Dual Group 1-winning son of Deep Impact set for shuttle duty in Ireland in 2023

The global search for a stallion possessing the prepotent blood of Japan’s late, great super sire Deep Impact by prominent racehorse owners and breeders from the United Arab Emirates will see his Australian dual Group 1-winning son Tosen Stardom reverse shuttle to Ireland in the new year.

Emiratis Hamad Al Kadfoor, a Dubai-based lawyer and long-time successful owner and breeder, and his racing business partner Ali Farooq have joined forces with Irish studmaster Tom Wallace of Lemongrove Stud to shuttle the Woodside Park Stud stallion for the 2023 northern hemisphere breeding season.

The partnership will stand Tosen Stardom as its foundation sire under the newly formed Zenith Stallion Station banner at the County Westmeath farm run by Wallace for a fee of €7,000.

Farooq, who has a deep connection with the Australian racing and breeding industry via his association with Emirates Park, revealed he had been following the progress of Tosen Stardom for the past three years and began making inquiries about the possibility of shuttling him about six months ago.

“The main reason [we are shuttling him] is because of Deep Impact’s pedigree and Tosen Stardom’s pedigree as well and that we believe he will really suit the European style of racing, probably more so than the Australian style of racing,” Farooq told ANZ Bloodstock News.

“Australia is all about sprints, fast, precocious two-year-olds, that’s what the Australians are looking for, but in Ireland and England it’s more about the middle-distance racing, the Derbys and the Guineas and the King George and all of those races.

“That was the reason we specifically targeted and worked on this horse and to get the deal done and get him to shuttle to [Ireland].”

Farooq’s business partner Kadfoor has raced and bred horses throughout the UAE since the late 1990s and he has experienced success in Dubai with the likes of Dubai Canal, Pilgrim’s Treasure, Mazagran and the recently purchased Eye On The Prize, a Group 3 winner from Uruguay who is a leading contender for the UAE 2,000 Guineas at Meydan next year.

Farooq’s father Faisal Farooq was previously a director of Emirates Park and a close confidant of the well-known racing and breeding operation’s owner, His Excellency Nasser Lootah.

Ali also worked at Emirates Park in the Hunter Valley in the early 1990s (and again briefly in 2001-02) and during that extended period he and his father raced horses around the world, including in Australia, Singapore and Malaysia.

Ali Farooq also ran his own sizeable stud, Emirates Farm, in Pakistan from 1994 until 2014, when the political unrest in the country became too much of a burden.

“I actually spent a lot of time in Australia at Emirates Park [in the Hunter Valley],” said Farooq.

“My father was one of the first directors of Emirates Park and he is very good friends with Mr Nasser Lootah, so my first experience with racehorses was at Emirates Park.

Tosen Stardom wins the 2017 Toorak Handicap at CaulfieldCredit: Scott Barbour (Getty Images)

“I worked there for a year and a half and I did a course at Scone TAFE, which was back in 1992 or ’93.

“The reason for all of this happening was that I was very familiar with Australian racing and I have a lot of friends in Australia.”

Under the Zenith Racing banner, Ali Farooq, 48, also races the Dallas Stewart-trained Grade 2 winner and dual juvenile Listed-winning entire Long Range Toddy in the US to complement his horses who are raced in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Long Range Toddy is expected to campaign during the Dubai World Cup Carnival in the new year.

Tosen Stardom’s first Australian-bred crop are three-year-olds, with the Symon Wilde-trained gelding Shuriken his best-performed horse to date, winning the Vobis Gold Stockade and finishing an eyecatching fourth in the Sandown Guineas at Caulfield on November 26.

Retired to Woodside Park Stud, when owned by Mark Rowsthorn, Tosen Stardom remained on the Tylden farm’s stallion roster when it was purchased by Eddie Hirsch in 2021.

The introduction of the interested party to Woodside Park came via the farm’s stallion manager Amir Khan, who worked with Ali Farooq at Emirates Park decades earlier.

Woodside Park’s Mark Dodemaide believes there to be no downside to shuttling Tosen Stardom to Ireland and is confident the stallion can sire his share of winners in both hemispheres.

“Eighty per cent of the bookings [in 2022] have come from either people who have one [by Tosen Stardom] and they are very happy with them, so they’ve bred back to him again,” Dodemaide said of the stallion’s Australian-bred progeny.

The international breeding partnership intends on sending at least 12 mares to Tosen Stardom in his first northern hemisphere season, with Farooq and Kadfoor expected to retain fillies to race while also dreaming of breeding a UAE Derby or UAE Guineas winner by the elite-level scorer.

Lemongrove Stud’s Wallace, 48, said Tosen Stardom would suit the European mares on type and pedigree and that in floating the stallion with some Irish breeders he’d already had some mares committed to him for next year, prior to being officially launched.

Tom Wallace: 'He seems very good value'

Coolmore’s dual Group 1-winning son of Deep Impact, Saxon Warrior, stands in Ireland at a fee of €35,000.

“At €7,000, he seems very good value compared to Saxon Warrior and then you have Study Of Man, by Deep Impact, standing in the UK - this fella is rated 3lb superior to Study Of Man and Study Of Man could stand at something like €15,000,” said Wallace, who ran the stallion barn at Water Cress Farm in the US when stallions of the calibre of Cigar were residing at the Kentucky stud.

“To have a horse rated 3lb better, a dual Group 1 winner, at €7,000 for the Irish, the UK and the European breeders, to me it seems like a no-brainer, particularly when he gets you a good looking horse.

“All of the comments from the people I know in Australia and New Zealand, what they’ve said to me is that they may take a little bit of time but that he’s a really good-looking horse and I think that’s what will be a major attraction to him. He’s a horse who had a very good turn of foot.”

Wallace, who also has experience working for Rathbarry Stud, revealed his developing relationship with Farooq and Kadfoor would allow him to expand the services offered by Lemongrove Stud, which is only eight kilometres from Tally-Ho Stud, which stands stallions including Kodiac and Mehmas.

“I worked on stud farms in America and here in Ireland and you always think, eventually, you’d like to stand your own stallions,” he said.

“But it is a big thing to try and do on your own, setting up a stallion farm, because you just don’t know how it is going to go, so it is good to have other people to bounce ideas off.

“I suppose three heads are better than one.”

During a 29-start race career, which began in Japan, Tosen Stardom won seven races, two of them at the highest level, the 2017 Toorak Handicap and MacKinnon Stakes when trained by Darren Weir.

He was also a dual Group 3 winner in Japan and finished runner-up in the 2015 Ranvet Stakes at Rosehill when trained by Yasutoshi Ikee, before being sold to a syndicate led by Australian Bloodstock and transferred to Weir in early 2016.

Tosen Stardom is expected to be exported to Ireland on an International Racehorse Transport flight before Christmas.

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