of Sands Of Mali, with a yearling average of close to 50,000gns recorded during the early stages of the current sales season at the time of writing. Kevin Ryan and Stephen Hillen have already signed for a pair of colts at £55,000 and £50,000, underlining the notion that his stock are well liked by trainers.

Sands Of Mali still faces something of an uphill battle given the immediate numerical challenge facing him. There also remains some uncertainty over his future; an injunction application by Steve Parkin to have him removed from Ballyhane Stud, owned by his former advisor Joe Foley, was turned down by the High Court in Ireland back in February.

Whatever the future holds, however, it is clear that this is a very useful young stallion who appears capable of upgrading his mares and providing breeders with a sound, fast horse.

Exactly how far Sands Of Mali can climb up the ladder remains to be seen. However, for now, he has done enough to be regarded as a classy outcross option, which in itself has to be welcome news for the breed as a whole.

 

Blue hen’s influence grows

It is quite unlikely that when Sir Henry Cecil uttered the words “knee-high to a bumble bee” to describe his 1990 Prix de Diane winner Rafha, that he envisaged the daughter of Kris exerting such a powerful influence over the breed.

Prince Faisal’s diminutive homebred became a remarkable producer for her breeder, leaving behind Group 1-winning sprinter Invincible Spirit, another high-class speedster in Kodiac and Group 3 scorers Sadian and Acts Of Grace, herself dam of the Prince’s multiple Group 1 winner Mishriff.

What makes it so powerful, however, is the fact that Rafha’s web has since gone on to make the rare leap into ‘stallion family’ territory. Much of the weight rests with Invincible Spirit and Kodiac, who both joined Europe’s elite from a humble early base and are today responsible for 30 Group/Grade 1 winners between them. And in turn, with so many sons of their own at stud worldwide, the opportunity to inbreed to Rafha is becoming increasingly plentiful.

Appropriately, the trailblazer in that department was a Prince Faisal homebred, Orbaan, a son of Invincible Spirit who descends directly from Rafha as a grandson of Acts Of Grace. Winner of the Listed Prix de Saint-Patrick during his time with Andre Fabre, he boasts a record of seven wins from 78 starts – and perhaps with more to come given he remains in fair form aged ten.

Those interested in inbreeding to Rafha should take real encouragement from recent results, notably the racing in August which featured three new stakes winners with double doses of the mare.

The trio includes the Group 2 Lowther Stakes winner Royal Fixation (left), a first-crop daughter of Palace Pier who is one of seven European stakes winners this year out of a Kodiac mare. She was bred by Flintstone Bloodstock out of the Group 3-placed Fixette and formed part of an important month for Palace Pier, who was represented not long afterwards by the Group 3 Solario Stakes winner A Bit Of Spirit.

Kodiac is also the damsire of Listed Corrib Stakes winner Tropical Island, one of the best sired by the average Invincible Spirit stallion Inns Of Court.

As for Kingman, sire of Palace Pier, he also featured as the damsire of Anaisa, who shed a new light on her rating of 74 when successful in the Listed Ripon Champion 2yo Trophy for Tim Easterby. By the Kodiac stallion Ardad, she was bred in the aftermath of her sire’s successful first crop of two-year-olds; that 2023 crop contains four stakes winners to date, which places him behind  Wootton Bassett numerically on the European two-year-old sires list.

In all, there are seven stakes performers inbred to Rafha, four of whom have won their black type this year. Kingman appears in the background of four of the septet, including as the damsire of Italian Listed scorer Korisa (by Kodiac) alongside Anaisa. He is also the sire of the promising two-year-old Go Just Do It, who was last seen running third in the Group 2 Futurity Stakes at the Curragh.

In a measure of how prevalent this pattern has become in recent years, 14 of the 84 winners inbred to Rafha are juveniles of this year. In addition to Royal Fixation and Anaisa, they include the highly-tried Goodwood Galaxy (by Kodi Bear), Kempton winner Royal Bodyguard (by Kodi Bear), who ran third in a good nursery at Doncaster’s St Leger meeting, and Baby Basma (by Ardad), the winner of her only start to date at Cork.

Such is Rafha’s influence today, there are numerous opportunities for breeders to delve into the family – the latest big name stallion to retire to stud from it is Mishriff, who stands at Sumbe in France. So whether by design or inadvertently, more breeders will undoubtedly head down the route of doubling up on the mare, and if the past summer is anything to go by, there will be a number who enjoy success.