The Normandy stallion scene has been reinvigorated by the entrance of several big new players in recent years. Nurlan Bizakov’s Sumbe operation is standing top-notchers like Charyn, Mishriff, Angel Bleu and Belbek at Haras de Montfort et Preaux, while the Chehboub family has built a roster that includes unbeaten champion Ace Impact and fellow Group 1 winners Puchkine and Sealiway at Haras de Beaumont.
Benoit Jeffroy and his wife Annabelle Aime can now also be added to that list. They are launching Castillon Stallions at their Haras de Castillon near Castillon-en-Auge next season with a line-up comprising newly retired elite winners Marhaba Ya Sanafi and Tribalist, the Jeffroy family’s own high-class runners Magic Dream and Texas, and transferred former Haras de Bouquetot residents Romanised and Thunder Moon.
The new venture is the culmination of a lifetime’s work with horses for Brittany native Jeffroy, who says: “My father and grandfather were livestock traders and they started to breed and race thoroughbreds in the 1970s, so although it was a cattle farm that I grew up on, there were always horses on the place. That’s how I got interested in it all.
“I went to agricultural college and then did the Godolphin Flying Start programme, in between which I worked at Cambridge Stud in New Zealand for seven months. It was a good chance to see the world and learn English.
“I didn’t expect to meet any other French people on the other side of the world but I bumped into Gwenaël Monneraye of La Motteraye in a karaoke bar in Auckland. I’d never heard of him before then, but found that he was from Brittany too. It was an absolutely bizarre coincidence, and we’re still good friends now.”
Jeffroy spent five years as the French point of contact in Darley’s nominations department at Dalham Hall Stud after graduating from the Godolphin Flying Start course.
“Ironic really, as in those days I was trying to convince French breeders to send their mares to Britain or Ireland, and now I spend my time telling British and Irish breeders they should send their mares to France,” he says with a chuckle.
In 2012, Jeffroy was signed up by Sheikh Joaan Al Thani and his Qatari associates to run their new Al Shaqab Bloodstock at Haras de Bouquetot in Normandy. The role involved launching high-profile stallions like Olympic Glory, Shalaa and Al Wukair and managing famous racemares such as Treve and Qemah in their broodmare careers.
We started off with 35 hectares at Haras de Castillon
A little earlier, in 2009, Jeffroy and his brother Thomas had taken on the family farm in Brittany, which operates under the banner of SCEA des Prairies, as their father focussed on trading cattle. Six years later Jeffroy established Haras de Castillon in Normandy as a base closer to his and Aime’s workplaces that would work in tandem with Prairies.
Jeffroy’s own breeding business expanded almost by accident, he insists.
“We started off with 35 hectares at Haras de Castillon and used it to stable the mares coming from Brittany to Normandy for the breeding season,” he says. “But when you know lots of people, they start asking if you can take their mares, and then their friends ask if you can take their mares too, and you start to grow without even trying.
“Then we started to consign yearlings, as other studs were too full to take our horses. We had our first draft at the Arqana Autumn Sale of 2015 and managed to top the final session of the auction with an Air Chief Marshal filly who made €43,000. Selling was made to look easy. Too easy! So in the next year we said why don’t we try the Arqana October Yearling Sale? That also worked, and in 2017 we did the August Sale too. It all snowballed from there.
“As the numbers increased we bought a second farm and leased another two big parcels of land, and today Haras de Castillon is nearly 1,250 hectares, employing a team of ten people.”
When Jeffroy left Haras de Bouquetot this year, and had more time to devote to Haras de Castillon, the next logical step was to branch out into stallions.
The industry in France has shrunk
“I thought it was a good time to set up a new stallion station in France, as the industry has shrunk,” he says. “Sumbe and Beaumont might be new, but Quesnay and Mezeray have disappeared, Logis has stopped standing stallions and Petit Tellier has fewer and fewer horses and the farm is up for sale. So there is space for something new.
“I’ve been working with horses all my life, and always had an interest in stallions – I was trading my father’s nominations as a child – so I thought why not give it a go?
“We’ve taken on my former assistant manager at Bouquetot, Enrico Simone Faccarello, to be head stallion man and to sell nominations, meaning his role has two aspects, which is great. He worked in Bouquetot for five years before leaving to work for Auctav, but when he heard I was setting up he was interested in joining the venture.”
Castillon’s two newly retired stallions are certainly well qualified for the job. Marhaba Ya Sanafi, who was trained by Andreas Schutz for Jaber Abdullah, scored in the Poule d’Essai des Poulains and finished third in the Prix du Jockey Club at three and was a regular in the top mile races in France at four and five. He is by Muhaarar out of Danega, a daughter of Galileo and Noblesse Stakes winner Danelissima, a close relation to Group/Grade 1 winners Aspen Grove, Intense Focus and Skitter Scatter.
Tribalist (right) was meanwhile trained by Andre Fabre for Godolphin and proved his class and durability by winning ten of his 25 starts over five seasons in training, including a victory over Charyn in the Prix du Moulin and success in three consecutive editions of the Prix du Muguet. He is a precious stallion son of subfertile Farhh and is a member of his breeder Car Colston Hall Stud’s wonderful Wiener Wald family.
