Tag Archive for: Sea The Stars

So many great memories for John Oxx with Sea The Stars

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John Oxx has gained as much pleasure from the second career of Sea The Stars as he did from his days on the track.

Known as the quiet man of the training ranks before his retirement – every inch a gentleman – Oxx would never be one to shout his achievements from the rooftops.

But what he was able to achieve with Sea The Stars – six Group Ones in six months – will forever ensure Oxx’s name is up there with the legends of the Turf and his greatest horse has now been inducted into the Qipco British Champions Series Hall of Fame.

That Sea The Stars has produced his own champions like Harzand, Stradivarius and more recently Baaeed has given the softly-spoken Oxx a continued interest in the game.

“There was always going to be a second career for a horse like that and it’s a relief to see it going so well. We’ve all seen great horses go off to stud and not be so successful,” said Oxx.

Sea The Stars was impressive in the 2000 Guineas
Sea The Stars was impressive in the 2000 Guineas (Chris Radburn/PA)

“In his case he was such a brilliant horse, had such a good pedigree allied with a brilliant temperament – all the qualities that would have made it a surprise if he wasn’t a success at stud. But it’s still nice to see it happen.

“Every year he’s had good horses, but with Baaeed last year – to get one at that type of level and that rating, that’s difficult for those great horses to do.”

Asked if he felt under pressure at the time to be sent a half-brother to Galileo, Oxx said: “We were excited to be sent such a nice horse with his pedigree and looks, you already think you’ve half a chance. I didn’t feel pressure, the owner didn’t put any on us.

“The pressure built later on as he started some fast work and started to show his ability – then it built and built all the time then!

“With each race and new horizon conquered, along with it came a lot of pressure and a lot of responsibility, just making sure he was all right and ready to run.”

Sea The Stars was only beaten once in his career, on debut, which at least meant Oxx did not have the extra stress of maintaining a perfect winning streak.

“I don’t know about the pressure of keeping an unbeaten record intact, you always need to be prepared for a horse to lose a race, it doesn’t always tarnish their record. I always felt first time out it was nice to give them a race where they learned something,” said Oxx.

Sea The Stars followed up his Guineas win in the Derby
Sea The Stars followed up his Guineas win in the Derby (Daniel Hambury/PA)

Having won the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket first time out at three, with Oxx eschewing a trial, only one race was then on his mind.

“Once he won the Guineas, the dream then was always to win the Derby, it was certainly mine as it is the Holy Grail in my book – to have a Guineas winner and then four weeks later win the Derby over 50 per cent further on a totally different track,” he said.

“Everything else afterwards could look after itself. We wanted him to be a Guineas-Derby winner, but then of course once you’ve won a Guineas you start to wonder will he stay in the Derby!

“He was an aggressive racer, but he was in the perfect position at Epsom and the first thing Mick (Kinane) said to me on coming back was ‘well Plan A worked anyway’.”

Having already won the Guineas and the Derby, Sea The Stars went on a Group One-winning spree which will ensure he will be remembered for decades to come.

“In the Eclipse, it was a record time after they went a ferocious pace. He followed the leaders, but the pacemakers collapsed two furlongs out and he was in front too soon, he always pulled up a bit in front as he thought he’d won,” remembers Oxx.

“A furlong out he thought he’d already won and Rip Van Winkle was a very good horse. He put it up to him, but in the end he pulled away and won nicely. Jimmy Fortune, who rode Rip Van Winkle, told me later ‘your fella was only playing with me’.

“You always worry in a horse race as anything can happen and at York in the International we had three of Aidan’s (O’Brien) to beat and that was it. Two pacemakers and Mastercraftsman and the front two made a gap for Mastercraftsman which Mick also went through.

“However, he then took a pull and he just went to sleep for a little bit and he had to say ‘go’ twice to him. He was a little bit sluggish getting back up, but in the end he won easy enough again – and that was a record time. Aidan told me afterwards that was the best he’d ever had Mastercraftsman that day.

