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00:00This is our News You Can Use segment brought to you by Darley, the European editor of the
00:04Thoroughbred Daily News.
00:05Emma Berry.
00:06Emma, good morning.
00:07Good afternoon, I guess, in England.
00:09How are you today?
00:10Very well, thanks.
00:11A little chilly here.
00:12There's snow all over the place, but yeah, it's good to see you all again.
00:16Yeah, absolutely.
00:17So, the Keeneland November sale, the Fasig-Tipton November sale are in the books.
00:21The European fall and breeding stock sales are now up and running.
00:24There's always plenty of interest in the first falls of the new stallions, which you'll be
00:29looking for over there.
00:30Well, we've got quite a punchy bunch this year.
00:34The sales have started this week in Ireland, and my colleague, Brian Sheeran, is slaving
00:38away on his birthday while I'm hiding away in Newmarket, waiting for castles to begin
00:42next week.
00:43But we've got, I mean, probably the headline horse would be Bayid, who was Shadwell's great
00:49miler of a few years ago.
00:51It's hard to believe he's already got foals on the ground, because it seems a minute ago
00:55he was racing, but he was a brilliant horse by Sea of Stars.
00:59But there's a whole bunch of horses to look out for.
01:02I mean, Mermath has been one of the real sort of runaway stallions here over the last few
01:09years.
01:10He was leading first season sire.
01:11He had a Breeders' Cup winner a week or so ago in Magnum Force, and he's already got
01:16sort of a growing number of sons at stud, and we've got Persian Force and Minzal, both
01:23with first foals this year.
01:24And then there's a couple of young stallions from Dali as well.
01:27Perfect Power, who was a Royal Ascot winner, as was Naval Crown, both Group One winners
01:33for Dali, both quite pretty fast horses, both sprinters.
01:37They've already had foals sold this week in Ireland, and they both seem to be starting
01:40off well.
01:41So there's, yeah, as ever, so many to keep tabs on.
01:46I'm going to ask you about two, Emma, because they're really intriguing to me.
01:51First off, we're going to go from one end of the spectrum to the other.
01:55Talk about Blackbeard, because he was just brilliant as a two-year-old.
01:59And then the other spectrum, one of my favourite horses of all time, Stradivarius.
02:04What can you tell me about the pair of them?
02:06Yeah, absolutely.
02:07As you say, both with their first foals.
02:10I haven't actually seen any Blackbeard foals yet, but they are already in the sale ring
02:14at Goffs.
02:15They'll probably have a bigger bunch there, but there'll be a handful as well over in
02:20Newmarket next week.
02:22I would expect them to be pretty commercial, because pinhooking is obviously such a big
02:30part of the foal sales, and the pinhookers on the whole tend to go for that faster, more
02:36precocious type of horse.
02:38Stradivarius, as you mentioned, is a really interesting entry, if you like, in this year's
02:45flat size, because so many of the really good stares here do end up going straight to National
02:50Hunt Stards to be jump stallions.
02:52And Bjorn Nielsen, who was Stradivarius' owner-breeder, was adamant that he wanted him to stand at
02:58a flat stard.
02:59So he negotiated for him to stand at the National Stard here in Newmarket.
03:03He's covered three-figure books in his first two seasons, which is great.
03:08I mean, there have been a few jumping mares among those, but a lot of flat mares too.
03:13And there are 14 foals selling next week at Tassels.
03:16So I'm looking forward to seeing those.
03:18I actually have one myself as well, who's not for sale.
03:21But he is a real favourite, and it's going to be very interesting to see how he gets
03:25on as a flat stallion.
03:29There is, actually, Brian Shearing made a comment in today's TDN Europe that it would
03:34be nice to see a bit more variety among the offspring, among these foals for sale across
03:40the distance spectrum, and that's what we will get with Stradivarius.
03:45He was at absolutely the opposite end, but he had a real potent turn of foot for a stayer.
03:49And I won't be surprised at all if he gets some good flat runners.
03:52They'll probably be coming more into their own as three-year-olds, but he actually won
03:56it too himself.
03:57And yeah, he's a really interesting horse.
03:59He's by Sea of the Stars as well, who's a top-class sire, so we'll be watching him with
04:05great interest, you and me both, I think, Zoe.
04:08Didn't he be bred to the dam of economics?
04:11That's huge, isn't it?
