'I almost died, those final few yards were just unbelievable' - King Of Steel's breeder on Derby near-miss

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Amo Racing principal Kia Joorabchian might have said he wanted to "just sit and cry” after watching his operation’s silks carried into second by King Of Steel in the Derby on Saturday, but he can be forgiven for feeling a little frustration, having also hit the crossbar just two years ago when Mojo Star found only Adayar too good.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, King Of Steel’s breeders were celebrating as though they had produced the winner of the Classic – which they so nearly did, when the Wootton Bassett colt surged into the lead two furlongs out only to be caught close home by Auguste Rodin.

“I almost died,” exclaimed Alberto Figueiredo, CEO of boutique Kentucky nursery Bonne Chance Farm, speaking from his native Brazil. “Those final few yards were just unbelievable.

“It was 9.30am here, and I had the racing on the TV, but I wasn’t expecting anything like that as the horse had only run twice, and hadn’t raced for eight months, after being withdrawn at York. How on earth are you supposed to handicap something like that?

“But after they rounded Tattenham Corner and he made his run in the home stretch I turned to my wife and said, ‘Woah, I think we’re going to win the Derby’. He was just beaten on the wire but it was a fantastic effort and he must have a big future, to be able to do that on his first start after such a long break. He’s shown he has speed, stamina and a good mind. He’s got everything.”

Figueiredo described it as an “honour to have a horse bred by a small farm running in such a big race” although he joked that he did have a few mixed feelings about the result.

“I could have backed him at 80-1 but unfortunately I can’t access a betting account while I'm in Brazil,” he said. “If I’d have been in the US I could have changed my car!”

King Of Steel’s origin story actually pre-dates the birth of Bonne Chance Farm. That stud, formerly known as Regis Farms and located on Pisgah Pike, was purchased by Brazilian billionaire Gilberto Sayão Da Silva from previous owner Nat Rea and renamed in 2015.

Bonne Chance Farm, as renamed in 2015Credit: BCF

But Sayão had been breeding and racing in South America under the banner of Stud RDI since 2008 and in the early 2010s the operation made a tentative expansion into Europe.

“We bought a couple of yearling fillies at Tattersalls in 2012 and sent them to be trained by Mikel Delzangles in Chantilly, and in the following year we bought three more fillies in Deauville and also sent those to him,” said Figueiredo.

“The Arqana purchases were two daughters of Galileo – Era Uma Vez [cost €280,000], who has produced the stakes-winning Lawman filly Jeri, and Exuberante [€200,000], who is the dam of the Grade 3-placed Quality Road gelding Slicked Back – and then the Verglas filly Eldacar [€95,000], who won a couple of races for us in France and bred King Of Steel.”

While all three of those fillies have become black-type producers, it is interesting that Eldacar is the one that has come up with the best runner to date. She was by some way the cheapest of the trio and her page wasn't quite as striking, as she was by a less expensive sire and her dam had produced four winners but only one with black type, the Prix de Pomone and Prix de Royallieu runner-up Miss Crissy, also by Verglas.

“The buying team was myself, Philippe Jousset from France Turf International, with whom I have a long friendship and working relationship, and Fernando Garcia from Argentina,” said Figueiredo, explaining how the mare came onto the radar.

Alberto Figueiredo: 'I turned to my wife and said, ‘Woah, I think we’re going to win the Derby’'Credit: Stud RDI

“We all loved her physique; she was just the most gorgeous grey filly. Verglas is one hell of a broodmare sire but, yes, otherwise she had a good pedigree, not a fancy one, and those who wanted something fashionable wouldn’t have gone for her. She wasn’t that expensive, though she wasn’t cheap, either. She just hit on our budget.”

Eldacar showed she had bundles of stamina in her two victories over 12 and 15 furlongs on bottomless going in the French provinces, before retiring to paddocks. Her first foal, the Lope De Vega filly Sunny Morning, was sold for €190,000 at the Arqana August Yearling Sale, and finished placed seven times in France and the US without winning.

She was then twice mated with Wootton Bassett in his former home of Haras d’Etreham, as Bonne Chance Farm – by now in existence – owned a share in the son of Iffraaj, who is these days covering mares for €150,000 a pop at Coolmore.

The result of the first mating was the filly Macadamia, a €70,000 vendor buyback as a yearling in Deauville who carried home silks to win a maiden special weight at Horseshoe Indianapolis in November and was last seen running fourth in an allowance race at the track four weeks ago.

Eldacar’s first two foals have French suffixes, but King Of Steel, her second offspring by Wootton Bassett, was foaled in the US.

Wootton Bassett: King Of Steel's sireCredit: Coolmore

“By that time we’d established the operation in the US, so we said we’d move the European mares to Kentucky to keep everything together and be stronger,” elaborated Figueiredo. “So we brought over Eldacar, with King Of Steel in her belly.

“She foaled him there but died in the process. It was very sad at the time, but I’ve been in this business long enough to know that whenever something like that happens, something else good will come out of it, and that's exactly what's happened with King Of Steel.

“He was the most gorgeous foal, and was always very big. That’s nothing to do with the mare, and Macadamia is a pretty filly on the smallish side. We entered him in the sales, as we generally send all the horses we produce to the ring, especially the colts. We might end up keeping a few, but only if they don’t end up making what we think they’re worth.”

King Of Steel went under the hammer at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale, where he was signed for by Alex Elliott on behalf of Amo Racing for $200,000 – the equivalent of around £144,000; not a bad price for what looks like a seriously talented colt.

He returned to Europe and entered training with Dave Loughnane, who sent him out to bolt up on debut at Nottingham and run seventh in the Vertem Futurity last year, before being switched to Roger Varian.

Figueiredo said: “Both Bonne Chance Farm and Amo Racing have horses in training with Paulo Lobo – in fact he has Macadamia for us – and whenever I had the chance to ask him if he’d heard how our Wootton Bassett colt in the UK was getting on, he always told me we’d bred a good one.”

King Of Steel winning at Nottingham under Adam KirbyCredit: Alan Crowhurst (Getty Images)

And what of the four-year-old Macadamia, who has been plying her trade on secondary tracks but suddenly finds herself a full-sister to one of the most exciting colts in Europe?

“Good question,” Figueiredo replied. “If I had to give an answer now, I’d say she has the potential to win a few more races, and maybe get a stakes placing, but I don’t think she’s Grade 1 material.

“I think her future might be as a broodmare in Europe, where there is much more choice of turf stallions; there are too few in the US right now. We already have one mare over there – Jupyra, a Listed winner and Group 3 runner-up by Le Havre, who has been covered by Sea The Stars this year – and it could be a similar mating for Macadamia. We could then race or sell her progeny in Europe, depending on what the boss wants.”

Breeding a colt who has finished second in the Derby and has a bright future ahead of him continues the rapid rise of Bonne Chance Farm in less than a decade of being in business.

“We bought the land in 2015 and have grown everything from scratch, buying some fillies to race and a few older broodmares, and developing some top-class bloodlines that way,” said Figueiredo. “It takes a long time to achieve the sorts of results we want, as you can see in the case of Eldacar, who we bought ten years ago this summer.

“But we’ve also bred the dual Grade 1 winner Cambier Parc, who was in-utero when we bought her dam, the Canadian champion Sealy Hill, as one of the first mares for Bonne Chance. And the crop of yearlings that contained King Of Steel also included Arabian Lion, a Justify colt who won a stakes race on the Preakness Stakes card last month and could be running in the Woody Stephens Stakes at Belmont Park next week.

Cambier Parc: top-notcher bred by Bonne Chance Farm Credit: Keeneland

“They are some pretty remarkable results for a farm that isn’t ten years old yet, and has no more than 20 mares.”

The original Stud RDI is still going great guns in South America, too. Only on the Thursday before last, its Fortify colt Menino Do Rio won the prestigious Gran Premio 25 de Mayo at San Isidro in Argentina, while another homebred, Agnes Gold’s daughter No Fear, struck in the Gran Premio de Potrancas for two-year-old fillies.

“It’s only been going since 2008 but we’ve been very successful and had a lot of good horses,” said Figueiredo. “We bred and raced Ivar, who was a champion two-year-old in Argentina and became a Grade 1 winner in the US, and finished in the top four in the Breeders’ Cup Mile in three consecutive years, as well as In Love, who won a Grade 1 at Keeneland, and Imperador, who won a Grade 2 at Kentucky Downs in record time.

“It’s all about concentrating on quality, and having the patience to wait for the bloodlines to develop. If you don’t have that, I don’t think you can succeed in this business.”

Perhaps it was recency bias at play, but Figueiredo seemed even more elated with King Of Steel’s near miss in the Derby than some of those earlier Grade 1 strikes for Stud RDI and Bonne Chance Farm. It’s rather pleasing to think that that piece of wood that stands on an idiosyncratically crooked and bumpy track in the Surrey Downs still holds a certain fascination for owners and breeders in far-flung parts of the world.

It’s just a shame that breeding the winner of the race that Federico Tesio proclaimed as defining the thoroughbred isn’t the end goal of more horse people closer to home.

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Pedigree pick

An ordinary Monday’s racing is lit up by the first outing of a sibling to two top-level winners – one of them a world champion, no less – in the 1m1½f maiden at Gowran Park (3.37).

Knight To King is a Kingman half-brother to six winners, headed by Ghaiyyath, judged to be the best horse on the international stage in 2020 after recording impressive victories in the Coronation Cup, Eclipse and Juddmonte International, and Zhukova, who beat the boys to take the Man O’ War Stakes at Belmont Park.

The siblings were bred by the Weld family’s Springbank Way Stud out of Nightime, who became the first Classic winner for her sire Galileo when she was saddled by Dermot Weld to score in the Irish 1,000 Guineas for the trainer’s late mother Marguerite.

Knight To King is also in Weld’s care, and he will carry the colours of Newtown Anner Stud after going down as unsold at 575,000gns at Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale in 2021.

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