Bricks and Mortar pads stats

Bricks and Mortar continued to build his case for a championship with a victory in Saturday’s Arlington Million, his fourth Grade 1 tally of the season. His victory over an international field makes him even more appealing to his future home base, as it was announced prior to the race that he will stand at Shadai Farm in Japan upon the conclusion of his racing career. He will arrive at Shadai in a period of transition after the Farm’s loss of two leading sires.

Shadai Farm’s star Deep Impact, a two-time Japanese Horse of the Year and one of the world’s leading sires, was euthanized at age 17 on July 30 after undergoing surgery for an ongoing neck issue. Less than two weeks later, Shadai announced that Japanese Derby winner and standout sire King Kamehameha died Aug. 10. The 18-year-old son of Kingmambo’s retirement from the breeding shed had been announced last month due to poor health.

Bricks and Mortar will continue to race in the U.S. for owners Klaravich Stables and William Lawrence through the Breeders’ Cup, on Nov. 2 at Santa Anita. The horse will then be shipped to Japan to begin stud duty for the 2020 season. The deal is for the horse’s stallion rights only, according to Eugenio Colombo, the bloodstock agent who brokered the deal.

Bricks and Mortar will give Japan a son of European Horse of the Year Giant’s Causeway, a perennial leading sire in North America who died last year at age 21. Giant’s Causeway’s best sons at stud, from his 48 advertised worldwide, stand in Europe, and have had international success. The stallion’s European champion Shamardal, residing at Kildangen Stud in Ireland, is the sire of Hong Kong Horse of the Year Able Friend; Hong Kong champion Pakistan Star; Australian champion Faint Perfume; French Derby winner and prominent sire Lope de Vega; additional French Group 1 winners Dariyan and Speedy Boarding; English Group 1 winner Lumiere; Italian Group 1 winners Amaron, Crackerjack King, and Zazou; and Singapore Guineas winner Gingerbread Man. Meanwhile, Giant’s Causeway’s English 2000 Guineas winner Footstepsinthestand, standing for Coolmore, is the sire of Argentinian champion Infiltrada, Irish Group 1 winner Chachamaidee, Italian Group 1 winner Shamalgan, and New Zealand Group 1 winner Steinbeck.

Roaring Lion on the mend

Roaring Lion, the Kentuckybred who earned the 2018 Cartier Award as Europe’s Horse of the Year, has settled back in at Cambridge Stud in New Zealand as he continues his recovery from two colic surgeries in a 10-day span.

Roaring Lion, by leading sire Kitten’s Joy, stood his first breeding season at Tweenhills Stud in England, and completed the Northern Hemisphere season before traveling to Cambridge Stud for a planned Southern Hemisphere season. The stallion had just been released from mandatory post-travel quarantine on July 27 and, according to Cambridge, had been turned out in a paddock for a short time when colic symptoms were observed. The stallion was immediately sent to Cambridge Equine Hospital and underwent surgery. He then had to be taken back to surgery on Aug. 1 to repair adhesions which had formed in his small intestine.

Roaring Lion returned to the farm on Aug. 9, and the farm, in a release posted on its website, described the situation as “fragile” due to the horse’s two surgeries and resulting weight loss, but said the stallion was “clinically in good shape” with a good attitude and appetite.

“We have managed to save his life and he is on his way to a slow recovery,” Cambridge executive Henry Plumptre said in the release. “It has been a complex and challenging environment for everyone involved . . . . While he has a long road to travel, the beginnings of a recovery are complete and having him back at Cambridge signals the start of the next stage.”