News
New stud, new sire
STALLIONS ARE A PERPETUAL SURPRISE. Year after year, more often than not, the best young sires of each successive generation are not those who were the most expensive or popular when they retired to stud.
Or, to be more precise, sometimes the most popular and expensive do turn out to be good, but every year there are others who significantly outperform the general perception of their chances of success.
For every Frankel there will always be plenty whose stallion career trajectory is more like that of Kodiac, Lope De Vega, Showcasing, Le Havre, Siyouni, Wootton Bassett or Galiway – stallions who started out relatively cheap and were undervalued or ignored by most of those who could have used them through their first years at stud.
New stallions are generally judged on their racing career and, above all, on their most recent performances, their own sire and their physical looks.
Important as these factors undoubtedly are there are other characteristics to take into account, not least how a horse’s attributes are likely to meld with those of the mare population available to him, as well as the people who are in control of that stallion’s career.
At every stage what needs to be added depends upon what is there already, and each addition changes the balance and what will be needed in the future.
It is a procedure learned from experience and is not from an exact equation; it will not succeed every time, however experienced and skilled those making the decisions are.
Sealiway, the dual Group 1-winning son of Galiway who has retired to the newly established Haras de Beaumont to begin his stallion career in 2023 has, on this line of reasoning, a lot going for him.
By Galiway out of a mare by Kendargent, Sealiway will be able to cover many of the mares currently in France and the only breeder who may struggle to find suitable mates for him is Sealiway’s own breeder Guy Pariente, who stands and frequently uses both Galiway and Kendargent.
Sealiway raced for a partnership between the Chehboub family’s Haras de la Gousserie and Pariente, who retained 30 per cent when the colt was sold at the Arqana August Sale in 2019. Both have kept a significant interest in the horse for his second career.
(...) The Chehboub family, and in particular Kamel Chehboub and his daughter Pauline, has become a major player in French racing over recent seasons. They family has finished amongst the top ten leading owners in France in each of the last two years and currently has 55 horses in training. The family is planning to send 25 to 3o mares to Sealiway this year.
The Haras de Beaumont has been established on 220 acres in the commune of Vauville close to Deauville on part of what was previously the Head family’s Haras du Quesnay. It will be managed by Mathieu Alex, who together with Sylvain Vidal, played a major role in establishing Le Havre as a leading European sire at what was at the time the Haras de la Cauvinière.
