In the second part of her look at the rise of young Juddmonte stallion Kingman, Nancy Sexton talks to the trainer who handled the racetrack career of the 2014 Cartier European Horse of the Year.
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Few people are in a stronger position to discuss the merits of Kingman than John Gosden, who guided the colt through his championship career before becoming the custodian of various high-flying progeny.
Kingman is remembered by the master of Clarehaven stables in Newmarket as a ‘charming’ horse to be around, one with a wonderful laid-back attitude to life. His record on the track, however, defines him as an explosive colt armed with a powerful turn of foot. Such a weapon made him an exciting colt to watch at the time, but now it is also being inherited by many of his better stock - of which there have been plenty.
With a stud record that consists of 29 stakes winners, including the G1 scorers Domestic Spending, Palace Pier and Persian King, out of his first three crops, Kingman, now a world top 20 sire, is one of the brightest stars within European bloodstock.
Incredibly genuine horses
As Gosden notes, the beauty of any Juddmonte pedigree is its depth. And Kingman hails from one of the operation’s finest as a great-grandson of Bahamian via the branch belonging to Hope, a Dancing Brave sister to the Irish Oaks heroine Wemyss Bight. Her influence on the breed was initially at its most powerful through her son Oasis Dream, who won the Middle Park Stakes and July Cup and today remains an important member of the Banstead Manor Stud roster. But Hope’s other son, the Warning gelding Hopeful Light, also won four of his seven starts, including a pair of listed races, while her sole filly was none other than Zenda, the 2002 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches heroine who would go on to foal Kingman. Each was trained by Gosden.
“Obviously it’s a family that we know well,” he says. “Hope was a wonderful broodmare and they’re all incredibly genuine horses.
“Zenda had shown us a decent level of ability as a 2-year-old [when placed on both her starts]. Then early on at three, she went and won her maiden well at Windsor. I was having lunch with Prince Khalid about two weeks later at Saint-Cloud and asked if he would mind having a crack at the French 1000 Guineas with her. I said that I thought she was improving fast and that she was talented, and he said that if that’s what I felt, then we should run.”
Making her fourth start at Longchamp, Zenda justified that bold call with a comfortable length victory over Firth Of Lorne and Sophisticat. Although Sophisticat turned the tables in the Coronation Stakes, Zenda fell only a neck short and again ran with great credit when a narrow second to Riskaverse in the Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup at Keeneland.
Despite her talent and bloodlines, it has to be said that Zenda was a slow-burner at stud. It wasn’t until Remote (by Dansili), her sixth foal, won the Tercentenary Stakes at Royal Ascot that she was represented by a black-type runner. But then the floodgates opened.
Kingman was her seventh foal and, by the time he had retired to stud, various daughters had enhanced the family with successful stud records of their own; today Pleasantry (by Johannesburg) is the dam of listed winner Repartee and the G2-placed Farraj, Rio Carnival (by Storm Cat) is the dam of the G3-placed Let’s Meet In Rio, Panzanella (by Dansili) is the dam of last year’s Musidora Stakes third Ricetta, and Multilingual (by Dansili) is the dam of last year’s Thoroughbred Stakes winner, Tilsit.
Kingman, the result of Zenda’s sole visit to Invincible Spirit, was always well regarded by those closest to him, as Gosden recalls.
“He was a lovely balanced yearling,” he says. “He is a beautiful model with a lovely head, great strength to his hindquarters and a great depth to him. He was brought along sensibly. At home, he was always very laid back. He gave signs that he was good but the manner of his debut win at Newmarket was very impressive.”
Partnered by Ryan Moore, Kingman shot six lengths clear of the chasing pack and into the ante-post market for the following year’s 2000 Guineas.
“He hadn’t been taught to do that at home, he had been just coming up alongside the horses he had been working with,” says Gosden. “So yes, he showed a lot of class that day. And then he went on to the Solario Stakes and he took that very well over a couple of Godolphin horses.”
‘A strange race’
That unbeaten first season set the scene for what was to come at three, when his five victories included the Irish 2000 Guineas, St James’s Palace Stakes, Sussex Stakes and Prix Jacques les Marois. He suffered his only defeat when second to Night Of Thunder in the 2,000 Guineas.
“We sorted out the Guineas business at Ascot, when he beat Night Of Thunder,” says Gosden. “The Sussex was a strange race. Richard Hughes [riding Toronado] knows how to play games at Goodwood and he played with the pace that day to the point that it became a two-furlong dash. Essentially, Kingman was trying to come from two lengths off the pace and he showed amazing acceleration that day to go past them and win coming back on to the bridle.”
Gosden believes Kingman would have been equally effective over six furlongs had he ever been tried over the distance. As it was, he was retired to stand at Banstead Manor Stud following his win in the Jacques les Marois.
“If he had stayed in training, there might have been the possibility of going for some of the 1m2f races,” says Gosden. “But I would have liked to have brought him back for the July Cup. He had that much speed.
“He was the most charming horse to be around, it was like having a big cuddly bear around the place. His two favourite habits were eating and sleeping, and he’d always do what you asked him to do - in a piece of work, he would relax, quicken and then relax.”
The ability to quicken has become a key aspect of some of Kingman’s early runners. His first major runner, the Gosden-trained Calyx, was an extremely quick horse. Others such as Palace Pier and Persian King were G1-winning milers, yet Persian King ultimately was able to relax well enough in his races to run third in an Arc.
The fact that Kingman is now throwing talented runners over a range of distances comes as little surprise to Gosden. Overall, the trainer has had five stakes winners by the stallion through his hands beginning with the Coventry Stakes winner Calyx, whose own turn of foot was very reminiscent of that belonging to his sire. The likes of Palace Pier and King Of Comedy have followed.
“The thing is, with those Juddmonte pedigrees, there is so much depth to them,” he says. “In this instance, you have Oasis Dream, who was very fast, but then you go back and there’s the Irish Oaks winner Wemyss Bight.
“Oasis Dream, as we’ve seen, can throw good middle-distance horses. And now Kingman is capable of getting them at different distances as well.”
He has deeper crops to come, the unwavering attention of the world’s leading breeders upon him and the prospect of a foal out of the great Enable running for him from 2024. It doesn’t take too much imagination to envisage Kingman as a champion British-based sire of the future, placing him alongside Frankel as a driving force for Juddmonte to thrive as it adapts to a post-Khalid Abdullah era.