'Not one part of me feels sad she's gone on to become the dam of a Group 1 winner' - Harry Dutfield on Khor Sheed

Good Morning Bloodstock is Martin Stevens' daily morning email and presented here online as a sample.

Here he chats to Harry Dutfield in the wake of Without A Fight's Melbourne Cup triumph - subscribers can get more great insight from Martin every Monday to Friday.

All you need do is click on the link above, sign up and then read at your leisure each weekday morning from 7am.

There’s nothing better in this business than paying peanuts for a broodmare before one of her offspring or close relations wins a Group 1 race, resulting in her value soaring skyward.

Popular pinhooker Harry Dutfield was in that position this autumn as he bought Khor Sheed, the dam of Caulfield Cup and Melbourne Cup hero Without A Fight, for just 26,000gns from the Godolphin draft at the Tattersalls December Mares Sale in 2019.

But as it happened, he resold the 15-year-old daughter of Dubawi for 28,000gns at Tattersalls in February. He has no regrets, though, as he wasn’t ignorant of the potential update, and his three-year ownership of the mare proved to be profitable anyway.

Besides that, he has also been left a valuable souvenir of his relationship with her, in the form of a half-sister to a multiple Group 1 winner.

Harry went back a long way with Khor Sheed before he renewed his association with her three years ago.

“The first time I came across her was in 2009, when I was working for John Troy at Willingham Stud and she was being prepped for the yearling sales,” he explains. “She was from the second crop of Dubawi, and was a half-sister to a Group 1 winner in Prince Kirk.

“She was an absolute block – a unit; typical of Dubawi. Everyone would lap her up now, as she was stamped by the sire, but people weren’t sure about him then. I always had a soft spot for her as I thought she was just a lovely shape. Her walk was so-so, but she went over the ground well and was forward on the lunge.

“She sold for 42,000gns, and I thought at the time that a half-sister to a Group 1 winner could have made a bit more than that. Luca Cumani, who bought her, spoke to John afterwards and was grinning from ear to ear, saying he’d got a steal. He was right.”

Indeed he was. Khor Sheed carried the silks of Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum, for whom Cumani had trained Dubawi’s dam Zomaradah, and she broke her maiden in the Listed Empress Stakes at Newmarket on her second start.

She went on to win a valuable Tattersalls sales race at two, and the Eternal Stakes and Premio Sergio Cumani at three. By the time she had retired she had won more than three times her yearling price-tag, and rated as a highly valuable breeding prospect.

As it turned out, though, Khor Sheed had a disappointingly slow start as a broodmare. When she returned to Park Paddocks three years ago, her page showed that she had produced only the one winner from five foals of racing age.

Her old friend Harry was prepared to accentuate the positives in her profile, though.

Khor Sheed (yellow) wins the Listed Empress Stakes at Newmarket under Kieren Fallon

He says: “I always flick through the catalogues to see if there’s any familiar names in them, and on that occasion I saw Khor Sheed was being culled. I was a bit surprised, to be honest, as she was a Group-winning Dubawi half-sister to a Group 1 winner after all.

“I went down to see her, as I would if any of my former pinhooks were coming up for sale again. It was more just to say hello really, as I had a soft spot for her. I didn’t go there thinking I’d buy her.

“They showed her, and went through her breeding record and said that she’d had a couple of red bag deliveries [where the foal is born still inside the placenta], but she’d still had seven foals out of seven covers in consecutive years.

“She looked like the same horse I knew ten years before. She was about 15.2 hands and still had that incredible bulk. She was in remarkably good nick for her age, not all bloated and saggy. To look at her you’d have thought she’d only had a few foals.”

Harry might not have gone up to Tattersalls with any intention of buying Khor Sheed but that all changed when she appeared in the ring to widespread indifference.

“I was nattering away to a friend of mine, Carwyn Johns, as I watched her sell,” he says. “He was joking that I’d got to Park Paddocks a bit late for the foals, when I heard the auctioneer asking for 12,000gns for her. ‘Sorry Carwyn’, I said, ‘I’ve got to go. That’s way too cheap’.

“So I marched into the ring and started bidding and got her for 26,000gns. I still thought that was a good price. She had a Frankel three-year-old still to run, her Teofilo two-year-old Without A Fight hadn’t raced and she had a yearling filly by Sea The Stars.

“On top of all that, her first foal Sharja Princess had already produced a dual winner in France called Avenue De France, and I saw from the French website that she’d been exported to America, so knew she could do better still.”

Harry was right that the best was yet to come from Khor Sheed.

