Racing: Sales ring gets ready to salute the super mare

Reprocolor heads a racing dynasty so great that their exploits take up a whole page of a top bloodstock catalogue.

Sue Montgomery
Thursday 24 September 1998 18:02 EDT
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NEXT WEEK the great and the good of the bloodstock world, gathered in the Tattersalls arena at Newmarket for the annual spending frenzy that is the Houghton Sales, will have the opportunity to salute a remarkable old lady. She is the broodmare Reprocolor, who has achieved, as a result of not only her fecundity but the quality of her offspring, the unique distinction of a whole page to herself in the catalogue of Europe's premier bloodstock auction.

Reprocolor's latest yearling, a colt by Warning, is scheduled to come under the hammer on Wednesday afternoon. He is the 16th of the line; his big brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces have been distinguishing themselves at the highest level of competition through two decades. The latest Group One winner among them is Kayf Tara, who only last Saturday added the Irish St Leger to the family tally.

The story of this queen mum is almost as outrageous as the exploits of the dynasty descended from her. Any breeder of racehorses would die for just one like her but, in fact, she was part of an inspired triple whammy executed 21 years ago by the then-fledgeling Meon Valley Stud with the guidance of the Newmarket agent Richard Galpin. The foundations of what is now the country's leading commercial nursery were well and truly laid by the selection of three fillies, on the basis of their bloodlines and looks, at the 1977 Tattersalls yearling sales: Odeon, One In A Million, Reprocolor.

Odeon, a daughter of Royal And Regal, bought for 38,000 guineas (in those days the Houghton average price was 14,164gns; next week it will be more like 100,000gns), won the Galtres Stakes, gained placings in the Ascot Fillies' Mile (on Sunday, in its 25th renewal, sponsored by Meon Valley), Nassau, Park Hill, Sun Chariot, Musidora and Princess Royal Stakes and became grand-dam of the Oaks winner Lady Carla.

One In A Million (18,500gns), by Rarity, did even better. She won the 1,000 Guineas and Coronation Stakes; produced the superlative filly Milligram, who was beaten by Miesque in the 1,000 Guineas, then took her revenge in an epic Queen Elizabeth II Stakes 11 years ago tomorrow; is grand-dam of One So Wonderful and great grand-dam of the infinitely promising Kissogram.

Reprocolor (25,000gns), a chestnut by Jimmy Reppin, won the Pretty Polly Stakes, the Lingfield Oaks Trial and the Lancashire Oaks, ran fourth in the Oaks and third in the Yorkshire Oaks.

Odeon and One In A Million are now dead, but the last of the three musketeers is still soldiering on. Reprocolor gave birth to a Mark Of Esteem colt earlier this year and is expecting her 18th baby, again by the 1996 QEII winner, next spring. In all her years at stud, she has failed to conceive only once.

The qualities that produce an outstanding broodmare are many and varied and impossible to quantify or dogmatise. In terms of lineage Reprocolor was the best produce of a top-class miler who was a largely ordinary sire, out of a mare who showed zero talent on the track but was a half- sister to a gifted sprinter in Sandford Lad. Some would point to the several crosses of the potent influence of Tourbillon in her pedigree. She is also completely free of any genetic endowment from Nearco, which makes her and her family ideal matches for the Mill Reef and Northern Dancer tribes.

As far as nurture, as opposed to nature, is concerned, the chalk-based, calcium-rich Hampshire downland on which she and her descendants have grazed and thrived must be a factor. And along with heredity and environment, there is also opportunity. The bearers of the now-famous black, white spots of Meon Valley's company arm, Helena Springfield, and those sold elsewhere, invariably get their chance in high-calibre stables.

And perhaps personality, too, comes into the equation. "Reprocolor is a grand old-fashioned type of mare, a lovely individual," the stud groom, David Wymbs, said. "And she also has a sweet temperament that she passes on. Any trainer is pleased to have one of hers in the yard."

There are 26 mares resident at Meon Valley, where Reprocolor, hale and hearty at the age of 22, presides over six of her daughters, six grand- daughters and one great grand-daughter. The matriarchy includes the Irish Oaks winner Colorspin, dam of two Group One winners in Opera House and Kayf Tara; Guineas-placed Bella Colora, with the high-class 10-furlong runner Stagecraft to her credit; and Rappa Tap Tap, on whom many future hopes are pinned through her much-vaunted Zafonic two-year-old Killer Instinct.

The general principle on which the big commercial outfits operate is to sell the colts and race the fillies, though Meon Valley, with its embarassment of riches, can afford to offer some from the distaff side. At last year's Houghton auction, the stud's consignment grossed nearly pounds 3m; next week the 12 colts and three fillies coming up include two potential sale-toppers, Rainbow Quest colts out of Colorspin and One So Wonderful's half-sister, Relatively Special.

For a stud to adopt the slogan "the cradle of the Classic thoroughbred" might have been tempting fate but so far - thanks to the amalgam of luck and good judgement that is so necessary around horses - the Meon Valley bough remains intact.

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