Val Royal: another top quality sire for National Stud
Record breaking Breeders' Cup winner and World Champion Miler, Val Royal (Royal Academy - Vadlava (FR)) will be standing at the National Stud in Newmarket for the 2007 season. This brings the National Stud's total roster to 10 stallions including newly-acquired Phoenix Reach.
Bred by Jean-Luc Lagardere, Val Royal was one of the seven winners in France from the first eight foals produced by his remarkable dam Vadlava. His racing career, which earned a Timeform rating of 127, showed him to be precocious as well as durable. He won 7 races over 8 - 10 furlongs from ages 2 to 5 years. As a 2-year-old he had one race and one win, followed by a near faultless 3-year-old campaign, which included victories in the Group 2 Prix Guillaume d'Ornano and the Group 3 Prix de Guiche. When transferred to the US, he won the nine-furlong Grade 2 Del Mar Derby, and gained a reputation as a tough and seasoned battler, with a win and a second respectively in the Grade 2 Oak Tree Breeders' Cup Mile and the Grade 2 Frank Kilroe Mile.
Following time spent on the sidelines after injury, Val Royal achieved his greatest victory in 2001 when he set a new track record at Belmont Park, winning the fastest ever Breeders' Cup Mile in the history of the race at 1 min 32.05 sec.
2006 has seen his first 2 year-old crop on the racecourse and they have started in terrific fashion with him currently leading the European First-Crop Sire (winners to runners) table with a strike rate of 50% (as at 29th September).
James Atkinson, who owns the horse said "Val Royal was a remarkable racehorse and all the signs are that he will be equally impressive as a sire. It is very fitting that a horse of this class should stand at The National Stud in Newmarket - and a source of great pride to me".
His views are obviously shared with National Stud Chairman, Andrew Parrish. "For the last three years we have been striving steadily to increase the quality and range of sires offered to the British Thoroughbred breeding industry by the National Stud" he said. "This deal, coming so close on the heels of the acquisition of Phoenix Reach, represents further real progress towards that objective. I have personally always been a great admirer of Val Royal after his sensational Breeders' Cup victory. I think this horse needs to be standing in Newmarket to fulfill his potential as a stallion and we are very excited to have him, especially after his first runners, from a relatively modest book of mares, have performed so promisingly."
Val Royal will stand at £6,500 on 1st October terms.
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