Without A Fight embarked on a spree of seven victories for Simon and Ed Crisford, before he moved to Anthony and Sam Freedman in Australia; Going Places, her Frankel colt, won two races for a best RPR of 100; even Prakasa, a later filly by The Gurkha, looked good when winning a Kempton maiden. Avenue De France meanwhile gained Grade 2 laurels at Del Mar.

Avenue De France: did her bit for the family on the track

It was Avenue De France and another clue in the family that inspired Harry’s first mating for Khor Sheed, which resulted in a precious filly who is now two years old.

“Avenue De France is by Cityscape and Khor Sheed’s half-brother Prince Kirk was by Cityscape’s sire Selkirk, so the nick seemed to work – and even more importantly Cityscape was a nice, cheap cover I could afford,” he says.

“In the following year I sent her to Showcasing. She’d always been sent to Galileo-line sires, for obvious reasons, but I thought as she was a fast, precocious Listed-winning two-year-old over six furlongs I’d love to see what she could produce if she went to something sharp and speedy in her own mould."

That mating resulted in another filly born in May last year, the dam’s tenth foal in as many years. Understandably, with foaling dates creeping later and later and the mare deserving of a year off, she was rested from covering in 2022.

Harry was setting up his own operation on an old poultry farm in Norfolk as Khor Sheed enjoyed her sabbatical with the 24-year-old retiree Lady Dominatrix, a Group 3-winning sprinter for Harry’s late mother Nerys in her pomp and now the granddam of dual Royal Ascot heroine Campanelle.

“The months went past and I was getting planning permission to do up the stud, and I really wanted to get a horsewalker in, so I looked around for something I could sell to pay for it,” he says.

“Then, one day last November, I was out in the field trying to bring the mares in and Khor Sheed gave me the runaround for 45 minutes, leading Lady Dominatrix and her daughter Gladiatrix astray as well. It was raining, it was really cold, and so she really made up my mind for me.

“And so I put her in the Tattersalls February Sale. I felt a bit guilty as I’d bought her thinking I’d have her forever, and I don’t like selling mares as I get a bit attached to them. I’d gladly have given her a retirement home like I have done with Lady Dominatrix. But the farm isn’t huge and everything has to be paid for, and I knew if I didn’t sell her this year I never would."

He adds: “Still, though, I put a reserve on her and would have happily had her back if she didn’t make it, as there’s nothing wrong with her. I knew Without A Fight was a Group 1 winner waiting to happen as he was winning Group 2s and Group 3s as if he’d joined the races at the furlong pole, and Avenue De France could become a top broodmare as she has now gone to Japan, and we know what breeders there can produce.

“But I had the two daughters to soften the blow, and I also knew that I couldn’t afford the covers she needed now that her profile was improving so rapidly.”

Lucky Vega: covered Khor Sheed after purchase by YulongCredit: Bronwen Healy

Khor Sheed was eventually knocked down to BBA Ireland on behalf of Yulong Investments for 28,000gns, and she was subsequently covered by the operation’s young sire Lucky Vega.

No regrets at all, then, even after Without A Flight’s historic Caulfield Cup and Melbourne Cup double?

“Not one part of me that feels sad that she’s gone on to become the dam of a Group 1 winner, in fact it makes me feel good because I know she’ll be looked after even better and she’ll get the covers she deserves,” says Harry emphatically, before adding with a chuckle: “They’ll have to put up with her now when she mucks them around in the paddock on a cold winter’s day.”

Harry was left with the Cityscape and Showcasing fillies out of Khor Sheed, with the latter having to go to market to dissolve the foal share agreement on which she was bred.  

She sold to Peter and Ross Doyle for £82,000 at the Goffs Doncaster Premier Yearling Sale in August.

“She was a May filly but she looked more like a March colt,” reports Harry. “She was really smart and racy, and I was pleased with the result as the Doyles bought my first really successful pinhook, Kool Kompany, at the same sale all those years ago.

“She had a clean set of x-rays, which vindicates the way I rear the horses. I don’t like messing around with their feet too much and I’m not a fan of the way some farriers try to force the horse to fit into what they consider to be the correct start to the legs.

“I prefer to let Mother Nature deal with the legs slowly over time, allowing the body to adapt gradually. She had legs all over the place when she was born, but they came together naturally.

“She was also impeccably behaved at the sales. I didn’t handle her much as a foal, as I picked her up at a month old and then she was turned out almost straight away as it was summer by then. I looked at her at first and thought she might be her mother’s daughter, a bit of an old cow at times, but she was actually very sweet. She has a superb temperament.”

