Derby hero Golden Horn has been bought by a brand new investor to the UK stallion market and is to relocate to Overbury Stud in a deal brokered by Blandford Bloodstock.
The 2015 Horse of the Year, is to continue his stud career as a dual-purpose stallion, and he will stand at Overbury Stud where he will be managed by Simon Sweeting and his team. Dash Grange Stud, owned by Jayne McGivern, has purchased him privately from Darley Stud Management and Anthony Oppenheimer.
He will now stand alongside his former stable companion Jack Hobbs, one of the UK’s most active young dual-purpose sires, and last year’s champion first-season sire Ardad, whose leading performer Perfect Power (Timeform 120) added the Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot to his brace of Group 1 wins as a two-year-old for trainer Richard Fahey.
McGivern, has recently purchased several top-class mares, including the recent acquisition of Queen Of The Stage. She is an owner of both racehorses and world-class eventers.
“I am absolutely thrilled to have had the opportunity to buy one of the most exciting young stallions standing today,” she said. “It is especially important that we keep these horses standing in the UK, and it is brilliant news that I have been able not only to buy him, but delighted that Overbury will stand him for us. Blandford Bloodstock have been instrumental in securing him for me – we have been looking for the right stallion for some time, and he was certainly worth the wait. We can’t wait to see him settled at Overbury.”
Blandford Bloodstock’s Richard Brown, who brokered the transaction last week, said: “I can’t recall a more brilliant middle-distance performer in recent years than Golden Horn. He was an absolute star on the track for John Gosden and his team at Clarehaven. He is one of only three horses, alongside Mill Reef and Sea The Stars, to have won the Derby, the Eclipse Stakes and the Arc.
“Overbury Stud has established a fantastic reputation in recent years for both developing and making stallions under both codes. Golden Horn is a magnificent addition to their roster.”
Overbury Stud manager Simon Sweeting, who also presided over the highly successful National Hunt stud career of Godolphin’s Ascot Gold Cup winner Kayf Tara, said yesterday: “To welcome a horse of Golden Horn’s ability to the farm is a tremendously exciting moment.
“His statistics make for very fine reading to date. As well as ten Group or Listed winners, including 28 stakes performers in the Flat, he has also made a fine start to his career as a jumps sire with his first crop of five-year-olds.”
Sweeting continued: “Twenty-one of his 22 National Hunt runners have won or been placed with Stag Horn his biggest winner in the Grade 2 Leamington Novices’ Hurdle. Both his sire and broodmare sire have sired Grade 1-winning jumpers so he has a great deal to recommend him.”
Commenting on the move, Sam Bullard, director of stallions at Darley said: ‘‘On behalf of both Anthony Oppenheimer and the team at Darley we want to wish both Golden Horn and his new connections the very best of luck. At Overbury he will be given the very best chance to excel over the coming years.’’