Jeffroy says: “Marhaba Ya Sanafi was also a very good two-year-old and won the Poule d’Essai des Poulains in fine fashion. The Prix du Jockey Club in which he ran third was a vintage renewal, as Ace Impact and Big Rock were first and second and Feed The Flame was fourth. He finished strongly and the race was run in record time.
He’ll be open for syndication
“He was a tough, consistent horse who always fought and gave his all. I went to see him in Germany and I loved him as a physical type too. He’s strong, correct and well put together with a good head on him, and he moves well. He ticked a lot of boxes for me.
“Jaber Abdullah will be supporting him strongly with a nice bunch of mares. He’ll be open for syndication, and we’re putting together an attractive package. We want to get breeders into the horse for the long term. This year’s Arqana October Yearling Sale was not that good, only okay, and it highlighted that breeders need to have access to good stallions at reasonable price, in order to get a fair return on their produce.”
As for Tribalist, he adds: “He’s very popular in France, as he raced here for so many years and is the only horse to have won the Muguet three times. When people heard we were going to stand him on behalf of Darley they were delighted. He won nine stakes races and he beat a proper field in the Moulin.
“We’re pitching him and Marhaba Ya Sanafi at €6,000 live foal. They’re proper Group 1 horses who were tough and sound, so I think they should attract a lot of custom.”
Texas (left), a son of Wootton Bassett who split Modern Games and Tribalist when second in the Poule d’Essai des Poulains, and Magic Dream, a son of Saint Des Saints who took a Grade 2 chase at Auteuil at three, are particularly close to Jeffroy’s heart as his family bred and raced them. They have joined Castillon from Haras du Hoguenet.
“My grandfather bought Texas’s fourth dam Texas Beauty in 1987, when I was two years old, and we bred the likes of Never On Sunday, Frankyfourfingers and Penja from the family, so it means a lot to us,” says Jeffroy.
“Texas was a very good horse. He was precocious, but on his third race at two, he shied away from the stick and crashed into the rail and we really had to re-educate him on his next two races so he wasn’t afraid any more. We lost a lot of time with him, which is a shame as I’m sure he could have accomplished more that season.
“He was drawn wide on the outside in the Poulains and ran a big race to finish second but probably gave his all that day, as he didn’t recapture that form.”
Fun side-project
Jeffroy describes Texas’s stallion career as a “fun side-project” although it has already turned out to be a profitable one.
“My brother and I thought he’s a nice looking son of Wootton Bassett, so why not give him a go?” he says. “We sent him 20 of our own mares and actually we were rewarded for doing so, as the resultant offspring sold very well at the Arqana October Yearling Sale. We were surprised when we saw them as foals: we thought, woah, we might have something here. They were strong and had plenty of substance, with a fantastic walk. They move better than Texas does himself, in fact.
“Texas doesn’t have many foals, but he at least has more than Wootton Bassett did at the same stage of his career! He might work, he might not, but he had to be worth a go.”
Magic Dream is being stood by Jeffoy and his family in a similar have-a-go spirit.
“His granddam was bought by my father in the 1990s,” says Jeffroy. “He was a very good three-year-old jumper, and established himself the best chaser of that age in France that autumn. He’s a big, tall model, maybe more the physical type of an Irish jumps horse, so his stock might need a bit more time. He will be represented by his first three-year-olds next year, so it’ll be crunch time for him.”
Texas will stand at a fee of €3,800 in 2026, while Magic Dream is priced at €3,500.
Former Bouquetot residents Thunder Moon (right), a National Stakes winner by Zoffany who has first two-year-olds next year, and Romanised, a dual Group 1-winning son of Holy Roman Emperor, are each available at €5,000.
“I bought Thunder Moon with a few friends – Al Shaqab has a little share too, which is why he stood there – but as we own the majority and were starting the new stallion business we took him,” explains Jeffroy. “His first foals were well received last year and his yearlings sold well this season.
“It’s a very important year for him next year, with his first two-year-olds running, but he has a big chance of making it. Why not? He beat St Mark’s Basilica when he won the National Stakes and was a very unlucky second in the Prix Jean Prat.
“I’m really pleased that we can continue the adventure with Romanised and his owner Robert Ng. He started at a realistic price and managed to get first-crop runners in the Prix du Jockey Club [Curragh Camp] and Prix de Diane [Zia Agnese] this year. He gets a good number of two-year-old winners too, and was on a roll in the autumn.
“He might find his way to become a proven, affordable stallion who can get winners, and the odd good one, in the mould of Zelzal. British and Irish breeders might not recognise them, but French mare owners need them.”
Marhaba Ya Sanafi and Tribalist are available to view at Clairefontaine racecourse during the Arqana December Breeding-Stock Sale and they and the rest of the new Castillon Stallions squad will be on show when the farm throws open its gates for the Route des Etalons stud tour in Normandy in January.
Jeffroy is full of enthusiasm and optimism for the new chapter in his career but he isn’t heading into it naively, with his eyes closed. He knows the challenges that lie ahead.
“I speak to breeders all the time, and of course I’m a breeder myself, so I know only too well how much it costs to produce a horse, and the harsh realities of the market, and that you have to be so careful with the nominations you’re paying for,” he says.
“I don’t know where we’re going with French racing, there’s a lot of uncertainty at the moment, but we have to keep positive and work together to make the joys of the sport better known, in order to attract new owners, breeders and punters.
“We have a great system here in France, we just need to make more people aware of it.”