“When Mick got off him at York it had been six weeks since the Eclipse and he said he needed that run, it would bring him on. Sure enough at Leopardstown in the Irish Champion Stakes he then put up what the handicappers said was his best ever performance.

“That was nice for the Irish crowd to see him. It was just about the only race he won by a decent margin as we could never get him to win by far! Because there was a doubt about him running the crowd might not have been what it may have been, but they certainly gave him some reception.”

As ever with a champion horse in Europe, the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe was on the horizon. But it did not all go according to plan.

“The big thing in the Arc was when he looked in that bit of bother. I didn’t mind him being back in the field because the main horses to beat weren’t that far in front of him,” said Oxx.

“It was Getaway who was in front of him and he was going for the gap that we needed to get. Mick had to accelerate to get around him, which he did. Stephane Pasquier was on Getaway and later told me he couldn’t believe a horse could do that, but when he got to the gap I was able to breathe a sigh of relief.”

Oxx believes the fact Sea The Stars was able to win the 2000 Guineas at the start of his magical season, despite an interrupted preparation, is the perfect advertisement of his greatness.

He added: “The only hold-up we had all year was back on March 17 when he had a temperature of 103, which was a huge disappointment at the time.

“Because of his constitution he was back and did a bit of fast work two weeks later. Other horses couldn’t have done that. The fact he could win the Guineas the first Saturday in May is very unusual after a temperature like that. That shows you a lot about him.

“We knew he was one of the greats after he won the Guineas and the Derby, so we had to run him in all those races. He missed the King George, but he had to have a little pause and that was the only one he missed. He had to win a sequence to prove himself as one of the greats. It’s a rarity and thank goodness it happened, there won’t be many in 100 years that do it.”

‘One in a million’ – Sea The Stars means so much to Tsui family

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To own a champion racehorse must be the thing of dreams. When said racehorse is a son of your own champion mare it must mean so much more.

That is what happened to Christopher Tsui, a prominent figure in the brilliant career of Sea The Stars, the latest equine inductee into the Qipco British Champions Series Hall of Fame.

What the John Oxx-trained Sea The Stars achieved in his three-year-old season in 2009, winning six Group Ones in six months, in three different countries over distances ranging from eight to 12 furlongs, has rightly gone down in racing folklore.

But given his family also owned the remarkable Urban Sea, herself a Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner and the dam of the great Galileo, Sea The Stars did have every chance of reaching the very top.

“We were always very hopeful, he was a half-brother to Galileo and we’d already had a lot of success with the family of Urban Sea. Most of his siblings were stakes winners so we were very hopeful he would do well on the racecourse,” said Tsui.

“Obviously you never know quite how good they might be until the day they start racing. I remember his first race very well, when he was fourth. I was a little disappointed, but John did tell us his first time out two-year-olds often ran like that.

“When he won his maiden next time John told us he thought he was good, but as people know, John is always very careful and he would never jump to conclusions before he started seeing results.

“I do think between him and Mick Kinane they knew quite early on he was something special.

“John didn’t push him at two, he did run him in the Group Two Beresford Stakes which he won, but it was a nice, easy start for him I guess – not too intense but building up nicely.”

Having decided not to keep a champion like Galileo, Tsui said it was almost inevitable they would keep his half-brother, especially with Urban Sea advancing in years.

Sea The Stars with John Oxx
Sea The Stars with John Oxx (Niall Carson/PA)

“I think we always wanted to keep hold of him when he was born as by that point Urban Sea was getting older and we thought by 2006 when she had Sea The Stars she was 17 so we were keen to keep some of the progeny, we kept his little brother Born To Sea, too,” said Tsui.

“I couldn’t think of another mare like Urban Sea. Not only did she produce Galileo and Sea The Stars but Born To Sea was second in an Irish Derby, All Too Beautiful was second in the Oaks, Black Sam Bellamy won two Group Ones – her consistency was incredible. Don’t forget she won the Arc herself.”

Not only was Sea The Stars a champion on the track, he has gone on to enjoy an incredible second career at stud too, producing a Derby winner in Harzand, an Oaks heroine in Taghrooda and more recently Baaeed, rated in the realms of his sire.

