Great stallions rarely appear by accident and one of the world’s best farms has a happy knack for creating champion racehorses and champion sires capable of reshaping the world of racing and breeding.
The colours of Prince Khalid Abdullah’s Juddmonte Farms have been carried by an astonishing list of homebred Group I winners that can be seen here and included in the tally are the two best horses to race in Europe in the past decade in Frankel and Enable.
Right up there with those luminaries is four time Group I winner Kingman, the European Horse of the Year and Champion 3YO in 2014, who lifted his sire Invincible Spirit to new heights with his overwhelming success.
From a superb Juddmonte Farms female family being from French Group I winner Zenda, Kingman has quickly lived up to expectation at stud with his fee set for 2020 at 150,000 pounds on the back of his stellar success.
With his oldest progeny just turned four, Kingman has already posted 19 stakes-winners headed by Group I winner Persian King and his 10.4% stakes-winners to runners is superior to that of his champion sire Invincible Spirit, who runs at 8%.
It’s also in advance of Invincible Spirit’s champion Australian sire son I Am Invincible, who runs at 8.3% stakes-winners to runners.
The first ever winner for Kingman was a colt of rare ability in Calyx, who bolted in by five lengths on debut at Newmarket and then backed it up 10 days later to win the Group II Coventry Stakes (6f) at Royal Ascot beating subsequent Group I winner Advertise.
He missed the rest of his juvenile season through injury and then was retired after just two more starts at three including a four-length victory in the Group III Commonwealth Cup Trial Stakes (6f)at Ascot, again exhibiting that electrifying turn of foot.
Global breeding giant Coolmore have enjoyed some of their greatest success through acquiring Juddmonte Farms bred Group I sprinter Danehill, so their decision to secure Calyx will be seen by many as the chance to replicate a winning formula.
Brilliant speed, the same powerhouse sireline and a top class female family took Danehill a long way and those attributes are all front and centre in Calyx, whose Timeform Rating at two and three was in keeping with a Group I winner.
A Juddmonte Farm bred horse through both his sire (Kingman) and dam (Helleborine), Calyx has an exceptional tail female line with his dam Helleborine’s next four dams all producing Group I winners.
For Australian breeders looking for speed and a world class pedigree, Calyx represents an affordable gamble at a fee of $17,600 and with the support of both Coolmore and Juddmonte in the Northern Hemisphere will get a second to none chance to succeed.
