Blue Point to shuttle to Australia

Breeders in Australia will gain access to Shamardal’s exciting young son Blue Point as the multiple Group 1 winner will begin his southern hemisphere stud career at Darley’s base at Northwood Park in Victoria later this year.

Few will have forgotten Blue Point’s heroics at Royal Ascot last year when he landed the King’s Stand Stakes and Diamond Jubilee Stakes, becoming the third horse alongside Choisir in 2003 and Diadem in 1920 to secure the rare double.

The winner of the Group 2 Gimcrack Stakes as a two-year-old in 2016, Blue Point also excelled in Dubai, taking the Group 1 Al Quoz Sprint in 2019.

Retired after those exploits, Blue Point began stallion duties at Kildangan Stud alongside his sire Shamardal where he has proved extremely popular with breeders.

Blue Point will be joined in the trip down under by fellow Darley stallion Too Darn Hot, whose clutch of top-level victories included the Dewhurst Stakes at two and the Prix Jean Prat and Sussex Stakes as a three-year-old.

A homebred for Lord and Lady Lloyd-Webber out of Dar Re Mi, an agreement was reached in November 2018 between the owner-breeders and Godolphin for Too Darn Hot to stand at Dalham Hall Stud in Newmarket at the end of his racing career.

Following success in the Sussex Stakes, Too Darn Hot was retired to Dalham and stood his first season at the operation at an opening fee of £50,000 this year. He will stand at Darley’s Kelvinside base in New South Wales.

Lord Lloyd-Webber said: “We have been so thrilled with the way European breeders and industry professionals have supported Too Darn Hot that it makes this Australian adventure all the more exciting.

“He has already taken us on an incredible journey and to now open him up to a completely new market is beyond our wildest dreams. He is in the best possible hands and we will certainly be asking Simon [Marsh] to find some wonderful mares with which to support him in Australia.”

Darley’s Head of Sales in Australia, Alastair Pulford, said: “To be able to offer Australian breeders these two prospects is a huge privilege.

“We’ve seen what the Darley shuttle stallions have done for Australian racing with horses like Street Cry, Teofilo, Medaglia D’Oro and recently Night Of Thunder making a massive impression.

“The sires off both these horses, Dubawi and Shamardal, stood with distinction on the Darley roster in Australia and the availability off such a quality pair as Too Darn Hot and Blue Point is set to give Australian breeders access to elite outcross bloodlines that are already proven in Australia.”

Darley Australia will welcome another new sire for 2020 in the shape of Group 1 Microphone, a son of the operation’s champion stallion Exceed And Excel, who will stand at Kelvinside.

Trained by James Cummings, Microphone took the Group 2 Skyline Stakes and the Group 1 Sires’ Produce Stakes as a juvenile. At three he returned to win the Group 2 Autumn Stakes and was last seen finishing second to Shadow Hero in the Randwick Guineas last month.

Pulford added: “Microphone was a genuine champion colt from a stellar crop that has since proven itself against older horses.

“He’s by the world’s best sire of two-year-olds, there are stakes winners right through his maternal family and he’s a very good-looking horse in the mould of his father.

“This trio as good as any group of new stallions Darley has offered in Australia.”

Fees for the trio will be announced later this month.