“I think given her genes there was a good chance he was going to be a success at stud, but we’re also very fortunate to link up with the Aga Khan, having access to such wonderful mares throughout the years. It all contributes to the success,” said Tsui.

Horse Racing – Christopher Tsui leads in Sea The Stars after winning the Derby
Christopher Tsui leads in Sea The Stars after winning the Derby (Steve Pasrsons/

“The range of horses he has produced, from Baaeed to Stradivarius, shows just how versatile he really was. John told us he could have won races over seven furlongs had we wanted to, but we didn’t. John always said the distance didn’t matter, he could have gone for the Leger if we wanted, it was more a question of picking the right schedule.

“What he did was very rare, six Group Ones in six months, in different countries as well so you have to factor in all the travelling, it was incredible. I don’t know if it will ever be replicated. It was a hell of a season, for sure.

“It was quite nerve-wracking watching him. In the Guineas we didn’t know how good he was, his first race was just excitement. We had some expectations, but when he won it was quite a surprise.

“As the races built up, he won the Derby and the Eclipse, the expectations went up with every race and he was always in the media. By the time of the Arc all I could think was ‘just finish the race and get it done’. It was a relief, more than anything, when he won the Arc.”

As so often the Arc attracted a big field, and Kinane found himself in an uncompromising position. It was a testament to horse and jockey he was still able to win.

“The Arc is always a messy race with a big field so anything can happen. He was a long way back and had a lot of traffic in front of him. He started weaving around and it was difficult to watch, but once he got in the clear he was gone, it was a tremendous race – I must have watched it 1,000 times since and I’m still amazed how he got out!” exclaimed Tsui.

“The Arc was an amazing race, it always is, all the best horses in Europe congregate there. It has to be my favourite as I was also there when Urban Sea won it, I would have only been 10 or 11, so to be there 16 years later in that situation was very special.

“I think the Irish Champion Stakes was a race where he never looked in trouble, he was always relaxed and in control and when Mick let him go, he was just that much better, it was a much easier race to watch than most – especially the International at York.

“That was a four-runner race, three from Aidan O’Brien, and he still ended up squeezing through a gap, that was a bit more difficult to watch but he still won, and he broke the track record.”

Having achieved so much at three, Tsui said there was little temptation to continue with him at four, knowing in racing nothing can last forever.

“It was a hard decision to retire him as he became so popular. It wasn’t a decision like any I’d made before. People wanted him to go to the Breeders’ Cup, some wanted him to stay in training but ultimately we spoke to John and he said his coat was coming through,” said Tsui.

“We spoke about it, but ultimately made the decision to retire him. So much can go wrong with a racehorse, especially at that time of year when all the races are abroad. Taking horses on an aeroplane is always risky and everything had gone so smoothly we didn’t want to push our luck.

“Obviously Sea The Stars was one in a million. We hope to find another, but it will be very difficult. We do have some nice horses in the pipeline so hopefully we have some good winners this year.”

Sir Michael Stoute and Sea The Stars latest to join Hall of Fame

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Sir Michael Stoute and Sea The Stars are the two most recent inductees into the Qipco British Champions Series Hall of Fame.

A presentation at the Qipco Guineas Festival at Newmarket on Saturday will mark the occasion after both were chosen by an independent panel of industry experts.

Stoute, 77, becomes the first active trainer to be inducted and is just the third overall as he joins Vincent O’Brien and Sir Henry Cecil in receiving the honour.

Also a 10-times champion Flat trainer, Stoute has saddled more than 4,000 winners in Britain since 1972 and has enjoyed six Derby victories – including the mighty Shergar, who won by a record 10 lengths in 1981, and Workforce in 2010, who still holds the record time.

Desert Crown winning the Derby
Desert Crown winning the Derby (Tim Goode/PA)

Stoute’s most recent Derby success came just last season, as Desert Crown claimed Epsom glory in the hands of Richard Kingscote.

