News
Print this article Send to a friend
Tweet
British breeder produces Eclipse Award winner
(2).JPG)
Eclipse Award champion steeplechaser Black Jack Blues winning at Ffos Las in August
25th January 2012
Herefordshire breeder responsible for champion steeplechaser
It’s a long way from Ffos Las to Far Hills in New Jersey, and even further from Hay-on-Wye to Beverly Hills, but those transatlantic venues were linked last week when Black Jack Blues was named champion steeplechaser at the 41st Eclipse Awards in America.
Winner of the Grade 1 Grand National Hurdle in October, Black Jack Blues was bred by Herefordshire breeder Brian Griffiths at his 45-acre stud near Hay-on-Wye.
Both Griffiths and his wife Gwen are from Herefordshire, and while Griffiths has no family background in the sport, he has been an avid racing fan since watching point-to-points as a child.
Griffiths has been breeding since 1998 when the couple bought their current property and now has eight broodmares, but as luck would have it, Black Jack Blues is the product of his first mare, Melody Maid.
“I started in racing in 1990 and my first ownership was a share in a horse called Castle Blue with Nicky Henderson,” Griffiths explains. “When that partnership wound up, we bought Melody Maid. Although she was bought to race, I did have at the back of my mind that if you have a mare then she does have a career after she’s finished racing.”
The daughter of Strong Gale, a 6,000gns purchase from DBS’s May sale in 1996, was trained for Griffiths and his partners by Nicky Henderson, and only once finished outside the first three in 10 completed starts.
She earned black type when third in the Grade 3 Tote Sandown Hurdle in February 1999, and the following month gave her owners a day to remember when second in the Stakis Casinos Final at the Cheltenham Festival.
Following her Cheltenham exploits, Melody Maid was found to have a slight leg problem so Griffiths bought out his partners and Melody Maid retired to the paddocks as her owner’s foundation broodmare.
Black Jack Blues is the third foal of his dam, and, according to his breeder, the most like Melody Maid.
“He was very typical of her foals, and probably the closest to her in looks. He also has the same action as her and both of them were quite small,” Griffiths explains.
Black Jack Blues was offered as a four-year-old at Brightwells Ascot Sale in August 2007, where he was purchased by Gearoid Costello for just £5,000 and entered training with Rebecca Curtis.
He made a quick impression, winning two of his three bumper starts in 2009. Over hurdles, his exploits included second in both the Listed Silver Cross Handicap Hurdle at Aintree and the Welsh Champion Hurdle at Ffos Las.
It was at the latter venue that Black Jack Blues won his first chase, in June last year, and on what would be his final appearance in Britain, he was the lucky beneficiary of a chase at the Welsh track in which all three of his rivals fell early on.
Black Jack Blues’s next racecourse appearance was at Middleburg in Virginia when he won the Dorothy Fred Smithwick Memorial Stakes over hurdles on October 1. Three weeks later, he claimed the $250,000 Grade 1 Grand National Hurdle at Far Hills, Maryland, by seven lengths.
Melody Maid died in 2008 but Griffiths has her Saddlers’ Hall daughter Well Maid who has produced colts by Norse Dancer and Midnight Legend, and is due to foal this year to Black Sam Bellamy.
Although Griffiths describes his breeding operation as a hobby, he aims to produce commercial foals.
“I take a lot of advice from David and Juliet Minton at Mill House Stud, and I try to go for stallions that are commercial and also good National Hunt types,” he says. “I did used to sell them as stores but then the store market declined so now I tend to sell the colts as foals and keep the fillies to race.
“I’ve got eight mares to breed from at home and typically six of them are in foal. I like them to be rated 130 plus, and to be big National Hunt types – although Melody Maid didn’t quite fit that type!” Griffiths explains. “We’re trying to build up the black type so that we have black type mares producing black type winners.”
Other members of the broodmare band include the Grade 3 chase winner Gemini Lucy, the dual Listed-winning hurdler Silver Charmer, and the multiple winner Clandestine.
Griffiths and his wife Gwen had further cause to celebrate recently when Clandestine’s daughter Kells Belle (Alflora) became the first Griffiths homebred to win a black type race in the family’s colours when triumphing in the Listed 32red.com Mares’ Hurdle at Sandown on January 7.
That victory came only a week before Griffiths received word that another of his homebreds was nominated for a prestigious Eclipse Award.
“I had an email from Frank Angst who writes for the Thoroughbred Times, telling me that Black Jack Blues had been nominated, and when I replied to him he told me that he had won the award the night before!” Griffiths says. “Things like that news, they make it all worthwhile.”