Hasili's influence on the breed

Cover image courtesy of Barbara Livingston

Mockridge on Hasili

Juddmonte's Simon Mockridge, general manager UK, is accustomed to working with top-class pedigrees, and he has meticulously nurtured some of the operation's most famous families. “Whilst you could never describe Hasili as an oil painting, she was always well-balanced and constructed as a broodmare and she had scope. She was tough enough to win a Listed race at two and be competitive at that level as a 3-year-old. Once retired to stud she proved to be the perfect match for Danehill,” he told The Thoroughbred Report.

“Despite being a granddaughter of a Cheveley Park winner, her fourth dam was needed to fill her pedigree page in the Juddmonte Stud Book when she first retired to stud. By the time her breeding career was over she filled the page herself.”

Building the Juddmonte empire

Hasili’s family has been in the Juddmonte fold from the early days. The late Prince Khalid Abdullah quickly worked out that success as an owner is much more satisfying if one is racing homebreds, so he set about building up his stud from the very early 80s. Part of the process of laying the foundations of Juddmonte involved buying a few mares from Robert Sangster’s Swettenham Stud. The most crucial purchase from Swettenham Stud turned out to be Hasili’s grandam Sookera (USA) (Roberto {USA}) who had carried Sangster’s colours to victory in the 1977 G1 Cheveley Park S. at Newmarket.

The best horse whom the Prince bred from Sookera was the Group 1-winning sprinter So Factual (USA) (Known Fact {USA}) but the most important was the first: Kerali (GB) (Highline {GB}).

Trained by Jeremy Tree, Kerali won a seven-furlong maiden race at Kempton as a 3-year-old in 1987 before joining the Juddmonte broodmare band. In a lengthy breeding career, Kerali became a notable producer of broodmares. One of her daughters (Hasili’s younger full sister Arrive {GB}) bred the 2008 G1 Pretty Polly S. winner Promising Lead (GB) (Danehill {USA}) and another (Skiable {Ire} {Niniski {USA}}) bred the wide-margin 2003 G3 Coventry S. winner Three Valleys (USA) (Diesis {GB}). However, Kerali’s most important daughter was Hasili, the result of her visit to the 1988 Derby and Irish Derby hero Kahyasi (Ire) in his second season at stud in 1990.

Hasili the racehorse

As Mockridge detailed, Hasili initially proved herself a good filly when trained in France by Henri-Alex Pantall. She was a tough one too, running 17 times in her two seasons in training. She won a Listed race in the provinces, the Prix des Sablonnets at Nantes, in the autumn of her 2-year-old year; and then put up her best performance the following spring when chasing home Machiavellian’s (USA) Group 1-winning full sister Coup De Genie (USA) (Mr Prospector {USA}) in the Prix Imprudence at Maisons-Laffitte.

It was once she had retired to the paddocks, though, that she really came into her own, largely as a result of repeat matings with Danehill (USA) (who, of course, was bred and raced by Prince Khalid Abdullah before being recruited by Coolmore).

Hasili and Danehill, the perfect match

It was still relatively early days for Danehill’s stud career when Hasili visited him as a 4-year-old in her first year at stud, 1995. He was already highly regarded in Australia where he had come up with the 1994 Golden Slipper winner Danzero in his first crop (and would then be represented by the next two winners of the race, Flying Spur and Merlene). Acceptance in Europe took a bit longer, though, although he was represented by two top-level winners in the Northern Hemisphere in 1994 when the 3-year-old fillies Kissing Cousin (Ire) and Danish (Ire) won the G1 Coronation S. at Royal Ascot and the G1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup S. at Keeneland respectively. Even after these two big wins, though, Danehill was still standing for only 15,000 Irish guineas when he covered Hasili in 1995.

The result of this first visit by Hasili to Danehill was Dansili (GB). He was a top-class racehorse and an extremely tough and honest one too, putting up a string of excellent runs in Europe (including chasing home Sendawar {Ire} in the G1 Poule d’Essai des Poulains and Giant’s Causeway {USA} in the G1 Sussex S.) before ending his career when third in a three-way photo-finish for the G1 Breeders’ Cup Mile at Churchill Downs in November 2000. It was unfortunate that Dansili hadn’t been able to win at the highest level because one felt that he deserved to have done so. Happily, no fewer than five of Hasili’s subsequent foals each made up for this omission.

It didn’t take long for any disappointment felt by Dansili’s connections after his narrow defeat in the 2000 Breeders’ Cup Mile to be put to bed. The following year his full sister Banks Hill (GB) won the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf. No photo-finish was required as the margin was 5.5l. This was her second top-level triumph (she had already won the Coronation S. at Royal Ascot) and she would take her tally to three the next year, landing the Prix Jacques le Marois at Deauville, winning by 1.5l from Domedriver (Ire), who went on to take that year’s Breeders’ Cup Mile in the autumn.

The year after producing Banks Hill, Hasili gave birth to a filly by a different son of Danzig (USA), Green Desert (USA). This filly, Heat Haze (GB), also scored at the top level, taking two Grade 1 races in the USA in 2003: the Beverly D S. at Arlington and the Matriarch S. at Hollywood Park in which she beat that year’s G1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches winner Musical Chimes (USA) (In Excess I {Ire}) by a neck.

