Billesdon Brook joins a tragic band of mares who produced just one foal | Bloodstock News
Edward Whitaker
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10:09 AM, MAY 12, 2022
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Here he reflects on the sudden and all-too-premature death of classic heroine Billesdon Brook, leaving only a foal behind. – subscribers can get more information from Martin Monday through Friday.
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What terrible news regarding the sudden death last week of Billesdon Brook at the age of seven, leaving only one foal – a Dubawi foal born in January.
I can’t be the only one who fell in love with Jeanette McCreery’s filly, raced in partnership with the Pall Mall Partners, when she snatched victory from the jaws of defeat at a Goodwood nursery at two, beating her rivals with a brilliant burst of speed after being tossed from pillar to post in a rough race.
Billesdon Brook returned to Goodwood just over three weeks later to win the Prestige Stakes, but was apparently narrowly beaten when she was not placed in the May Hill Stakes on her last start at two and in the Nell Gwyn Stakes on her debut as a three-year-old, so bettors could be forgiven for tossing her the longest 1,000 Guineas winner in history.
She beat several Group 1 winners Laurens, Happily and Wild Illusion at Newmarket that day, but didn’t win again until the age of four, when she won a Listed race at Chelmsford, the Oaks Tree Stakes to his beloved Goodwood and the Sun Chariot Stakes. back on the Rowley Mile – a second significant success at the highest level which proved that the first had not been a fluke.
Billesdon Brook had an unusually busy campaign for a Classic-winning filly, making 26 starts in four seasons, put her industrious and lovable regular jockey Sean Levey on the map and paid a poignant tribute to McCreery’s late husband Bob, a pillar of British breeding. scene who had died a week before the filly was two years old.
She therefore fully deserved the fan club she has amassed, and her colt Dubawi will, I am sure, be the object of feverish interest if he goes to sales and abundant goodwill when he will arrive at the racecourse.
Billesdon Brook joins a sad but select group of top class racing mares who died young and left only one foal.
A similar fate befell one of his predecessors on the 1000 Guineas honor roll in the mighty Rockfel, who started his career in a salesman at two but added the Oaks and Champion Stakes to his resume at three. years in 1938.
She died of what contemporary reports called “internal problems” in November after producing her only foal, a Hyperion colt called Rockefella, who won a few races and had once been bred for the Derby but missed the race due to training difficulties.
Rockefella went on to sire Rockavon, a 66-1 2000 Guineas winner for Scotland, and Outcrop, who beat the Queen’s Amicable filly to win the Yorkshire Oaks, as well as Rocchetta, the dam of the winner of the Middle Park Stakes and Influential Stallion Sharpen Top.
There are a few more recent international examples of outstanding but poorly starred racing mares who also left only one foal.
Royal Delta won six Grade 1s in the US, including back-to-back Breeders ‘Cup Ladies’ Classics, as the distaff was called at the time, but died of complications while delivering her only foal , a Galileo filly, in 2017.
Edward Whitaker
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The filly was named Delta’s Royalty and was trained by Roger Varian for owner-breeder Benjamin Leon to win a young Kempton filly on her debut, but failed to continue. It was first covered by Dubawi last year.
Typhoon Tracy also had six top-level successes in Australia, including two CF Orr Stakes and a Coolmore Classic, and also died shortly after giving birth to her first and only colt, a colt by Street Cry, in 2012 .
Last Typhoon, as the colt was named, won two races for his late mother’s trainer, Peter Moody, and had a chance as a stallion in Australia.
Winner of the Duke of Cambridge Stakes and first by a lap of the Matron Stakes, Duntle is another notable example of a top-notch racing mare who left just one foal. The colt Galileo she produced before succumbing to laminitis turned out to be the tough three-time Group 1 winner Circus Maximus, who is now in his second season at Coolmore.
If memory serves, and some quick research is correct, a few other top flight winners that were the only offspring produced by their mothers include Bint Pasha, Domestic Spending, Effinex, Mayson, Night Of Thunder, Probabeel, and Var.
It will be cold comfort for Billesdon Brook’s relations in the aftermath of his unexpected death, but at least they have a foal to cherish, unlike the owners of other famous fillies and mares who were lost before producing offspring – like as Sea Of Class, whose life was claimed by colic during training, or Triptych, who met with a bizarre fatal accident while full of Mr. Prospector in her first season in the paddocks.
Belle Du Jour, a Golden Boot winner who beat Bel Esprit and Choisir to win the Newmarket Handicap later in her career, is another particularly tragic case. She failed to be in foal to Sadler’s Wells, Zabeel and Encosta De Lago in her first three seasons at stud, then eventually retained cover by Redoute’s Choice, only to haemorrhage during foaling, without the his or her newborn. her son’s life can be saved.
It goes without saying, of course, that the fortunately rare occurrence of a horse’s untimely death, regardless of its official ranking, is a calamity – not only for those closest to it, but also for the fans who have followed them on Track. .
Anti-racing campaigners will never understand how the majority of those involved in the sport mourn the loss of their favorite horses, whether it’s a Billesdon Brook or a more modest midweek handicapper, as they would do it for a dear friend.
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Must-read story
“We had such a wonderful time with her, she was such a character – she did what she wanted,” Jeanette McCreery says of reflecting on Billesdon Brook’s life.
Choice of pedigree
The three-year-old half-siblings and half-siblings of two double Group 1 winners who have covered vastly different distances are set to make their debuts in separate races held on the same trip on Thursday.
Missy’s Hobbs, an Australian half-sister to Irish Derby and Dubai Sheema Classic winner Jack Hobbs, has been declared for the ten furlong fillies novice stakes at Salisbury (3.10). She is trained by David Menuisier for riding legend Willie Carson, who bred her at his stud Minster.
Special envoy, half-brother Frankel of Marsha, the heroine of the Abbey Price and Nunthorpe, is meanwhile set to be unleashed by John and Thady Gosden in the ten-stadium maiden at Newmarket (7.10).
The colt, also a half-brother to six-time sprinter Judicial, was bred by Elite Racing but bred by Juddmonte. He was a 1,000,000 gns seller buyout in Book 1 of Tattersalls October Yearling Sale.
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FIRST PUBLISHED AT 10:09 AM, MAY 12, 2022