Stoute has also accumulated a record 82 winners at Royal Ascot, including Estimate’s unforgettable Gold Cup triumph for the late Queen in 2013, and no one has trained more winners of prestigious prizes such as the King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes (six), Juddmonte International (six), Eclipse (six), Lockinge (eight), Falmouth Stakes (six) and Yorkshire Oaks (nine).

“I am very flattered and most grateful to have been inducted into the Qipco British Champions Series Hall of Fame. Of course, it has only been made possible by good horses, talented and dedicated staff, and loyal owners,” said the Freemason Lodge handler.

“To be inducted into the Hall of Fame and joining Vincent O’Brien, who was my hero and probably the greatest trainer that has ever lived, and Henry Cecil, who was also a very good friend. I’m very, very grateful.

“You never forget your first Derby winner. Shergar had won his Derby trials in outstanding fashion. So he was odds on, he was expected to win, we expected him to win, but it was still a great thrill. I think he won by about ten lengths and (Walter) Swinburn was pulling him up by the last furlong.”

Mick Kinane with the incomparable Sea The Stars at Epsom
Mick Kinane with the incomparable Sea The Stars at Epsom (Daniel Hambury/PA)

Sea The Stars was a superb racehorse whose only loss came on his first ever start, after which he was trained by John Oxx to eight successes that gained him nearly £4.5million in prize-money.

As a three-year-old he dominated the sport with a remarkable run of six consecutive Group One races, all of which he won.

He secured back-to-back Classic wins in the 2000 Guineas and the Derby, after which he claimed the Eclipse, the Juddmonte International, the Irish Champion Stakes and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

His second career at stud has been equally successful, with the now 17-year-old having sired a whole host of top-class performers including Baaeed, Stradivarius, Crystal Ocean and Harzand.

Mick Kinane, who was ever present in the saddle during Sea The Stars’ racing career, said: “The first time I rode him, he was the first horse I sat on that morning. I turned him in and did a half speed back, I popped off him and said ‘This fella finds going quick very easy, he’s a beauty’. That’s exactly what I said, the first time I sat on him.”

Tony Keenan’s Top 10 Races of the Decade (ish)

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It’s the end of the decade so forgive me for some reflection and self-indulgence as I look back on my favourite races of the last ten years or so, the ‘or so’ an important part as I’ve included two from 2009 – it’s my top 10 so I can do what I want!

There were two criteria for inclusion: I had to be at the track that day so, for instance, there is no Frankel who I never saw live; and I couldn’t have backed the winner. The latter was to avoid this becoming an exercise in delicious after-timing which is about as interesting as someone going through their Cheltenham ante-post ‘portfolio’ in December.

In almost all cases, I’ve backed another horse in the race but after the initial disappointment/shock/horror/disgust of being on a loser, the value of the race for whatever reason became apparent in hindsight. Here they are, then:

 

  1. Sea The Stars – 2009 Champion Stakes

Every rational part of my being says that Frankel would have beaten Sea The Stars had they met: Frankel had a higher official rating upon retirement, beat better horses and was better on the clock. And yet, the fan/patriot in me – call it what you will – thinks, you know what, maybe, just maybe, there was so much still in the tank with Sea The Stars that he might just have beaten The Big F.

Regardless of this perhaps idle fantasy, seeing the superstar Sea The Stars at Leopardstown in September 2009 in the flesh was a real treat, albeit one that had been in doubt in the run-up to the race with the weather. It was his sole Irish run as a three-year-old, a tilt at the Irish Derby having to be aborted due to – again – weather, and while it is one thing to see a nascent star as a two-year-old at your home tracks, it is quite another to watch them in their pomp, readily dismissing the massed ranks of Ballydoyle who certainly did their part in building his legacy, never failing to re-oppose despite previous defeats suggesting they may have been better running elsewhere.

