SHE HAUNTS HER RIVALS

August - September 2006

Until she had raced for the first time – back in December last year at Mahalakshmi in a scurry – Haunting Memories was just another well-bred youngster with impeccable credentials. After all, she hailed from one of the nation’s top nurseries, the Poonawalla Stud Farms, was by their pre-eminent Mr. Prospector horse, Placerville, and was an own-sister to the supremely talented Six Speed and half-sister to the almost equally good Affability.

When, on that occasion, she found the ‘speed bomb’ Petronella simply too fast for her, racegoers might have concluded that Haunting Memories, who finished second, was no more than ‘good’. The winning skein of six consecutive races that followed, which included two Grade 1s – the Fillies Trial Stakes at Bangalore in June an the Poonawalla Breeders Multi-Million at Mumbai last February – allied to her imposing appearance and majestic ‘presence’, have convinced any doubters that Haunting Memories is indeed by some way the best three-year-old filly in India.

HAUNTING BEAUTY

Haunting Beauty[USA] (1987 by Barachois – Vitale, by Vitiges) was expected to prove an above-average import. This was by virtue of the fact that she was a rare matron, amongst the hundreds of active imported broodmares recorded in the Indian Stud Book at the time she arrived in early 1995, to have won a Group race in England – the five furlong Molecomb Stakes (Gr. 3) at Glorious Goodwood.

At the end of a productive year, Haunting Beauty was rated 110 by Timeform’s ‘Racehorses of 1989’. She also placed second in the Classic trial, the Fred Darling Stakes (Gr. 3) and in the Sandy Lane Stakes (L.) the following year, a season in which she changed yards twice – first to Michael Stoute and then across the Atlantic back to the country of her birth where she raced with some success till the age of seven.

Covered by Danzing connection and imported to India. Haunting Beauty has vastly exceeded expectations in the breeding shed. Most broodmares could be considered highly successful if they produced one good one from, say, seven career offspring (the average number of fouls that a broodmare produces in her lifetime in India) – Haunting Beauty has had at least three top-notchers (four, if you count the ill-fated Soul Mountain)!

Bred in 1987 by the Florida-based Hyllview Farms, Inc., Haunting Beauty[USA] was by their resident stallion, Barachois, from Vitale (by Vitiges). The sire was a Jean-Louis Levesque homebred who missed winning Canada’s most prestigious race. The Queen’s Plate due to ill luck – he broke a coffin bone in the shadow of the winning post and was passed by Victoria Song.

A Slashing chestnut son of Northern Dancer, very much in the Northern Taste/The Minstrel mould, Barachois – who was an own-brother to Fanfreluche – was named after a small town on the Atlantic coast of Quebec, not far from M. Levesque’s hometown of Gaspe. Earlier, he had won the Plate Trial Stakes and 3 other races from 22 starts in a busy career that spanned less than 15 months.

The dam, Vitale, run just once, while the next dam, Fire Dance – a daughter of leading broodmare sire Habitat – did not manage to face the starter at all due to injury in an accident. Interestingly, Fire Dance’s half-sister Fukuda (by Great Nephew), also unraced, had been imported to India back in 1972 by Mr. P. V. Gajapathi Raju – she went on to bred Lord Wavell (by Lord Jim), whose eight victories included the Shantidas Askuran Cup, Maharaja Sir Pratapsingh Gaekwar Trophy and the J.E. Hughes Trophy.

Grandam of these unraced matrons was Princess Isabelle, a stakes-placed own-sister to Beau Prince, winner of the grand Grand Criterium and Prix Ganay, and second in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. The confirmed stayer then became a sire in France and Japan.

Although Haunting Memories is out of a pure sprinter, the combination of her class and the stamina in her further dam line should enable her to win a 2400m Classic in the winter.