Cambridge Stud shuttler gets career off to perfect start and we speak to Haras d'Etreham's Nicolas de Chambure

It did not take Haras d’Etreham’s stallion Almanzor (Wootton Bassett) long to get off the mark as a stallion with the Cambridge Stud shuttler opening his account with his very first runner on Monday, when the Francis Graffard-trained Faro De San Juan was victorious over 1100 metres at Chantilly. 

Nicolas de Chambure, managing director of Haras d’Etreham - who part own the colt with prominent Australian owner Peter Katelanis and SF Bloodstock - told Racing & Sports Bloodstock he was pleased with the performance and said they will take their time with him and look to target some high-class two-year-old races later this year. 

“The horse himself won well, having had to carry the race on his shoulders from a long way out,” said de Chambure. “He quickened really well and probably won more comfortably than the margin suggested. 

“I think he will progress a lot from the run and we are going to take our time with him and run in a Listed race in June and hopefully we will have a horse that can be competitive in the good Group races this summer.

“We discussed with part-owned Peter Katelanis and Brendan Lindsay today that the response on social media was incredible and guess that is because SF Bloodstock is in the colt, obviously Peter in Australia and the fact that Almanzor did shuttle so everybody is following him and there were just good vibes around him and his horses.”

The son of Wootton Bassett’s (Iffraaj) first southern hemisphere crop could not have been better received by buyers in Australasian sales ring this year, with 57 of his yearlings selling for an aggregate of $11,443,549 at an average of $200,764, his top colt was purchased by Ultra Thoroughbreds and Baystone Farm for $800,000 at the Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale. 

The popularity of his first crop has been felt by Cambridge Stud already, with the New Zealand-based nursery announcing earlier this month the stallion’s southern hemisphere book is already full and De Chambure said, while he had high expectations surrounding his first yearlings in Australia and New Zealand, the results exceeded even their high expectations. 

“We were hoping the Australian and New Zealand market were going to receive them well, because they were a fantastic group physically, but the way they sold exceeded all our expectations,” he said. 

“I think maybe his progeny represented something a bit different to that market down there and there is probably a bit of a switch back to buying horses that can stay slightly further and also horses that physically have the chance to improve from two to three, so all that mix of little things have created a big success around his first yearlings.” 

The stallion hails from a sireline that has been successful in the southern hemisphere, with his grandsire Iffraaj having shuttled to Haunui Farm in New Zealand for 12 years, siring 25 southern hemisphere bred stakes winners, headed by Group 1 winners Turn Me Loose, Gingernuts, Jon Snow and Wyndspelle. 

Iffraaj himself has proved a good match with daughters of Danehill (Danzig) with 22 of his winners being by the breed-shaping stallion, from just 31 runners and these include five stakes winners, headed by aforementioned Group 1 winner Turn Me Loose, while northern hemisphere-bred dual Group 1 winner Chriselliam is also bred on the Iffraaj / Danehill cross. 

De Chambure said the dominance of Danehill blood in the southern hemisphere meant stallions like Almanzor would be well-supported with some of the best Danehill-line mares and he believed the stallion’s first yearlings showed the sire had matched up well with them.  

“Looking at the southern hemisphere crop, the stallion seems to have matched up well with the mares down there and on paper, his sire line looks to work well with Danehill line mares, which of course is very important in that part of the world,” he said. 

“He is obviously a complete out-cross and he is such a dominant horse physically, he has plenty of size and class and looks to have matched really well with the mares in the southern hemisphere.”

Almanzor has a huge void to fill at Haras d’Etreham, with the French-based stud having sold his father Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj) to Coolmore Stud last year and in other huge endorsement for the sireline the global powerhouse announced earlier this year that he would shuttle to their New South Wales-based nursery in 2021, where he will stand for an introductory fee of $71,500 (inc GST) and is already fully booked for his first season in Australia. 

De Chambure said he was not surprised to see Coolmore decide to shuttle the stallion to their Hunter Valley farm, given the clear appetite for his bloodline in Australia and New Zealand and hopes he can leave his mark in the southern hemisphere.  

“I wasn’t really surprised they decided to shuttle him to Australia and I guess they wanted to wait to see how he was performing in terms of numbers before making any decisions,” said de Chambure. “But he is such a great horse, he is fertile and has such a great libido and he is such an easy horse to manage.

“So with the appetite of that bloodline and with a proven horse like him it made sense to shuttle him. I am proud of the horse and I hope he is a huge success down there and gets good support and can achieve what he has done in the north.”