'I couldn't have coped with Ryanair and all that' - Kirsten Rausing misses the Orby but Study Of Man and Sandrine put spotlight on draft

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Here he speaks to Kirsten Rausing about Study Of Man and all things Goffs Orby and Alpinista - subscribers can get more great insight from Martin every Monday to Friday.

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The weather at Goffs might not have been much to write home about yesterday, as inspections ahead of the Orby Yearling Sale took place amid squally rain, but the Staffordstown draft was walking on sunshine.

Kirsten Rausing’s farm in County Meath consigns five lots to the auction, which it topped in consecutive years in 2006 and 2007 with the Sadler’s Wells fillies Albarouche and Jane Eyre, and nearly all have benefited from recent upgrades to their pedigrees.

First through the ring tomorrow will be the Sea The Moon half-brother to Sandrine, who carried Rausing’s storied white silks with green hoops to victory in the Park Stakes at Doncaster this month. He is Lot 78.

Later in the catalogue appear two members of the second crop of Study Of Man, a Prix du Jockey Club-winning son of Deep Impact from the family of the magnificent Miesque who stands at Rausing’s Lanwades Stud in Newmarket. The sire recorded his first black-type winner on Saturday, and in some style, when Deepone ran out the convincing winner of the Beresford Stakes at the Curragh.

Lot 203 is a half-brother to two individual winners out of Albamara, a Listed-placed Galileo mare from Rausing’s exceptionally prolific ‘Al’ family, which yielded her Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Alpinista, while Lot 440 is a half-sister to Listed scorer Kawida out of Kandahari, a winning Archipenko half-sister to Australian superstar Zaaki.

Study Of Man: "He is operating at a good strike-rate of around 35 per cent and the season isn’t finished yet"Credit: Lanwades Stud

The draft also contains a Sea The Moon filly out of Alma Linda, a winning Invincible Spirit half-sister to Listed winners Alla Speranza and Altesse descended from Alborada, who offers a rare chance to get into this family at ground level (Lot 212), and an Oasis Dream colt out of the winning Sea The Stars mare Kinaesthesia, a relation to Rausing’s British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes victress Madame Chiang (Lot 446).

Rausing is at home in Newmarket this week, as a fractured leg has prevented her from travelling to Ireland to oversee the draft as she usually would, but Deepone’s recent success achieved at the expense of Ballydoyle-trained Galileo colts Chief Little Rock and Grosvenor Square has been the perfect tonic for the patient.

“I think what was quite interesting was the jockey Billy Lee’s comments after the race, as he said that even if the other horses had come at him he would have had plenty left in the tank, or words to that effect,” she says.

“We’re delighted, because as you know, it’s rather difficult to compete with the giants of this business, and obviously our horse Study Of Man covered around 80 mares in his first season whereas some of his competitors in the same crop covered upwards of 200 each, which makes life a little difficult.

“He is operating at a good strike-rate of around 35 per cent and the season isn’t finished yet, so there may be a few other winners lurking about somewhere. There may even be some black-type results to come though. There are only a few opportunities left this season now, but he might have another black-type horse yet; perhaps one of the fillies.”

Deepone: Study Of Man's first Group winner in the Beresford Stakes Credit: Patrick McCann

Study Of Man has put five winners on the board, the others being Rausing’s own useful fillies Francophone and Lingua Franca, James Ferguson’s promising colt Jubilee Walk and BBAG sales race scorer Ghorgan. Not bad results, all in all, for a sire who ran only once at two himself, and whose tally of 16 runners to date is a small fraction of the 90 who have so far represented leading freshman Blue Point.

Rausing says his performance is on a par with what she expected at the start of the season, and she is taking encouragement from an interesting historical precedent at Lanwades Stud.

“He’s ahead of Hernando, another French Derby winner, at the same stage of their careers,” she points out. “Hernando went into the October yearling sales with, I think, five first-crop two-year-old winners having covered a slightly larger book. Of those five, two were in Sweden and two were in the French provinces, but one was a maiden winner in England, who was later unlucky in the Racing Post Trophy.

