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Weblog: Pedigree thoughts on the racing month
Trumpet Major represents the Nureyev and Green Desert sire lines
PICTURE: Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)
Craven meeting winners display a notable cross
THE Craven meeting at Newmarket saw both Trumpet Major (by Arakan) and Mayson (Invincible Spirit) put up impressive performances; interestingly, their pedigree's have similar patterns.
Mayson's impressive three-and-half length win in the Listed Abernant Stakes suggests that the four-year-old has a bright future as a sprinter. He is out of the Pivotal mare Mayleaf (apologies for originally putting Bayleaf), a half-sister to Listed winner Bathwick Bear (Kodiac), who defeated Mayson in the Ripon 2yo Trophy in 2010. The family is very active as Bathwick Bear finished second
earlier this month in a 6 furlong conditions race at Warwick.
Although Mayson was his sire's 51st stakes winner, it is perhaps more striking that Mayson is the eighth stakes winners bred on a Green Desert/Nureyev cross. The same cross subsequently produced another stakes winner when Requisition won Listed Loughbrown Stakes - a son of Invincible Spirit out of a mare by Nureyev's grandson Pivotal.
The first stakes winners bred on this cross was the Italian sprinter Jezebel, a daughter of Owington (Green Desert) and out of a Polar Falcon (Nureyev) mare, who won the Listed Premio Vittorio Crespi in 1999.
Since then, as both Green Desert's sons and grandsons
have come through to the breeding shed and Nureyev line daughters have retired to the paddocks, this cross has gained real momentum. Recent stakes winners bred on the
Green Desert/Nureyev cross include lsayif (Kheleyf), Captain Gerrard (Oasis Dream) and Knot In Wood (Shinko Forest). As you might expect with two sires lines that are best known as sources of speed, all eight winners have won at stakes level at a mile or below.
As with many proven crosses it can often work on the reverse. This is no better demonstration of this that in the race after Mayson's Abernant win, Trumpet Major put up a very impressive performance to winthe Craven Stakes. Trumpet Major is a son of Nureyev's dual Group 3 winning sprinter, Arakan, out of the Cape Cross mare Ashford Castle.
The Nureyev/Green Desert cross has produced ten stakes winner to date and last year saw not only Trumpet Major win the Group 2 Champagne Stakes but also Experience (Excellent Art), win the Group 3 Balanchine
Stakes (Gr 3).
With both the Green Desert and Nureyev sire-lines well represented by top leading stallions in Europe it will surely not be too long before these two names cross to produce a
Group 1 winner. Who knows, it could either be Mayson or Trumpet Major - or both!
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