Coming of age

It doesn’t seem too long ago that the good-looking Authorized was strutting around Newmarket Heath during his days in training with Peter Chapple-Hyam.

These days, the Heath is populated by some of his sons and daughters, with the 105-rated Guarantee a resident of William Haggas’s Somerville Lodge, while across the road is the Listed winner Ambivalent with Roger Varian.

Among Authorized’s other three-year-olds for 2013 is the very exciting Irish-trained Sugar Boy, a Listed winner over nine furlongs at two for Patrick Prendergast who holds an entry in the Irish Derby. Having started racing in June last year, he ended up with three wins to his name and never finished out of the first four in six starts, earning an official rating of 108.

Authorized’s prolific winners-to-runners strike rate of 59% for his 48 individual three-year-old winners last year put him at the top of the table and ahead of every major stallion in Europe, ensuring that he was once again poplar with yearling buyers in 2012. Members of his third crop sold for up to £189,000 to such renowned judges and top trainers as John Warren, Bobby O’Ryan, Con Marnane, Nicolas Clement, Michael Bell, Tony Nerses, Kern Lillingston, Gill Richardson and Mark Johnston.

The market has given Authorized’s stock a strong vote of confidence, knowing that he offers a chance to buy progressive, athletic runners with the potential to compete in prestigious middle-distance and staying contests around the world. These are the races that so many owners want to win, and with the export market for middle-distance form horses being so strong in recent years, using a stallion that gets this type of horse gives breeders and owner/breeders plenty of options.