Darley to bring Blue Point, Too Darn Hot to Australia
The breeding giant adds significant firepower to its already strong roster with European champions and last season’s leading local two-year-old
Victorian breeders will have access to Europe’s Champion Sprinter Blue Point (Shamardal) this year, with Darley announcing that the three-time Royal Ascot winner will stand his first season in Australia at their Northwood Park farm in Seymour.
Darley’s already-powerful roster has been bolstered by yesterday’s announcement that Blue Point would be joined by Europe’s Champion Two-Year-Old and Champion Three-Year-Old Too Darn Hot (Dubawi) and Australia’s Champion Two-Year-Old Microphone (Exceed And Excel) in serving their first southern hemisphere books in 2020.
Both Too Darn Hot and the recently-retired Microphone will stand at Kelvinside in the Hunter Valley.
The trio collectively are “as good as any group of new stallions Darley has offered in Australia,” according to Alastair Pulford, Darley’s head of sales.
“To have horses of the calibre of Too Darn Hot and Blue Point here is just unbelievable,” Pulford told ANZ Bloodstock News yesterday. “Just the fact they are by Dubawi and Shamardal, who are the best two stallions that we’ve stood in the northern hemisphere – certainly in the UK and Ireland – is fantastic and obviously both of those horses stood with distinction down here as well.
“They are different physicals – Blue Point is his father’s son, as is Too Darn Hot actually,” Pulford laughed. “Blue Point is a big, strapping, powerful, muscular horse. Too Darn Hot is a much more elegant son of Dubawi out of a Singspiel mare, he’s a beautiful mover while Blue Point is more of a sprinting brute.”
Blue Point, a three-quarter brother to Group 2 winner Formosina (Footstepsinthesand), was purchased for 200,000gns by John Ferguson at Book 1 of the 2015 Tattersalls October Yearling Sale.
Racing in the Godolphin blue for trainer Charlie Appleby, he was a Group 2 winner as a juvenile, taking the Gimcrack Stakes (Gr 2, 6f) by a widening three lengths. He was also twice Group 1-placed at two, in the Middle Park Stakes (Gr 1, 6f) and the Dewhurst Stakes (Gr 1, 7f), while he was again placed at the highest level at three in the Commonwealth Cup (Gr 1, 6f) at his first Royal Ascot appearance.
It was as an older horse, though, that he stamped his sheer class. At four, he won the King’s Stand Stakes (Gr 1, 5f) for the first time, while he was unbeaten in five starts as a five-year-old, including three Group 1 wins: the Al Quoz Sprint (Gr 1, 1200m), the King’s Stand Stakes (Gr 1, 5f) and the Diamond Jubilee Stakes (Gr 1, 6f).
The King’s Stand-Diamond Jubilee double, in the space of five days, has only been completed one other time since Diadem (Orby) achieved the feat 100 years ago (across a four day period); that was by the Australian raider Choisir (Danehill Dancer) in 2003.
Retired days after Royal Ascot last year, he was the winner of 11 of his 20 starts. A four-time Group 1 winner, he earned £2,631,333 (approximately AU$5.2 million).
He served his first mares this year at Darley’s Kildangan Stud in Kildare, standing for a fee of €45,000. He will join a burgeoning Northwood Park roster that includes Brazen Beau (I Am Invincible) and Street Boss (Street Cry), as well as American star Frosted (Tapit).
“Victoria is an extremely important market for us and we’ve always supported it extremely well with horses like Brazen Beau and Street Boss,” Pulford said.
“When Brazen Beau went to stud, he was the number one pick of his draft that year, not just in our draft but Australia-wide. New Approach was the same. So we’ve always tried to support Victoria with a top-class horse and this is no exception.
“We know that he will get huge support here, the people who’ve seen him already really like him in the northern hemisphere.”
Too Darn Hot arrives in Australia with a pedigree and a reputation to uphold as the Champion Two-Year-Old and Champion Three-Year-Old of his generation in Europe.