“That one English maiden winner was Holding Court, who won the French Derby himself by six lengths in the following season, and then soon after came Sulamani, another French Derby winner. It’s heartening to think that Study Of Man is ahead of Hernando already.”

Asked whether she thought the industry appreciated Study Of Man’s exciting start, she replies: “It’s not really for me to say, but I hope the respect is there, because I’m very, very confident in the horse myself.

“He won his only race at two, and that was rather later in the year than his progeny who have been winning this season, and he’s such a good-looking horse, who had plenty of racing ability and an outstanding pedigree.”

Kirsten Rausing: looking forward to the Goffs Orby Sale Credit: Edward Whitaker

Study Of Man certainly should be on buyers’ radars this yearling sales season, especially now that he has shown considerable promise as a sire, as his stock will likely perform over the distances that boast the biggest prize-money and have the most resale value for international markets.

Rausing says of the two homebreds she is sending to Goffs this week: “We have a nice colt out of Albamara selling tomorrow. He’s a brother to Almudena, who has run three times and been thereabouts but is more of a three-year-old in the making, which you would expect on paper.

“The filly out of Kandahari selling on Wednesday is the most lovely individual, she really is. The dam has rather upgraded herself by breeding a stakes winner [Kawida], and her second foal Khinjani has become a winner since the catalogue was printed.

“She herself is a half-sister to Zaaki, who is the highest-earning imported runner in Australia ever. I believe Black Caviar and Winx might have earned more than him, but no others who were imported there.”

Sandrine, by home stallion Bobby’s Kitten, might never dislodge Alpinista from top spot in Rausing’s affections, but she is working her way up the charts, having now won Group races at two (Albany and Duchess of Cambridge Stakes), three (Lennox Stakes) and four (Park Stakes).

“I was delighted with her win at Doncaster,” says Rausing. “I have to say, ever since she was a two-year-old she’s exceeded expectations. She’s a lovely filly, so willing and so genuine, and although she has worn a visor in her last two races it is only to help her concentrate; there’s nothing wrong with her generosity whatsoever.

Sandrine: homebred daughter of Bobby's Kitten took the Park Stakes on her latest startCredit: Alan Crowhurst

“The objective for Sandrine is the Group 1 sprint on British Champions Day at Ascot. This is a family I’ve had since around 1975, and her half-brother at Goffs is a very nice horse.

“People have asked why I sent the mare to Sea The Moon, and I have to say at the time it looked like a very good mating, as Sea The Shells, Seychelloise’s first foal by Sea The Stars, was undefeated in two starts for Mark Johnston at the time. He looked a very good prospect but injured himself and spent a long time off the track, so the yearling colt is a three-parts brother to a horse who didn’t realise his full potential.

“Coincidentally, Starfighter – who is by Sea The Stars out of Sandrine’s granddam Starlit Sands – won his sixth race at Wolverhampton on Saturday evening. He’s a tough old boy who keeps winning, and hopefully the yearling colt has a little more class. It’s a nice family that often wins over slightly shorter than the pedigree indicates.”

On the subject of the other Sea The Moon in the Staffordstown draft, the filly out of Alma Linda, she says: “She is a three-parts sister to Miss Alpilles, the dam’s two-year-old filly by Sea The Stars who’s with Ed Walker, and I believe Ed likes her very much.

“The dam is by Invincible Spirit, and the next dam Alvarita has bred nothing but winners, four of them black type. The only reason I’m selling this filly, is that I’ve got the dam, the granddam, and all the fillies under the granddam, plus daughters of theirs too, so one has to let something go. This is a very nice filly, and I think it’s fair to say that her catalogue page wouldn’t look out of place in any of the best sales in the world.”

