CASAMENTO - AN EXCITING PROSPECT

Due to being kept busy with the mass of sales over the last couple of months it has meant I have ignored my blog! However this weekend’s highlight was the Racing Post Trophy (Gr 1), run over a mile for two-year-old colts and fillies. This event is often by smart late developing colts that mature to that to be Derby horses. Previous winners to go on to win the Derby Stakes (Gr 1) include Authorized (Montjeu) and Motivator (Montjeu).

This year’s winner was the Shamardal (Giant’s Causeway) Casamento who is out of Always Fair (Danzig) daughter, there creating the Giant’s Causeway/Danzig cross which has produced twelve stakes winners of which also includes the 2008 Dewhurst Stakes (Gr 1) winner Intense Focus. Shamardal has, like his sire, crossed well with the Danzig line having produced four of his 21 stakes winners on the cross which also include this season’s juvenile Group 3 winner and Racing Post Trophy runner, Dunboyne Express (Shamardal). Casamento is a half-brother to four winners of which three were winners at two, which includes the impressive 2009 maiden winner Inler (Red Ransom) (and also became this season’s 2,000 Guineas talking horse and incidentally won a 7f conditions race on Saturday at Doncaster as well and is very much a speed horse).

Their dam, Wedding Gift, was like her latest winner, an eight furlong stakes winner at two having won the Prix Saraca (L) at Evry. This was hard surprising as Wedding Gift’s dam sire, Always Fair, was a Covertry Stakes (Gr 3) winner at two and won the Prix Quincey (Gr 3) at three. As a result as a sire and a dam-sire Always Fair has been a influence on speed in pedigrees.

Shamardal was both a Champion two-year-old and the European Champion three-year-old miler having won the Dewhurst Stakes (Gr 1) at two and both the French 2,000 Guineas (Gr 1) and the St James Palace Stakes (Gr 1). Shamardal was able to stay 10 1/2 furlongs as he won the Prix du Jockey-Club (Gr 1) (French Derby) between his two Gr 1 wins over a mile. The fact that he got 10 furlongs was not surprising as his dam Helsinki (Machiavellian), was Listed-placed full-sister to Street Cry, the Dubai World Cup (Gr 1) winner and Shamardal's sire, Giant's Causeway, was also a 10 furlong Gr 1 winner. With his first two Northern Hemisphere crops Shamardal has shown to be a sire of mostly milers and below.

It is with this that I just feel that Casamento might more of a Guineas Classic contender next season rather than a Derby contender. I also hope that he continues to improve as a three-year-old, something that his siblings have failed to live up to. However being by Shamardal, the sire of the 2010 French dual Classic winner Lope de Vega, he has every chance. CWC