04:13Yeah, she, yeah, La Pondemore, lovely, punch celeb mare of Cockgrove Hall stud, she's in
04:18fold to him at the moment, which is a real thing in the cap of the national stud to get
04:24that mare.
04:25And yeah, Bjorn Nielsen has supported him very well.
04:29There's some nice flat mares that we've got, and it's actually interesting looking through
04:31the return of mares and seeing some of the breeders who've used him.
04:35They also introduced a bonus scheme for him, so the first 10 juvenile winners, their breeders
04:40get a sort of, I think it's a £25,000 bonus, and if you breed a Group 1 winner by him from
04:46his first two crops, there's a £250,000 bonus, so there was some incentives to use him, certainly.
04:54So Emma, you said you could look outside to see snow, which of course means that the European
04:59turf season is over, but there are some opportunities elsewhere, Hong Kong, later Dubai.
05:06This Sunday, the Japan Cup, mile and a half on turf, 10 trillion yen, or whatever the
05:13purse is for that thing nowadays.
05:16The locals are obviously always really tough to beat in the Japan Cup, but there's some
05:20pretty strong European representation this year.
05:23Tell us about some of those horses and what do you think the chances are that the Euros
05:27can take down the Japanese in their own backyard?
05:30It's going to be a fascinating race.
05:33I was just chatting to Alan Carasso, actually, who's going to be getting up at something,
05:36or probably staying up, actually.
05:38I think it's about 1.40am on the east coast of America.
05:41It's in the morning for us, but I can't wait to see how August Rodin goes.
05:48I mean, he's been one of my favourite horses for the last few seasons, and he's off to
05:53start straight away after this.
05:56The Japanese, although he's obviously Irish-trained and been running in Europe, the Japanese feel
06:02it's a bit of a homecoming for him because he's by Deep Impact, so I think they're getting
06:05very excited about him being there.
06:07He's not the only European runner.
06:09Goliath, who won the King George, has gone over.
06:12He's now owned by Jon Stewart, Resolute Racing, or majority owned by Jon, I should say, still
06:18trained in France by Francis Graffa.
06:21Then also, we have a German runner, last year's German Derby winner, Fantastic Moon.
06:27It's very exciting from our perspective here in Europe to see how all three of those get
06:31on, but as ever, the home team, I mean, I had Naohiro Goda talking this morning on the
06:37Nick Lutt podcast saying that he felt the Japanese home defence, if you like, was a
06:42bit weaker this year.
06:43I mean, last year, Japan Cup was the top-rated race in the world, and Equinox won, obviously,
06:49and I think the first five home were all Japanese Classic winners.
06:53That's the strength they have in that race.
06:56But even though Naohiro seemed to think this year was a little bit weaker, I was looking
07:00through the field, and there's still, I think, at least four Japanese Classic winners in
07:04there.
07:04So it's not going to be a slam dunk for any of the visiting horses, but it'll be a great
07:11race.
07:11I'll certainly be getting up very early on Sunday morning to make sure I see it.
07:16The 10-0 show is always a key race there for the Japan Cup, by the way.
07:20Yeah, absolutely, and Dojus, the winner of that, is running, and he's the Japanese Derby
07:25winner of a couple of years ago as well.
07:27So there's some proper horses, as you expect.
07:31I mean, it's a brilliant race, and it's always a strong field, but it'll be fantastic to
07:35see August Rodin running again and hopefully going out with a big shout before he's off
07:42to start in Ireland.
07:45Well, we want to thank Emma Barry for the segment.
07:47The news you can use is brought to you by Darley.
07:50Emma, thanks so much for your time.
07:52Thanks for putting up some good information for us.
07:55It's a pleasure.
07:57Two of Darley's young stallions, Perfect Power and Naval Crown, each have their first
08:02foals on sale over the next few weeks in Ireland and Britain.
08:06A brilliant two-year-old and a dual Royal Ascot winner, Perfect Power carried his juvenile
08:13form through his three-year-old season, adding the Commonwealth Cup to his Group 1 triumphs
08:18in the Primorny and Middle Park stakes.
08:21Naval Crown was also a Group 1 winner at Royal Ascot, one of the fastest sons of Dubawi.
08:28He won the Platinum Jubilee over six furlongs.
08:31That's probably one of the best races at Royal Ascot.
08:34We'll be right back after this message from Darley.