How’s this for a fitting result!
Alfred Nobel stands the northern hemisphere season at Coolmore Stud, Ireland, and the southern hemisphere season at Lynward Park Stud.
Last Monday (June 4) Coolmore sponsored the Listed Rochestown Stakes at Naas, a feature race for two-year-olds, and named it the Alfred Nobel Rochestown Stakes. After all, Alfred Nobel was the best Irish juvenile of his year.
The race was subsequently won by Dawn Approach, by the 2007/08 European champion 2Y0 and 3Y0 New Approach, who is a half-brother to Alfred Nobel’s grand-dam Dazzling Park, the 1999 European Champion 3Y0 Filly.
It was a real case of ‘keeping it all in the family.’
Dawn Approach, owned and bred by his trainer, Jim Bolger, is now unbeaten in three runs.
Royal Ascot is next for Dawn Approach with Bolger commenting: “Dawn Approach will go for the Chesham Stakes with a possibility he might run in the Coventry Stakes. It was a fierce gallop and he stuck at it well. He has a great temperament. I’d say like all good horses he wants good ground, but he won on the soft at the Curragh and it looks like he’s versatile.”
The win, following Was’s success in the Group 1 English Oaks the previous week, has once again cast Alfred Nobel’s family into the world breeding spotlight.
Was, a filly by Galileo, is from Alluring Park, a half-sister to New Approach.
Alfrerd Nobel clearly offers WA breeders a bargain-priced access to the bloodlines currently dominating European racing. And that doesn’t happen very often.