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2021 stallion nominations confirmed for Club broodmares

23 December 2020

With the 2021 breeding season just around the corner, stallion nominations for some of the broodmares in Elite Racing Club's award-winning breeding programme have been confirmed.

Since its inception in 1994, one of the key aims of the Club's breeding programme has been to continually improve the quality of the broodmare band. To that end, several well-bred mares have been retired from racing to join the programme in recent seasons, alongside a select band of established mares who have already produced winners. Among the older element of the band is the immaculately-bred Affinity, who is a Sadler's Wells-sired half-sister to the Club's former top-class miler and world champion, Soviet Song. Affinity has produced three individual winners to date, including the Listed-placed Zest and Listed-placed Harmonica, and she will visit Zoffany in 2021. Zoffany, a Group 1 winner at two years and top-class over a mile at three, enjoyed a successful 2020 through the race results of his progeny, the highlight being Thunder Moon's Group 1 Phoenix Stakes win.

The 2,000 Guineas and Derby winner Camelot will be covering two of our mares in 2021. Madison produced an attractive first foal this year, a bay filly by Zoffany. She is currently in foal to Churchill and, as another from the family of Soviet Song, it's hoped that her cross with Camelot will result in an individual with the potential to train on from two to three years. Shining Sea is one of our newest additions to the breeding programme, and is particularly well bred. She is by the brilliant Sea The Stars, who quickly established himself as one the leading stallions in Europe, and Shining Sea is a half-sister to the prolific, Listed-winning Oh This Is Us, and from the family of the Group 1 winner Pipalong. Her cross to Camelot has the potential to produce a progressive individual with the stamina for distances upwards of a mile at three years and beyond.

Like Shining Sea, Canasta, who won for the Club in 2019, introduces a new bloodline to the Club's breeding programme and is at the start of her breeding career. As a relative of the 2019 Group 1 Fillies' Mile winner Quadrilateral, she hails from a good family and is scheduled to be covered by the reliable sire of winners, Footstepsinthesand, a former winner of the 2,000 Guineas.

One whose pedigree is inextricably linked with the Club's breeding programme is Tribute Act (pictured), the last foal out of Sister Act, a winning full-sister to the homebred Soviet Song. Sister Act is best remembered as the dam of the Group 1 winner Ribbons, and though Tribute Act is yet to have any foals on the racecourse, her first, a colt by Lope De Vega, is a particularly nice individual. Currently in foal to the Derby winner New Approach, Tribute Act is booked to be covered in the new year by Kingman, who was an excellent miler and four-time Group 1 winner. His career highlights include wins in the Sussex Stakes and St James's Palace Stakes, and he has made an excellent start to his career at stud. His top progeny include this season's winner of the St James's Palace Stakes, Palace Pier. On the track, current Club homebreds were making an impact in 2020. In a year in which the Club tasted success on the Flat and over Jumps, including further Group and Listed wins for its homebred record-breaking sprinter Judicial, its overall tally of wins inched closer to 400.

The 398 races won to date started with Kabayil's victory in a novices' hurdle at Plumpton, all the way back in February 1993. It was all the more appropriate that Kabayil should go on to play a major role in the establishment of the Club's breeding programme, as a broodmare who produced six individual winners. The ongoing development of the breeding programme has helped it to contribute an increasing number of winners to the list of Club successes, with more than 150 races having been won by Club homebreds. Notable highlights include the eight Group 1 races collectively won by Soviet Song, Ribbons and Marsha, plus top-flight success over hurdles through Penzance's Grade 1 Triumph Hurdle win at the Cheltenham Festival in 2005.

With some decent two and three-year-old homebreds to hopefully make the racecourse in 2021, combined with the exciting stallion choices for our well-bred broodmares, we have high hopes for many more wins in the next year and beyond.