Bred and raced by the doyen of musical theatre Andrew Lloyd Webber – styled as Lord Lloyd Webber under his Watership Down Stud banner – Too Darn Hot is out of Lloyd Webber’s three-time Group 1 winner Dar Re Mi (Singspiel).
Dar Re Mi is out of the top filly Darara (Top Ville), herself a Group 1 winner who produced top-level winners Rewilding (Tiger Hill), River Dancer (Sadler’s Wells) and Darazari (Sadler’s Wells). Before Too Darn Hot, Dar Re Mi had already produced Group 1 placegetters So Mi Dar (Dubawi) and Lah Ti Dar (Dubawi).
As a two-year-old, the John Gosden-trained Too Darn Hot was undefeated from four starts, winning the Dewhurst Stakes (Gr 1, 7f), the Champagne Stakes (Gr 2, 7f) and the Solario Stakes (Gr 3, 7f), each by definitive margins.
Too Darn Hot was initially on a Derby path at three, but after finishing second in the Dante Stakes (1m 2f), he was dropped back to shorter trips.
Placings in the Irish 2,000 Guineas (Gr 1, 1m) behind Phoenix Of Spain (Lope De Vega) and the St James’s Palace Stakes (Gr 1, 1m) behind Circus Maximus (Galileo) primed him for the back half of his season, with the colt ending his career with a pair of Group 1 wins in the Prix Jean Prat (Gr 1, 1400m) and against the older horses in the Sussex Stakes (Gr 1, 1m).
All in all, he raced nine times for six wins, retiring as a three-time Group 1 winner and earning £1,320,181 (approximately AU$2.6 million). He stood his first northern hemisphere season at Darley’s Dalham Hall Stud in Newmarket for £50,000.
“We have been so thrilled with the way European breeders and industry professionals have supported Too Darn Hot that it makes this Australian adventure all the more exciting,” Lord Lloyd Webber said.
“He has already taken us on an incredible journey and to now open him up to a completely new market is beyond our wildest dreams. He is in the best possible hands and we will certainly be asking Simon (Marsh, racing and bloodstock manager for the Lloyd Webbers) to find some wonderful mares with which to support him in Australia.”
Microphone, at this stage, is the sole Australian addition to the Darley roster, having been retired after his last-start second in the Randwick Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m).
He comes from one of the leading Woodlands families harking back to the Ingham days. His dam Sung (Anabaa) won the Dark Jewel Classic (Listed, 1400m) at Scone, while her dam Vocalist (Bluebird) won the Black Opal Preview (Listed, 1200m) at Canberra and produced three-time Group 1 winner Yell (Anabaa).
Others in the family are Group 1 winners Holler (Commands) and Anthems (Palace Music), while Written Tycoon (Iglesia) features further back.
Prepared by Godolphin Australia’s trainer James Cummings, Microphone won the ATC Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m), the Skyline Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) and the Talindert Stakes (Listed, 1100m) among four wins as a two-year-old.
He was also second in the Golden Slipper Stakes (Gr 1, 1200m) behind stablemate Kiamichi (Sidestep), with his overall campaign earning him Australia’s Champion Two-Year-Old crown.
At three, he raced five times for a win in the Autumn Stakes (Gr 2, 1400m) at Caulfield. He was also placed in the Randwick Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m), the Roman Consul Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) and the Hobartville Stakes (Gr 2, 1400m), racing against some of the best horses in what is widely seen as one of the strongest crops in recent memory.
“He’s sure to be immensely popular,” Pulford said. “Being the Champion Two-Year-Old in his crop is a significant achievement because it is not just any crop; it is one of the strongest two-year-old crops going on three-year-old crops that we’ve seen.
“He’s by the world’s best sire of two-year-olds, there are Stakes winners right through his maternal family and he’s a very good-looking horse in the mould of his father.”
Stallion fees for Darley’s roster, including the three new additions, will be released later this month.