Oasis Dream: Juddmonte sire has been a fine servant for LanwadesCredit: Juddmonte

Rausing has a soft spot for the sire of the last Staffordstown lot through the ring this week, the Oasis Dream colt out of Kinaesthesia.

“I do like old Oasis Dream, he’s served me well over the years,” she says. “I bred his very first Group winner, which was Starlit Sands, and one of his first Group 1 winners, Lady Jane Digby, both from his first crop.

“Kinaesthesia was a winner, of course, and her two-year-old colt by Study Of Man called Kinesiology has run twice for Jessica Harrington and was beaten a nostril in a good maiden at Leopardstown last time. He looks promising. This is another family I’ve had for a long time, and one I love as it has given me Madame Chiang and her daughters.

"The Oasis Dream colt is a very nice horse and an especially good mover.”

It should be a good week for Staffordstown, then, although Rausing is disappointed to be missing her regular trip to Goffs Orby.

“I’ve been selling at Goffs since its inauguration at Kill in 1975, when I sold a Swedish-bred yearling who did rather well for Gavin Pritchard-Gordon, which shows it’s going back a bit,” she says.

Alpinista: last year's Arc heroine has settled down to motherhood Credit: Edward Whitaker

“I think I’ve attended every yearling single there ever since, except this year, which is a source of great sadness. I could probably have hung around at the sales with my fractured leg, but I couldn't have coped with Ryanair and all that.”

Of course, it was around this time last year that Rausing enjoyed the finest moment in her more than half a century in the breeding industry: welcoming her awesome homebred Alpinista back into the Longchamp winner’s enclosure after the Arc.

Has she come back down to earth 51 weeks later?

“Just about,” she laughs. “It was a fantastic annus mirabilis: four individual Group 1 winners, a Classic winner in Eldar Eldarov, an Australian champion in Zaaki and a world champion in Alpinista. We bred 132 winners which was by a long, long way a record for us.

“For as long as I live I’ll never reach anything like those heights again. It was such a fantastic year and it’s great to have it to look back on, on those days when things don’t look great, and can seem rather dim.”

Alpinista is reported to have become the model expectant mother since retiring to Lanwades at the end of last year, just as she was the model racehorse.

“The wonderful heroine, as she is referred to here, is out here in my front paddock grazing away,” says Rausing. “She looks well. We all know she’s incapable of doing anything wrong, and so she duly went in foal to a February service, and is due in January. She was covered by Dubawi; I felt I had to do it this year in light of that horse’s age.

“Her dam Alwilda has a Frankel filly foal who is therefore a full-sister to Alpinista, and she is back in foal to Frankel again.”

With Study Of Man doing so well in his early days, is there any chance that the component parts of Lanwades’ recent success will be brought together to form another top-class homebred, by the exciting sire getting to cover the ‘wonderful heroine’ Alpinista?

“He’s always been on her list, but I can’t say that it will be next year, we’ll have to see about that,” says Rausing. “It's perhaps more likely to be the year after that, but who knows?

“I’ve supported Study Of Man very well already anyway, by covering many of my best mares with him, and that will continue to be seen by the mostly colts we present in the ring this week and beyond.”

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 “You don’t need a lot of movement but some don’t give you that choice, some can be pretty amped up and nervous, so you try to keep them as comfortable as possible,” says Ashley Hobgood, a rare female ringman who shows lots as they sell at Keeneland.

Pedigree pick

With no form on offer in the seven-furlong newcomers’ maiden at Leicester on Monday (3.15), pedigree study will be paramount.

The one with particularly attractive breeding is the Roger Varian-trained Dosman, a 375,000gns purchase from Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale last year by Sumbe.

He is a Kingman half-brother to Group 3 winner Aikhal out of the high-class racemare Diamond Fields, a half-sister to Irish Derby hero Latrobe and Irish Oaks runner-up Pink Dogwood, from Allan Belshaw’s productive ‘Times’ family of Newspaperofrecord and Times Square.

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