Almond Eye showing why Lord Kanaloa is such a vital outcross in Japan

Can there be too much of a good thing? On occasions, there probably is.

Japan is rightly proud of how Sunday Silence transformed the international perception of their racing and breeding industry. And now Deep Impact is fulfilling a similarly significant role as one of the heavyweights worldwide.

For example, eight of the Group 1 races staged in Japan this year have fallen to members of the Sunday Silence line. Meanwhile, 63 of the lots catalogued for the country’s premier auction, the JRHA Select Sale in July, carried inbreeding to the great stallion.

For all the ability of Sunday Silence and his sons in promoting the Japanese thoroughbred to an international audience, such domination does intensify the need for an outcross.

In recent years, top end breeders have turned to King Kamehameha to exercise that function while Harbinger, winner of the 2010 King George for Sir Michael Stoute, was most likely purchased for stud duty by the Shadai Stallion Station with that idea in mind; indeed, two of his three Group 1 winners, Deirdre and Persian Knight, are out of Sunday Silence line mares.

As for King Kamehameha, he has sired Group 1 winners Belshazzar, Duramente, Leontes, Let’s Go Donki, Lovely Day and Rose Kingdom out of mares belonging to the line.

With that in mind, it was always going to be short odds that breeders would view one of his best sons, Lord Kanaloa, as a similar outlet, especially his own background contains absolutely no Hail To Reason, let alone his grandson Sunday Silence.

Four years on from Lord Kanaloa’s retirement to the Shadai Stallion Station and there must be some relief within that camp that he is living up to expectations and proving to be an exceptional complement to Sunday Silence.

All bar two of his eight stakes winners contain Sunday Silence close up in their female family including the unbeaten juvenile Fantasist, who struck in the Group 2 Keio Hai Nisai Stakes at Tokyo earlier this month, and this season’s Group 3 Niigata Nisai Stakes winner Cadence Call.

However, there has been no better advert than Almond Eye, the current darling of Japanese racing who took her winning sequence to six for trainer Sakae Kunieda with a brilliant display in Sunday’s Japan Cup.

The strapping filly has forged an excellent partnership with Christophe Lemaire, who has been on board for her sweep of the Japanese Fillies’ Triple Crown, namely the Oka Sho (1,000 Guineas), Group 1 Shuka Sho and Yushun Himba (Oaks).

She is in posession of a deadly turn of foot, as we saw in the Oka Sho and Shuka Sho, when she ran down virtually the entire field to win with something in hand. Yet in a measure of her versatility, Almond Eye was content to race prominently in third on Sunday before reeling in pace-setter Kiseki to win going away in race record time.

Given the welcome tendency of Japanese owners to race their horses well beyond their three-year-old seasons, it seems that we will see a fair bit more of Almond Eye yet, perhaps even in Europe where a potential clash with Enable in next year’s Arc is a highly alluring prospect.

Bred by Katsumi Yoshida’s Northern Racing, Almond Eye is from the first 187-strong crop of Lord Kanaloa, one of the most anticipated horses to retire to stud in Japan in 2014 alongside Orfevre and Novellist.

Like so many notable Japanese-trained horses, he held his own at a high level over the course of several seasons for trainer Takayuki Yasuda, progressing from a Group 3 victory at three to wins in the Group 1 Sprinters Stakes and Hong Kong Sprint at four.

However, he was even more dominant at five when his six wins included the Group 1 Takamatsunomiya Kinen and Yasuda Kinen alongside repeat victories in the Sprinters Stakes and Hong Kong Sprint, which he won by five lengths - quite a distance for a 6f race - from Sole Power with Slade Power well beaten in behind.

Lord Kanaloa was a brilliant sprinter yet also a thoroughly consistent one who was never out of the frame in 19 starts. He ended his career as Japan’s Horse of the Year of 2014 and duly covered a strong first book of mares that included Caulfield Cup winner Southern Speed and Group 1 winner and stakes producer To The Victory.

So far, that crop has produced 98 winners, among them five at stakes level. In addition to Almond Eye, it is also responsible for last week’s Group 1 Mile Championship hero Stelvio - while he is out of a mare by Falbrav, once again Sunday Silence isn’t far away as the sire of his granddam.

His second crop of 196 foals, meanwhile, has produced 27 winners and the earners of approximately £2.8 million, enough for him to be snapping at Deep Impact’s heels at the head of the leading Japanese two-year-old sires’ table. He is also out on his own as Japan’s leading second-crop sire.

As a result, Lord Kanaloa will stand for 15 million yen (£104,000/€117,000) in 2019, up from 8 million yen (£55,200/€62,000) in 2018.

