Billesdon Brook's sire Champs Elysees succumbs to heart attack

Champs Elysees, sire of Gold Cup hero Trip To Paris and this season's 1,000 Guineas winner Billesdon Brook, died recently at Castlehyde Stud in County Cork.

The son of Danehill, who was 15, succumbed to a heart attack.

Bred by his original owner Khalid Abdullah, Champs Elysees was born to greatness as a son of Danehill and the outstanding broodmare Hasili.

That made him a brother to multiple Group 1-placed performer and leading sire Dansili, champion Banks Hill and dual top-flight winners Cacique and Intercontinental, as well as a half-brother to Grade 1 scorer Heat Haze.

Champs Elysees upheld family honour by winning the Group 3 Prix d'Hedouville and finishing second in the Group 1 Gran Premio del Jockey Club for Andre Fabre, and notching elite-level victories in the Northern Dancer Turf Stakes, Hollywood Turf Cup and Canadian International after being transferred to Bobby Frankel.

He was retired to stand at Banstead Manor Stud in Newmarket, where he conceived 22 stakes winners to date headed by Billesdon Brook, who sprang a surprise in the fillies' Classic at Newmarket in May, Trip To Paris, who took second in the Caulfield Cup as well as winning the Gold Cup, and Harlem, a 520,000gns in-training purchase to race down under, where he took the Group 1 Australian Cup in March.

Champs Elysees has also supplied the Classic-placed fillies Jack Naylor and Xcellence, sold as broodmare prospects for 800,000gns and 675,000gns respectively, and the classy middle-distance runners Barsanti and Dal Harraild.

He is also responsible for the past two winners of the Cesarewitch, Low Sun and Withhold – both of whom were bought by their current connections from the same Juddmonte draft at the Tattersalls Autumn Horses in Training Sale in 2016.

His most recent stakes winners are Exoteric, a 180,000gns from the same Juddmonte draft as Low Sun and Withhold and a dual Listed winner for Chris Waller in Australia in recent months, and Elysea's World, a dual Grade 3 winner in America this summer who sold for $500,000 at Keeneland last month.

The thriving market for horses in training by Champs Elysees was no doubt part of the reason why Coolmore bought him from Juddmonte in a private deal and moved him to Castlehyde for last year's breeding season.

The stallion proved extremely popular with breeders during his two seasons standing in Ireland, covering 248 mares in 2017 and 228 this year.

Equipped with his outstanding pedigree, Champs Elysees promises to be a useful broodmare sire.

He has been represented by only two maternal grandchildren on the track but one of those, the Dandy Man filly Cedars Of Lebanon, won the valuable Foran Equine Irish EBF Auction Race Final at Naas in October.

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