The Dragon King
Race entries
Purchased at the Tattersalls Somerville Yearling Sale, this colt is by INVINCIBLE ARMY. A sale that has proved to be a happy hunting ground for us, as we purchased our Group 3 winner and 2022 Weatherbys Super Sprint winner EDDIE'S BOY here.
Clive Cox has made a career out of ‘looking the other way’.
When super fashionable outfits and firms are flaunting their wares on super fashionable stallions with swanky dam sides, courting price tags in the hundreds of thousands and even millions, Clive has consistently worn a sensible pair of shoes, unearthing Group winner after group winner, making stallion after stallion - as it happens, roughly 7 future stallions in the last 10:years have passed through, or rather, more accurately, been procured through Clive’s buying and then training expertise. By sensible shoes, we particularly allude to Clive’s ability to source relatively inexpensive colts, who never cost the earth, yet punch massively above their weight. They’re generally speedily bred, come to hand relatively quickly, operate at the big festivals in plenty of the top Group races, consistently, with great success.
We’re hoping that’s what we’ve tapped into here. Hailing from a really fast family, on both sides, going back to top class sprinters, Green Desert, Diktat, Halland Park Lass, Pivotal (the 3rd dam won the Group 1 Cheveley Park) and by the Group winner and Group 1 sprinter Invincible Army, who was just touched off by Havana Grey in The Molecomb as a 2yo. He’s made a good start with his first crop of 2yo, with 10 winners on the board so far, including the highly regarded, unbeaten filly Kitty Rose - winner of the Listed Ingabelle Stakes on Irish Champions Day!
Watch his profile video, here:
What particularly attracted us to this colt, when Clive brought him to our attention, was this colt’s athleticism, he moves beautifully, floating across the ground with quite a big walk for a decent sized colt; he swings along in a very purposeful manner. He’s a great temperament too and looks willing to please. Out of a speedy Dutch Art mare, who’s already produced a Galileo Gold, who operates just short of a 100 rating so we’re in great shape to be a sharp and early runner with a particularly sensible price tag of 21,000gns - we’d feared he may cost a fair bit more. We’d like to think that he could easily hit the track over 5f in April and we’d pigeonhole him as a pre-Ascot type who you’d hope you could get to the Royal meeting, were he to warrant a place.
He’ll be suited to a race like the £250,000 Listed Redcar 2yo Trophy given his sire’s sensible Median price tag - it’s a race where the weight you carry is determined by the median price of your sire - the more fashionable your sire, the more weight you carry. He looks a great ticket, too, for next year’s £100,000 & £150,000 6f Newmarket Sales races, for which, graduates of this sale, along with those of Book 3, exclusively qualify. He’ll have a really low weight given his price tag, and should he be capable of running’s to a rating in the mid to late 80’s he’d be a huge contender to take the race. He’s speed on speed, ideal for the challenges of these 6f Newmarket races, run next August and October respectively.
He qualifies for race Band C status, which means we can limit the cohort of opposition to his advantage in the early stages of next season. He’d qualify for the Juddmonte Novice series of races, each offering a prize money pot of £30,000 (£15,000 to the winner) and often limited to horses in Bands C and D.
He’s 'IRE' qualified too. This scheme awards a bonus of €10,000 to owners of Irish-bred winners of selected races across the Flat and National Hunt programmes in Ireland and Britain. We would have until the end of the following year to spend the bonus on Irish-breds at Irish sales for the relevant syndicate. You can read more about how it works, here: https://www.itm.ie/Buying/Sales-Incentives/IRE-Incentive
He just looks a canny acquisition. In Clive we trust!
PEDIGREE UPDATE {October) : His half-brother Dutch Gold has won again at The Curragh.
His race entries/declarations, will show on this page.
Video updates:
13th Dec:
6th Nov:
23rd Sept:
18th Sept:
9th Sept: