THE DAWN OF A NEW MILLENNIUM 2001
The new millennium has seen the addition of two exciting
homebred stallions - Chester House and Dansili - to the Juddmonte
team but also the loss of KNOWN FACT, a horse who played a
momentous role in Juddmonte’s remarkable success story. By taking
the 1979 Middle Park Stakes, Known Fact became the first of the
many Group 1 winners campaigned by Prince Khalid Abdullah and this
top-class son of In Reality also won the 1980 2,000 Guineas to
provide the Prince with the first of his eight victories in English
classics.
Known Fact’s death at the age of 23 in July 2000 ended a long
and distinguished career for a horse who will also be remembered
for his effort in the 1980 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. After an epic
battle, he became only the second horse to defeat Kris during that
magnificent miler’s 16-race career. Timeform awarded Known Fact the
very high rating of 135, which made the task of siring anything as
good as himself extremely difficult. However, Known Fact proved
equal to the task, notably siring two sons - Warning and
Markofdistinction - which emulated his victory in the Queen
Elizabeth II Stakes. Warning was a champion at two and three, and
even managed to exceed his sire’s Timeform rating, with a figure of
136.
Warning embodied the spectacular partnership that Known Fact
enjoyed with daughters of Roberto. This nick also produced the
Group winners So Factual (Gr.1 Nunthorpe Stakes), Modernise and
Bold Fact, and Roberto also sired the second dam of
Markofdistinction. Warning’s seven years at Banstead Manor Stud
proved highly successful, supplying an impressive total of 23 Group
winners.
Warning’s successes, which included the title of champion
first-crop sire in 1993, bode well for BOLD FACT, another
Juddmonte-bred son of Known Fact and a Roberto mare. Bold Fact
demonstrated all the speed and precocity which are valued so highly
by commercial breeders, winning the Gr.3 July Stakes after making a
winning debut at Goodwood in early June. He continued to
demonstrate his talent and soundness by recording further stakes
victories at three, four and five, taking his total of stakes win
to six when he covered Churchill Downs’ five-furlong turf course
in: 56.37 seconds in the Aegon Turf Sprint Stakes in 2000. For
further details of Bold Fact, who is free of Northern Dancer blood,
click on www.boldfact.com.
Date:
01 February 2001