Chatham delivers sister to Air Force Blue

Arthur B Hancock's Stone Farm, the breeders of champion two-year-old Air Force Blue, welcomed a sister to the champion two-year-old winner last Thursday when Chatham delivered a filly by War Front at the Kentucky operation.

Chatham, a 13-year-old daughter of Maria’s Mon, was purchased by Hancock from the Overbrook Farm dispersal for $190,000 at the Keeneland November Breeding Stock Sale in 2009. She is from the family of Grade 1 winners Flanders and Surfside and is set to return to Claiborne Farm resident War Front this year.

Hancock said: “This foal is a lovely filly. In fact, you couldn’t ask for a nicer foal.”

Chatham’s best performer is Air Force Blue, a four-year-old son of War Front who was trained by Aidan O’Brien to win the Phoenix Stakes, National Stakes and Dewhurst Stakes at the highest level as a juvenile.

He is standing his first season at Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in Kentucky at a fee of $25,000 and last week it was announced that he is to shuttle to the operation’s base in Australia for the 2017 southern hemisphere breeding season.