A perfect storm
A representative of the highly successful Mr Prospector line, Storming Home represents an excellent alternative to descendants of Sunday Silence
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Few stallions can boast better credentials than Storming Home, so it is no surprise that he has achieved some good results from his early runners. Now based in Japan, it seems a fair bet that his stud career is going to continue on the ascendant.
As a racehorse, Storming Home was a thoroughly worthy representative of the Mr Prospector sire-line, a line which has achieved phenomenal results throughout the world. In America it has been dominant for a couple of decades, while its results elsewhere have also been outstanding despite it enjoying a far smaller representation among the pool of stallions. Japan is an obvious example of this trend, with the Mr Prospector line being massively outnumbered among the sires’ ranks by descendants of Hail To Reason, but even so the line has produced at least its fair share of top-liners, including the top-class racehorse (and now Darley stallion) Admire Moon. With so many Japanese pedigrees nowadays awash with Sunday Silence blood, the scope for an increased representation of Mr Prospector-line horses is large, and Storming Home is a stallion perfectly credentialed to fill this void.
Storming Home is a son of the former doyen of Darley sires, the late Machiavellian. Throughout his stud career, Machiavellian remained a consistent and constant source of high-class horses with a world-class lifetime figure of 9% Stakes winners to runners - and Storming Home was one of his best sons. That is hardly surprising as Storming Home’s winning dam Try To Catch Me comes from one of the best families in the book. A daughter of the respected broodmare sire Shareef Dancer (also damsire of Dubai Millennium), Try To Catch Me is out of the champion American racemare It’s In The Air, five of whose 16 victories came at Grade One level. In addition to Storming Home, It’s In The Air’s other grandchildren include the top-class fillies Musical Chimes (a winner at the highest level on both sides of the Atlantic) and Music Note (winner of five Grade Ones in America). Furthermore, It’s In The Air’s dam A Wind Is Rising is also ancestress of numerous other top-class horses including the European Group One winners Balanchine, West Wind, Saoirse Abu and Art Connoisseur.
Understandably, Storming Home turned out to be a racehorse from the very top drawer. A Group-placed winner as a two-year-old, he improved every year that he was in training, his best victories including the Group Two King Edward VI Stakes (2400m) at Royal Ascot as a three-year-old, the Group One Champion Stakes (2000m) at Newmarket as a four-year-old and the Grade One Clement L Hirsch Memorial Turf Championship (2000m) at Santa Anita as a five-year-old. That last-named victory, in which he beat the Breeders’ Cup Turf winner Johar, was one of three races he won that year, the others including the Grade One Charles Whittingham Handicap at Hollywood Park – and his total of wins for the campaign would have been four but for his disqualification for having caused interference after being first past the post in the Grade One Arlington Million.
Probably at his best over 2000m on a firm track, Storming Home provided repeated evidence that he was also top-class up to 2400m. His form at the Classic distance included not only his Royal Ascot success as a three-year-old, but also several good runs as a four-year-old, most notably when he finished second to Boreal in the Coronation Cup over the Derby course at Epsom, beating the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Marienbard.
Having proved that he was a racehorse blessed with speed, stamina and toughness, Storming Home understandably has come up with some good horses from his European crops. His finest hour to date as a sire came at Royal Ascot last year when his three-year-old Godolphin-owned daughter Flying Cloud maintained her unbeaten record with an impressive four-length triumph in the Group Two Ribblesdale Stakes (2400m). She is one of five stakes winners to date for Storming Home, a number which looks sure to continue to rise apace.
Storming Home thus looks perfectly credentialed to sire horses able to thrive under Japanese racing conditions. He was tailor-made for fast ground and his offspring similarly tend to excel on it. Furthermore, while he comes from a background well endowed with speed, he can be relied on to provide enough stamina to produce horses able to shine in the prestigious middle- and long-distance contests for which Japan is so internationally respected. Thus we believe that the racing careers of his Japanese offspring will definitely be something to look forward.
06 February 2010