By Kit Gow/TTRAusNZ
Two of Godolphin’s dual Group 1-winning three-year-olds will join the Darley Australia roster for 2026. G1 Coolmore Stud Stakes winner Tentyris (Street Boss) will stand at Kelvinside for A$88,000 (inc. GST), while G1 VRC Derby hero Observer (Ghaiyyath) will take up duties at Northwood Park for A$33,000 (inc. GST).
“There are not many Australian-bred Group 1 winners retiring to stud this year, and people love to breed to Australian-bred Group 1 winners,” said Darley’s head of stallions, Alastair Pulford, whilst acknowleding that it was a tough decision to call it a day with Tentyris, who retires as the winner of five of his 10 starts for Anthony and Sam Freedman.
He continued, “It was a difficult decision for the racing team to retire a horse that’s obviously so talented. He’s completely sound and is just a wonderful racehorse. But from the stallion business point of view, he was so obvious [to retire to stud].
“He’s a winner of the Coolmore Stud Stakes, which has been a stallion-defining race for three-year-olds that has been won by the likes of Zoustar, Northern Meteor, our own Brazen Beau, and Home Affairs. There are some outstanding stallions on the honour roll of that race – it’s a no-fail race for a stallion prospect.”
In the autumn, Tentyris resumed in the G1 Lightning Stakes where he was again an emphatic winner, becoming the fourth three-year-old colt to win the weight-for-age race since the turn of the century.
“To do it again against the older horses is very special,” Pulford added. “The stallions that win that race – Home Affairs, Fastnet Rock, Testa Rossa, General Nediym – they become very good stallions. If you are a three-year-old colt who wins that race, you pretty much set the seal on your stud career. It is a proper race to win.”
Meanwhile, Observer, from the first crop of Ghaiyyath bred in the Southern Hemisphere, will be based in Victoria, having provided the Godolphin team with its first success in the VRC Derby, before later doubling his top-level tally in the Australian Guineas.
“We didn’t have a new stallion last year for Victoria, and we wouldn’t have had one this year without him, so he will stand down there to support the market,” Pulford said of the decision to send Observer south. “But he could have stood at either location.”
He added, “The VRC Derby, that was the race he was bred to win. That’s why we brought out Ghaiyyath – to breed a winner of that race – so we are delighted with the result.”