Interestingly, considering the Showcasing filly was born on May 13, she has already been named – and presumably by a Kylie Minogue fan, as she will go down on racecards as Padam.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they think she’s going to be early,” says Harry. “Normally when I’m lunging youngsters for the first time I’m trying to encourage them to work forward into the bit and to carry themselves properly, but this filly was just turbocharged. I ended up doing the opposite, trying to get her to slow down, put the handbrake on and steady away.”

Padam’s owners have named their daughter of Khor Sheed even before Harry has named the year-older Cityscape filly, who he is retaining and leasing to a club to race with Karl Burke.

Kylie Minogue: You look like fun to me, PadamCredit: Francois Nel (Getty Images)

“She’s the ace I was keeping up my sleeve when I sold the dam,” says Harry. “I don’t know what to call her, or whether to leave it to the club to come up with a name. There was no point rushing her as the family gets better with age and you don’t think of Cityscape as a sire of Queen Mary Stakes winners.

“She’s a lot like her mother: not very tall, maybe 15.2 or 15.3 hands by the time she’s fully mature, but built like a panzer tank and with a good set of pins on her.”

The sale of Khor Sheed and her Showcasing filly have funded a lot of equipment and upgrades at Harry’s new property, on good clay soil between Thetford and Diss – as well as a holiday in Santorini.

He has the horsewalker in place, and is currently painting the 12 15ft by 15ft stables and fencing that have been put in place ahead of him prepping his pinhooks at home for the first time next year.

The Showcasing filly out of Khor Sheed and Harry’s best result to date, a Dandy Man half-brother to Mammas Girl sold to Federico Barberini for 92,000gns at Book 2, were prepped at Simon and Emma Capon’s Glebe Stud, while last year’s yearlings – including Paddy Twomey’s recent four-length Curragh winner Porters Place – were made pitch perfect for the sales from boxes rented at Adrian and Philippa O’Brien’s Hazelwood Stud.

“An absolute weapon” is Harry’s verdict on the Make Believe filly Porters Place, who went from €32,000 Goffs November foal to 70,000gns Book 2 yearling and earned quotes for the 1,000 Guineas after her impressive debut success last month.

It could be a big year for Harry’s pinhooks as not only does he have Porters Place and the next tranche of two-year-olds to represent him, but top sprinter Azure Blue – a €19,000 Goffs November foal to 47,000gns Book 3 yearling – should also be back for more.

“I can’t wait,” says Harry. “Azure Blue beat Highfield Princess and Perdika in the spring and they ran first and second in the Prix de l’Abbaye so it was frustrating that she didn’t run after the summer.

“I’m looking forward to the day when I can pinhook some fillies and put proper reserves on them at the yearling sales so that I can keep them if they don’t make their money. I really enjoy working with fillies.”

Thank goodness Harry does take so much interest in the fillies he’s had through his hands, as rekindling his relationship with Khor Sheed has worked out well for both him, in terms of growing his business, and for the mare, who will now get the blue-chip covers she deserves from Yulong Investments.

Refer a friend!

If you have a friend who would like to receive Good Morning Bloodstock please send the following link where they can sign up.

What do you think?

Share your thoughts with other Good Morning Bloodstock readers by emailing gmb@racingpost.com

Must-read story

“Many of our stallions have enjoyed fantastic seasons but, in line with prevailing market conditions, we’ve decreased the fees of ten of the 18 who remain on the roster from last year,” says Coolmore’s David O’Loughlin as the operation publishes its 2024 tariff.

Pedigree pick

Warming makes a little each-way appeal on her debut for trainer George Boughey and owner Salem Rashid Bin Ghadayer in the seven-furlong novice stakes at Chelmsford (5.00) on Thursday.

She is by exciting freshman sire Too Darn Hot out of Cape Bunting, who has no black type but won three of her four starts and showed good form, including when easily beating the subsequent Group 3 winner Yafta on her debut at Newmarket and when taking a valuable conditions race at Chelmsford.

Cape Bunting, catalogued to sell at Goffs this month, is a Cape Cross half-sister to Coventry Stakes winner Buratino from the family of champion two-year-old and sire Danehill Dancer.

The only drawback with Warming is that she was a vendor buyback at just 50,000gns as a yearling, but the market has overlooked talented horses at the sales before.

Don’t miss ANZ Bloodstock News

Subscribe for the latest bloodstock news from Australia, New Zealand and beyond.