Top Breeders Await First Foals By Churchill

As the 2019 foaling season begins, breeders will soon be welcoming the first foals by European Champion 2YO and dual Guineas winner Churchill. Top breeders have sent the cream of their broodmare bands to the son of Galileo, his first book of 211 mares includes no less than 80 blacktype performers, with 42 of those Stakes winners and 65 blacktype producers.

Amongst the many top-class racemares and producers in foal are Gestut Ammerland’s Prix du Moulin winner Grey Lilas, dam of multiple Gr.1 winner Golden Lilac, while Trevor Stewart is awaiting the arrival of a sibling to Halfway To Heaven, out of the King’s Stand Stakes heroine Cassandra Go.

The above matings follow a tried and tested path, with Golden Lilac being a daughter of Churchill’s sire, Galileo, while Halfway To Heaven has produced two Group 1 winners by the champion stallion.

Offering some international flavour to the pedigrees of Churchill’s future representatives is the dam of Japanese Derby winner Deep Brillante, while breeder Nigel Riley awaits a sibling to G1 Al Maktoum Challenge victor North America whose 2019 campaign got off to a great start yesterday with a 9 length win in the G2 Al Maktoum Challenge R3 at Meydan. Newspaperofrecord unbeaten winner of the 2018 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf and bred by Times Of Wigan Ltd will soon have a sibling by Churchill, courtesy of her dam, Cheveley Park Stakes runner-up Sunday Times.

As well as top mares, it is the breeders that make Churchill’s first foal crop so exciting, with the likes of H.H. the Aga Khan Studs, Ballygallon Stud, Barronstown Stud, Camas Park Stud, Croom House Stud, Dayton Investments, Kildaragh Stud, Mountarmstrong Stud, Newsells Park Stud, the Niarchos family, Norelands Stud and Ballylinch Stud among those who have put their faith in the young stallion. Indeed, Sara Cumani commented in the TDN recently that she and her husband Luca sent two mares to Churchill last year, adding, “We tend to go with proven sires... In a sense we’ve broken our own rule.”

Churchill boasts a race record that would appeal to almost any breeder, having landed four consecutive Group 1 contests. He was crowned European Champion Two-Year-Old Colt after his victories in the G1 National Stakes and G1 Dewhurst Stakes, the latter won in a faster time than Galileo’s proven Gr.1 sire sons Frankel, New Approach and Teofilo. His subsequent successes in the English and Irish 2,000 Guineas must have breeders dreaming of Classic glory, in the vein of his sire, Galileo.