Dansili and Banks Hill had done all their racing for André Fabre but Heat Haze, having started in that stable, had joined Bobby Frankel’s barn in the USA before her big American wins. A similar path was trodden by Hasili’s next three Group 1 winners, all by Danehill: 2005 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf heroine Intercontinental (GB), Cacique (Ire) who landed two Grade 1 races on the turf at Belmont Park in 2006, and Champs Elysees (GB), a wonderfully tough and honest horse. Champs Elysees got better as he matured, winning two Grade 1 races as a 5-year-old in 2008 and finally signing off in style at six in October 2009 with a typically game victory in the G1 Canadian International at Woodbine on his 28th and final start.

Hasili’s tally of individual Graded stakes winners was finally taken to seven when Deluxe (USA) (Storm Cat {USA}) won the G3 Cardinal H. at Churchill Downs in November 2011, having switched from André Fabre to Bill Mott at the end of the previous year.

Hasili’s daughters have proved to be reliable producers of stakes horses with Banks Hills’ Galileo (Ire) filly Romantica (GB) proving the best of them with her victory in 2013 in the G1 Prix Jean Romanet at Deauville and her close second to the Dansili filly Dank (GB) in that year’s G1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf. Another notable grandchild has been Heat Haze’s Frankel (GB) colt Mirage Dancer (GB), a Group 3 winner in England in 2018 prior to his sale to Australia, where he won the G1 Metropolitan H. in 2020. It is Hasili’s sons, though, who have made most of the bloodstock headlines.

Hasili's sons grab the headlines

Dansili was a fabulous stallion with an outstanding 12 per cent lifetime stakes winners to runners percentage. His 23 individual Group/Grade 1 winners have included 2006 Grand Prix de Paris and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Rail Link (GB) whose exploits ensured that his father was France’s Champion Sire that season; Harbinger (GB), whose 11l triumph in the 2010 G1 King George VI And Queen Elizabeth S. at Ascot meant that he was officially ranked as the highest-rated horse in the world that year; 2014 1000 Guineas victrix Miss France (Ire); Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf winners Dank and Queen’s Trust (GB); 2012 Coronation S. winner Fallen For You (GB) and 2013 Irish Champion S. heroine The Fugue (GB); and Juddmonte’s super-tough Flintshire (GB), a winner at the top level in Europe, America and Hong Kong.

Obviously, having sired so many top-class colts, Dansili has had a lot of sons retire to stud. Eight of them have sired at least one Group 1 winner, including Zoffany (Ire) and current Banstead stalwart Bated Breath (GB).

It spoke volumes for the widespread respect accorded to Dansili that Juddmonte was happy to stand his two full brothers alongside him at Banstead Manor Stud. In 2015, Dansili was there at a fee of £100,000 (AU$196,300) (a figure which reflects the extent of his success as he had started out in 2001 at only £8000 {AU$15,700}); Cacique at a fee of £12,500 (AU$24,500); and Champs Elysees at a fee of £10,000 (AU$19,600).

Cacique would have made a far bigger impression and commanded a much higher fee than he did had he not been plagued by poor fertility throughout his career, but even with very small crops he still came up with the likes of 2015 G1 Manhattan S. winner Slumber (GB) and the super-tough gelding Dominant (Ire) whose many excellent performances in Hong Kong were headed by his defeat of The Fugue (GB) (Dansili {GB}), Dunaden (Fr) and Red Cadeaux (GB) (Cadeaux Genereux {GB}) in the G1 HK Vase in 2013.

Champs Elysees put together an excellent stud career, siring many horses who shared the qualities which he himself had displayed. Having been a slow developer who matured into a splendid racehorse, he sired plenty of good horses who were not precocious but who ended up as high-class winners, including 2015 G1 Ascot Gold Cup winner Trip To Paris (Ire), 2020 G1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud winner Way To Paris (GB) and Harlem (GB), winner of the G1 Australian Cup at Flemington in both 2018 and ‘19. His most notably fast and precocious son or daughter has been Billesdon Brook (GB), winner of the G1 1000 Guineas at Newmarket in 2018.

Hasili’s record as the dam of stallions has been further bolstered by Raise The Flag (GB), her son of Sadler’s Wells (USA) who failed to add to her collective progeny racing record (he was unplaced in his only race, at Longchamp in 2008) but who was given a place at stud because of the strength of his pedigree. White Robe Lodge Stud in New Zealand had previously struck gold with the imported regally bred non-performers Mellay (GB) and Noble Bijou (USA), using a formula which came up trumps again for the Anderton family when they recruited Raise The Flag. He too is now a Group 1-producing sire thanks to the victory of his daughter Etta James (NZ) in the G1 2020 Sydney Cup.

The last word on Hasili, truly one of the great broodmares of this or any other era, should go to Juddmonte UK General Manager Simon Mockridge.

“Her significance to Juddmonte and to the breeding industry as a whole is immense. As a mare she was irreplaceable, but the staff all get to pay homage to her every day as her statue is positioned on the walk from the car park to the office, next to the foaling boxes, where so many of her descendants have been born.”