Lord Kanaloa's stud career to date

Sire of 8 stakes winners including:

2015 crop
ALMOND EYE (15 f ex Fusaichi Pandora by Sunday Silence) won Japan Cup - Gr.1, Oka Sho (1,000 Guineas) - Gr.1, Shuka Sho - Gr.1, Yushun Himba (Oaks) - Gr.1, Nikkan Sports Sho Shinzan Kinen - Gr.3
(15 c ex L’Archetto by Falbrav) won Mile Championship - Gr.1, Fuji-TV Sho Spring Stakes - Gr.2, 2nd in Asahi Hai Futurity Stakes - Gr.1 etc
(16 c ex Spinning Wildcat by Hard Spun) won Keihan Hai - Gr.3

2016 crop
(16 c x ex Inductee by Heart’s Cry) won Niigata Nisai Stakes - Gr.3
(16 c ex Deep In Ask by Deep Impact) won Keio Hai Nisai Stakes - Gr.2, Kokura Nisai Stakes - Gr.3

What is curious is that Lord Kanaloa’s star act should be a filly so effective over a mile and a half.

Such stamina has undoubtedly been inherited by Almond Eye from her dam Fusaichi Pandora, who enjoyed her finest moment when successful in the 2006 Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Commemorative Cup at Kyoto. She also wasn’t beaten far when midfield to Admire Moon in the 2007 Japan Cup.

Prior to Almond Eye, Fusaichi Pandora had produced a series of minor winners but as a granddaughter of Sex Appeal and therefore a member of the powerful Best In Show clan, there was always the strong likelihood that she would click sometime down the line at stud.

Sex Appeal never ran herself but afforded chances with Northern Dancer by EP Taylor’s Windfields Farm, the Buckpasser mare went on to pull off the rare feat of foaling two exceptional two-year-olds in Try My Best and El Gran Senor, both of whom were trained by Vincent O’Brien to win the Dewhurst Stakes for Robert Sangster.

Although Try My Best failed to go on at three, El Gran Senor developed into an even better three-year-old, with facile victories in the 2,000 Guineas and Irish Derby sandwiching that controversial Derby defeat.

Sex Appeal later passed to the full ownership of Sangster and his associates, for whom she foaled Bella Senora (granddam of Domedriver), Russian Ballet (dam of Irish Derby runner-up Dr Johnson) and Lotta Lace, her 1992 daughter of Nureyev who is the dam of Fusaichi Pandora.

However, Sex Appeal’s success at stud is a merely a single chapter in the tale of Best In Show, the 1968 Comely Stakes winner whose web has come to cover the globe.

In the past 20 years alone, it has been the source of other Group 1 winners in Europe (Chimes Of Freedom, Cityscape, Peeping Fawn, Spinning World and Xaar etc), the US (Aldebaran, Close Hatches and Rags To Riches to name but a few) and Australasia (Redoute’s Choice, Hurricane Sky and Shoals among others).

In Almond Eye, it has thrown yet another performer worthy of championship status.

Breeders' Digest

Lane’s End stalwart on sweet ride
Candy Ride still has some way to go to challenge Kitten’s Joy’s supremacy on the North American leading sires’ list but the Lanes End stallion is making a pretty strong final run.

Candy Ride heads into December with the earners of $17.4 million, a momentous figure even allowing for the fact that it includes Gun Runner’s win in the Pegasus World Cup. And he dominated the weekend’s action at Churchill Downs as the sire of Leofric, who became his 14th Grade 1 winner in the Clark Handicap, and Liora, the 27-1 winner of the Grade 2 Golden Rod Stakes.

Just for good measure, he was also represented by a promising juvenile winner here in Fields Of Athenry, who made a winning debut for James Tate at Wolverhampton on Saturday.

Fortune swings to the Flat
Soldier Of Fortune is primarily regarded as a jumps sire nowadays and an extremely popular one at that (his last three books have amounted to a whopping 947 mares). But the son of Galileo is also no back number on the Flat, especially in South America where he is responsible for four Group 1 winners.

Another reminder of that ability was forthcoming on Saturday in Lady Paname, a member of Soldier Of Fortune’s fourth crop co-bred by Elie Lellouche who won the Grade 3 Long Island Stakes at Aqueduct for Chad Brown. In the process, she became her sire’s 19th Flat stakes winner.

Goffs market highlights stark reality
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I have never seen the market so unforgiving - 49 lots failed to raise the minimum bid of €1,000 during the second day of the mares sale, some of them in foal to ‘popular’ stallions - and while it is true that good horses can pop up out of anywhere, anyone breeding to sell right now needs to have a long look at the quality of their mares, especially in this big book era (and I speak as a small breeder).

Book sizes are unlikely to be restricted in the near future, which unfortunately places the onus on breeders to address the issue, one that is fuelled by overproduction (or under demand, whatever people want to call it).

Bargain buy…
Kieran Shoemark only had to shake up Red Impression for the Dark Angel filly to scoot past Journey Of Life and break the 6f juvenile track record at Lingfield on Saturday.

Now two from two for Roger Charlton, the Juddmonte Farms homebred provided a major update for her dam Purissima, a close relation to recent Trigo Stakes winner Flavius who was bought for only 10,000gns by Highgrove Stud at the 2016 Tattersalls December Sale.