As the hectic yearling sales season draws to close, the focus switches soon to foal sales, at which offspring by a quartet of new Darley stallions will be tested in the market for the first time.
Derby winner Authorized (pictured) retired to Darley at the end of his three-year-old season and since they started arriving in January, his foals have been the subject of some very favourable reports. An athletic son of Montjeu, Authorized was always an eye-catcher on the track, as much for his physique as for the manner in which he won his races. The sight of him bowling down the hill at Epsom, pulling away from his rivals to win by five lengths in the hands of Frankie Dettori, is the image that many people retain of this handsome dark bay horse but Authorized was also a brilliant winner of the G1 Racing Post Trophy on only his second start as a two-year-old and repelled subsequent Arc winner Dylan Thomas when reverting to ten furlongs after the Derby in the G1 Juddmonte International.
While Authorized was making his mark on the Classic crop of 2007, five-year-old Manduro was putting the finishing touches to a stellar career which saw him bow out unbeaten in his final season on the track. The first of his five victories that year came in the G3 Earl Of Sefton Stakes at Newmarket, in which he beat the previous season's 1000 Guineas winner Speciosa by four lengths. Manduro, who was Germany's Champion two-year-old and is a son of the elite stallion Monsun, then added a hat-trick of Group One victories to his record, notching the Prix d'Ispahan, the Prince Of Wales's Stakes and the Jacques le Marois in less than three months. He signed off in the G2 Prix Foy, sustaining a hairline fracture during the race which would rule him out of a potential swansong in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. Even without lining up in Europe's premier weight-for-age championship, Manduro's exploits had been enough to see him retire to Kildangan Stud as Horse of the Year in 2007.
Teofilo (pictured on home page) was, of course, the horse that had us all dreaming of the first Triple Crown winner since Nijinsky. His unbeaten romp through Ireland's best two-year-old races, which culminated with a trip to England to contest the G1 Darley Dewhurst Stakes, in which he got the better of an almighty duel with Holy Roman Emperor, naturally ensured he was Champion juvenile of 2006. Heartbreak was to follow as injury ruled the Galileo colt out of a three-year-old campaign but compensation was just around the corner for his trainer Jim Bolger, who achieved the same extraordinary feat in exactly the same races the following year with New Approach, who has his first mares in foal this season. While New Approach was being prepared for the Derby, Teofilo was undertaking his first season at Kildangan Stud and a number of the offspring from that regally-bred book of mares will be facing the auctioneer's hammer in the coming weeks.
The other new addition to the Darley stallion ranks in 2008 was a very special one indeed as he was the second member of Dubai Millennium's sole crop to retire to stud: Echo Of Light. His paternal half-brother Dubawi had beaten him to it by two years and the success of his first year at stud has been amply advertised by his 27 individual winners already this season, including Godolphin's pair of Group Two winners, Poet's Voice and Sand Vixen.
A statuesque individual like his father, Echo Of Light has also been given the thumbs-up by breeders who used him in his first season, with reports stating that he is stamping his stock and throwing good-looking, scopey youngsters. The seven-year-old Dalham Hall resident emanates from a family already endowed with successful stallions: his dam Spirit Of Tara is a half-sister to the top-class Marju, while another half-sibling, the outstanding Salsabil, is the dam of Sahm, whose daughter Sahpresa landed the G1 Sun Chariot Stakes at Newmarket this autumn.
Like Manduro, Echo Of Light was a durable campaigner who raced for four consecutive seasons. He won five Group races during that time, including the G2 Prix Daniel Wildenstein and the G3 Strensall Stakes at York, in which he set a new course record.
Echo Of Light's and Authorized's first crops were conceived at Dalham Hall Stud in Newmarket while Manduro and Teofilo spent their inaugural stud seasons in Ireland at Kildangan Stud. Whichever side of the Irish Sea their resultant offspring have ended up, they are sure to be the subject of much attention at the forthcoming foal sales.