 

  1. Thousand Stars – 2009 Bar One Racing Handicap Hurdle

This Saturday was one of those days you really wonder what you’re doing at the racetrack, fog having lingered overnight, and all the post-race analyses referencing ‘poor visibility’, the following day’s Hatton’s Grace having to be abandoned. The old saying about ‘a bad day at the races is better than a good day at work’ springs to mind and there was something memorable about the ghostly sport there with its intermittent coverage of the horses and Des Scahill basically opting out of commentating.

Thousand Stars himself really went on after this, winning the County Hurdle later that season before finishing third to Hurricane Fly at Punchestown, and presaging a long career at the top level over hurdles across a variety of trips. He was also one of the early Willie Mullins switchers, something that was to become a feature of Irish jumps racing over the next decade. Bizarrely, this was one of a few ‘fog meetings’ I’ve managed to make in that time; I was at Leopardstown later that year for the third day of the Christmas meeting that was called off halfway through along with the 2013 Thyestes won by Djakadam. On a related issue, please never mention the 2008 York Ebor meeting in my presence, the sole time I made the journey to that track. What a magpie.

 

  1. Long Run – 2011 Cheltenham Gold Cup

2011 was the first Festival I was attended, and the Gold Cup was its crowning glory, Long Run versus Kauto Star versus Denman with some Imperial Commander mixed in too. The two Nicholls stars were on the downgrade at this stage, but the fire still burned or at least could be stoked for Cheltenham in March; while Long Run was never to reach the same heights afterwards which said plenty of how hard the second and third made him go. That the rider Sam Waley-Cohen became the first amateur jockey to win the race in 30 years added another layer of significance to the race.

The only other Festival I’ve made was 2016, where the roar that went up when Thistlecrack hit the front in the Stayers’ Hurdle was huge; but this was of a different order. You couldn’t get near the stand for 20 minutes before the race, but we had our position to soak it up and anyone will tell you this sort of moment, on this sort of scale, doesn’t happen in Irish racing. I’ve never been to a big soccer match, some major Monaghan GAA matches as close as I’ve managed but I’m not sure they compare!

  1. Rebel Fitz – 2012 Galway Hurdle

Ok, so I lied. There is going to be one after-time in here as I did back Rebel Fitz in the 2012 Galway Hurdle and he was a badly needed winner. The race was on August 2nd and that July, when it rained incessantly, was – and still is – the worst punting month of my life. I put that down to the ground making things difficult for mid-summer flat racing; well, that’s my theory anyway.

Rebel Fitz had won the Grimes Hurdle at Tipperary and after some humming and hawing about whether he’d go to Galway, he pitched up as a well-backed second favourite at Ballybrit. He was travelling so well out of the dip that it was simply a case of Davy Russell getting a clear run which he did and then struck the front over the last, but in a moment of premature jock elation Russell eased up near the line and started celebrating only for something to come out of the pack. He held on but the photo finish call was one of the longer few minutes of my life.

The horse to come at him was the then four-year-old Cause Of Causes, at that time owned by the Timeform Racing Club, while the veteran Captain Cee Bee was third. I don’t think this was quite peak-Mick Winters – that came the following year with Missunited – but the trainer certainly knew how to celebrate and I did my best to imitate him in town that night. Funnily enough, I can’t recall much of that.

 

  1. Chicquita – 2013 Irish Oaks

This one is all about the jockey, Johnny Murtagh. Chicquita was, to put it mildly, quirky; ok, let’s be straight, she was a dodge. On her first start as three-year-old, she had fallen after running through a hedge to avoid victory before posting an excellent second to Treve in the Prix de Diane, coming from a long way back before hanging. The ability was clearly there but she would need a master ride to extract it and she got just that from Murtagh who dropped her right on the line to beat Venus De Milo, my bet in the race.

Murtagh, especially during his time at Ballydoyle, had a habit of winning on ungenuine horses. There was nothing I hated more than when he went to the front on a runner I had opposed due to attitude concerns only for the horse to get into a rhythm and never be headed; I’ve seen that movie tens of times. Chicquita herself made a record €6 million at the sales later that year, in no small part due to Murtagh’s excellence. I hope he got a tip!

