Following in the footsteps

IT TOOK three attempts to pin down the busy and multi-hatted Simon Sweeting of Overbury Stud for a telephone interview to chat about Caturra, the son of Mehmas standing at the farm and with first-crop yearlings this year.

First, a rookie mistake on behalf of the interviewer when a lack of preparation resulted in a call to Sweeting’s mobile while he was at Goffs UK and ten lots away from selling a NH three-year-old store. The offer to talk about the Flat stallion was very politely postponed.

The second call, this time arranged at a pre-allocated time organised via WhatsApp, clashed with something out of anyone’s control unfortunately coinciding with Sweeting rounding up some errant cows. Very kindly Sweeting managed to answer the phone, but obviously there were more immediate things on his mind and needing his attention.

It was a case of third call lucky – the busy, hands-on stud manager found time to chat when in his car on a Friday afternoon on his return from wearing his EBF hat for duties at Ascot.

The efforts taken to make contact with Sweeting were worthwhile – it goes without saying that chatting with him is always time well spent, but, as the stud manager is so optimistically looking forward to Caturra’s stock hitting the sale ring this autumn and next year’s racecourse, his enthusiasm was infectious.

It was a concern that interviewing Sweeting might struggle to recall all the facts and figures required while doing the two things at once, but Sweeting was right on the bluetooth button, so well does he know his stallions.

The chance emerged for Sweeting to stand the Group 2 Flying Childers winner on the back of another success story for Overbury – the top first-season that had been enjoyed by the farm’s Ardad in 2021 meant that when bloodstock agent Richard Brown suggested to his client Saeed Bin Mohammed Al Qassimi, the owner of Caturra, that the Gloucestershire-based stud would be the right farm to stand the son of Mehmas, it was pretty much a done deal.

“Saeed Al Qassimi had seen the success we had enjoyed with Ardad,” recalls Sweeting. “They are very similar types of horses – both fast-running Flying Childers winners, and both were bred to be quick with Caturra by Mehmas and Ardad by Kodiac.” 

Caturra was an even faster winner of the Doncaster race – as a side note, and not a fact for Sweeting to have recalled while he was driving, but Caturra won the 2021 renewal of the 5f Group 2 in the race’s seventh-fastest recorded time, and the speediest winning time since 2015.

He continues: “We were lucky enough to be able to buy half of him. Saeed Al Qassimi also kept half, and he has been amazing because he has bought a lot of mares to go to the stallion, he’s been a tremendous support, and he seems to have thoroughly enjoyed the process.”

Sweeting adds: “That has been a huge help and, of course, it is always more fun working with someone who is fully engaged. I just hope he is rewarded for his efforts.”

As to be expected, Sweeting is enthusiastic about the prospects for the first crop of the stallion who also won the Listed Rose Bowl Stakes at Newbury and achieved a BHA rating high of 110 – yet he tempers his hopes with the realistic views of a stockman.

“Of course, you just don’t know until the two-year-olds hit the track, but the foals were very well received last year, I know every stallion owner says it, but they were a good bunch,” he announces.

Caturra’s yearlings will be early on the sale trail this summer with 14 catalogued in the Goffs UK Premier Sale, 13 in the Somerville Sale and five at Tattersalls Ireland September Sale. 

Many hail from leading commercial British breeders, well-known for producing British-bred sprinters, market-friendly stock and good solid racehorses, a hugely encouraging sign and building on the sale debut enjoyed by this crop last autumn.

“It is a good number to have in both early yearling sales,” says Sweeting. “As we stand at the moment we are pointing to positives. 

“Of course, it’s entirely up to the stock now – whether they stay sound, have the right mind, the right temperament, and the right physical abilities. We just have to wait and see what happens next spring, but I think everything is in place so that it will not be a huge surprise if he is a success.”

Two factors that yearling buyers are unable to see when assessing horses are equine hearts and minds – as yet no AI tool has been invented to solve this age-old buying conundrum. 

The only evidence available in this regard is to rely on how the youngster’s parents behaved themselves on the racecourse, and to hope that fate has put the required genetic chains in place.

Caturra could just have lined up the heredity dots for his stock – his former trainer Clive Cox frequently reiterated what an amenable temperament the stallion had a racehorse. 

Seemingly, age and retirement have not turned the stallion into a grumpy old man – Sweeting also enthusing as to the great personality the horse has and what a pleasure he is to have around Overbury Stud.

“He is very level-headed, and extremely straightforward to deal with, not all stallions are,” he says. “He is one who could be used to teach stallion handling because he already knows his job, and he has got a very relaxed attitude towards it all. He is so easy to deal with, which makes our life an awful lot easier.”

Of course, commercial stock having a good temperament is a hugely important plus point and one vital for a stallion’s prospects.

“If trainers enjoy having stock by a certain stallion on a yard, then they’ll go and have a look at them at the sales,” outlines the stud manager.  “If they don’t like them, well then you are sunk, because no trainer is ever going to be encouraged to buy one – they are never going to smile when the agent says, ‘I’m thinking of buying one!’.

Numbers-wise Caturra, who is one of three sires by Mehmas with 2025 first-crop yearlings, has had three consistent books of mares, with breeders happy to return to use the bay having seen his early crops.

“He covered 74 mares this year, which I think is a decent number, more than our Ardad covered in this third year. He covered 80 last year, and saw 109 in his first year. The numbers are not huge, but certainly enough to give him coverage,” says Sweeting, recalling the numbers accurately but still concentrating on the road and making good progress now on the motorway back to Gloucestershire.

Caturra’s sire Mehmas is going from strength to strength in the covering shed, getting better books of mares as his fee has climbed to €70,000 for this spring. 

The Tally-Ho Stud-based stallion has also now proved himself as a sire of sires with Supremacy, the sire of last month’s Weatherbys Super Sprint winner Anthelia [Phew, got a mention in for the sponsor of this column]. 

It bodes well that Mehmas’ speed already appears to be transmitting to the second generation. 

Despite Overbury standing the pair of Flying Childers winners, the stallions at Overbury are not all about speed, it has a broad base and the sires range from the star act and top-class dual-purpose sire Golden Horn to the younger NH sire Jack Hobbs and then back to the 11-year-old Ardad, the leading British first-crop Flat stallion of 2021 and sire of the three-time Group 1 winner Perfect Power in that first crop, the success having so vitally paved the way for Caturra.

“Ardad has been popular again, he covered 125 mares, and he is having a lot of winners,” says Sweeting. “Breeders can’t get enough of Frontiersman – he is inexpensive, having a lot of winners, has had a Grade 3 hurdler, and he gets fabulous-looking foals. 

“Jack Hobbs is also having the winners, though he does need a Saturday horse now, and Schiaparelli, who is 22, has had a great season again and for a third year on the trot won the Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association’s Horse and Hound Cup for the leading living British sire of chase winners.”

Sweeting leaves the class act to last, and the pride in his voice when talking about Golden Horn is unmistakable, and completely understandable.

“If I ever again have a stallion who has two winners at the Cheltenham Festival and a winner at Royal Ascot in the same year, I’ll consider myself to be a very lucky man,” he smiles. 

“Golden Horn is just fabulous and for Trawlerman to have won at Ascot in the style he did, it was great.”

As ever the stud man, he says, “I am just looking forward to having another Group 1 winner!” ■