 

  1. Treve – 2013 Arc Prix De L’Arc De Triomphe

I attended the Arc for the first and only time in 2013 with a good pal (always a decent start) though the weekend had a none too auspicious start; heading to the track on Saturday, news came through that our ante-post bet Novellist had been ruled out with injury. The couple of days racing at the old Longchamp was fine though I did feel a little cut off from the wider racing world; it wasn’t quite that I wanted to see the bumper at Tipperary’s Super Sunday on the big screen but there seemed to be a complete lack of awareness about anything else that was going on. Maybe that’s the point.

Anyway, I digress, which, in fairness, is probably the point of this whole exercise! Treve was magnificent in landing her first Arc when everything about race-reading said she couldn’t win with what went wrong, but she came home five lengths clear. Having sweated up, she raced wide and was very keen, her jockey making a premature move at a time when the pace was lifting, and yet she still managed to cruise to the lead and win without being asked a question. Wow.

 

  1. Hurricane Fly – 2015 Irish Champion Hurdle

Hurricane Fly definitely brought me more financial pain than joy over the years but he was a constant in top-class hurdles races for the first half of this decade and I managed to be there for his first Irish win in the Royal Bond (when I was on Donnas Palm) and his final one, this race (where I was on Jezki). He won some uncompetitive contests en route to his record haul of Grade 1’s but he raced against some very good horses too, his career intersecting with the likes of Solwhit and Faugheen amongst others.

Jezki was his foil though and it looked like being that one’s day at Leopardstown in January 2015 as Hurricane Fly seemed in bother two out when tight for room and his old rival cruised to the lead, but a mistake at the last ended his chance and, as so often in the past, the Fly found a way to win. If ever a horse deserved a statue.

 

  1. Almanzor – 2016 Champion Stakes

Objectively speaking, Almanzor’s Champion Stakes was the best and deepest flat race run in Ireland in the past decade: the best running of what is typically the best race, year in, year out. It brought together a who’s who of middle-distance horses that season, subsequent Arc winner Found, seven-time Group 1 winner Minding, the Derby winner Harzand and future globe-trotter Highland Reel amongst them.

Christophe Soumillon gave the winner a beautiful ride, arriving late and wide, and while his mount didn’t build on it during an injury-spoiled four-year-old campaign, for that moment and a few weeks later at Ascot he was the best of his generation, a rare French raider in Ireland these days.

 

  1. Sizing John – 2017 Irish Gold Cup

Leopardstown is probably my favourite track. The viewing is excellent there, I like how the facilities are laid out and it has quality racing, flat and jumps. It’s the place I went racing first and typically the track I visit most often in the year. Being on course for this meeting, the final Irish Gold Cup before the Dublin Racing Festival was launched the following year, wasn’t the smartest move as the weather was appalling with the place empty by the time of the bumper. To compound matters I had brought my soon-to-be wife, which seemed like a good idea at the time.

We were treated to Sizing John having his first run over three miles, however, Robbie Power riding with a mix of confidence and concern for stamina, only arriving at the last to lead. That race was his second in a four-month period when he was basically unbeatable, ultimately winning three versions of a Gold Cup in that time. Upped in distance, he finally stepped out of the shadow of Douvan and, while he has been mainly on the side-lines since, his legacy is secure. Enjoy them while they’re here.

 

  1. Pat Smullen Champions Races for Cancer Trials Ireland 2019

There were some very good horses running on the second day of Irish Champions Weekend in 2019, Pinatubo and Kew Gardens among them; but the meeting was more about man than beast this year. Pat Smullen had gathered the great and good of retired riders, some recent, some not so recent, to take part in a flat handicap over a mile, which culminated with the winning-most jockey of all-time, Tony McCoy, holding off Ruby Walsh in a driving finish.

Few will remember the names of the moderate-to-decent handicappers that ran in the race, but it would be hard to forget the atmosphere on the day despite the miserable weather. Racing, generally such a factional sport, joined together on the day for a most worthy cause, jockeys going around with buckets asking punters to dig deep, everyone doing their small part in the face of what can be an unbeatable illness.

- TK