A fine draft

A fine draft

Photography by Melanie Sauer

Luca and Sara Cumani are looking forward to offering a quality yearling draft under their Fittocks Stud banner at this year’s Tattersalls October Book 1 and Book 2 sales, writes Sally Duckett

RACING, BREEDING AND PRODUCING racehorses is a game for the long term, but alongside that longevity it also requires some sort of strategic plan, one that will have a chance of bringing those extended plans, hopes and ambitions to a successful result. Luca and Sara Cumani achieved the highest ambitions possible in racing when Kahyasi, trained by Cumani, won the 1988 Epsom Derby, that Classic success followed up ten years later with the Epsom victory of High Rise.

All in, Cumani produced over 60 global Group 1 winners, including seven Classic winners, spanning the decades from 1976 to 2018.

Now, in 2020, with the benefit of hindsight and with the perspective of time, that training career has formed the solid foundations, that strategic base, for the couple’s second career, that of running a sizeable stud farm in the breeding hinterland of Newmarket.

Fittocks Stud was purchased by the

Sara Cumani, the manager of Fittocks, ensuring equine progress is recorded

Cumanis in 1984, a year after Cumani achieved his first international Grade 1 and Group 1 victories with success in the Grade 1 Arlington Million with Tolomeo (the first European invader to take the race on its third renewal, the Lypheor threeyear-old colt beating the US public hero John Henry) and Old County’s Prix Royal- Oak victory in France.

A year later the stable added to those laurels with Commanche Run’s St Leger, Cumani's first domestic Classic, and Free Guest's first Sun Chariot Stakes victory. Four years later came Kahyasi’s Epsom Derby victory for owner HH The Aga Khan.

The Ile De Bourbon colt’s win helped set the course for the new owners of Fittocks Stud; Cumani took himself off to Ireland for the yearling sales and returned with a filly. She was named Souk and has been integral to the development of Fittocks through Cumani family’s tenure.

“I can remember very clearly how her purchase came about,” smiles Sara Cumani, the “manager” of Fittocks. “Luca went to Ireland to the sales the year when he won the Derby, obviously feeling very happy with himself! He returned and said, ‘I’ve bought a filly for the stud for Ir110,000gns, she is by Ahonoora.’

“I remember saying, ‘Oh my god, you haven’t seriously?’ – Ir110,000gns was a lot of money then.

“But we’d been in very shallow waters at the sales to that point. We started right at the very beginning, selling foals for basement prices and I think he said, ‘We’ve got to do something about this!’”

Explaining the reason for that sizeable initial outlay, Cumani recalls: “She was small and sweet, and from an Aga Khan family, which always gives you confidence.” Sara adding: “The filly came to Bedford House and was an absolute sweetie.

“When she was in training she did keep on knocking her pasterns, it was a bore and it stopped her running in certain places, but she was placed in the Sceptre Stakes.”

Souk was retained by the Cumanis for the embryonic stud farm, and has become one of the founding mares for the stud and Fittocks, some 22 years later, will be offering descendants at this year’s October Book 1 Sale.

“Souky was the first,” adds Sara. “She had so many foals, and they have all have managed to have lots and lots of foals,too, which is wonderful.”

Two of the first of those many foals were both fillies named Puce and Shouk, and were by son and father Darshaan and Shirley Heights.

Lot 984: Churchill colt out of Materialistic (Oasis Dream) sells in Book 2

Lot 506: Sea The Stars colt out of Umniyah (Shamardal)

“We sold Shouk carrying to Magical Romance,” rues Sara of the sale of the mare carrying a pregnancy to the subsequent Cheveley Park Stakes (G1) winner and record-breaking sales horse.

“Shouk had been my ride, and she was a typical Shirley Heights filly, a bit ‘squealy’ She was not that correct and Luca couldn’t wait to get rid of her! “ laughs Sara Cumani, adding: “She made decent money as a mare by Shirley Heights; she was bought by Timmy Hyde and she was then sent to Sadler’s Wells, which is something we couldn’t have afforded at the time.”

With the arms of Coolmore then doing all the hard work for Fittocks, Shouk went on to produce the champion Alexandrova (Sadler’s Wells), the Group 1-placed Somehow, the Group 2 winner Alex My Boy and is grand-dam of Group 1 winner Aspetar.

Her Group 1-winning daughter Magical Romance, after a slight timing hiccup at the start of her own breeding career, hit the production heights in 2019 becoming the grand-dam of the Prix de Diane (G1) winner Channel, a daughter of Nathaniel bred by Kilcarn Stud.

THE LISTED winner Puce was retained by Fittocks and her daughter Pongee (by Magical Romance’s sire Barathea, whom Cumani also trained) went on to win the Lancashire Oaks (G2) and finish runner-up in the Yorkshire Oaks (G1) for trainer Cumani and Fittocks, while her son Lion Sands was a Listed winner and Group 3-placed for owner Stronach Stables but trained by Cumani.

However, it is two of Puce’s lesser lights on the racecourse who have gone on to be top-class broodmares.

Her 1999 foal Platonic, a filly by Zafonic and a winner of one race as a four-year-old in France, was sold by Fittocks in 2004 for 100,000gns bought by Suprina.

Her 201o foal born under the Skymarc Farm and Ecurie des Monceaux banner was named Prudenzia.

She was a Listed winner and in 2013 became dam of Chicquita (Montjeu), subsequent winner of the Irish Oaks, the champion Irish three-year-old filly of 2013 and another record-breaking sales horse for

the pedigree when she fetched €6 million at Goffs Breeding Stock Sale in 2013.

In 2015, Prudenzia added to her broodmare laurels when giving birth to a filly by Galileo. Now named Magic Wand, she is a Group 1 winner of the Mackinnon Stakes and nine-time Group and Grade 1 runner-up.

Lot 251: Dubawi colt out of the Pivotal mare Koora

Lot 292: colt by Siyouni ex Barter (Daylami), his second dam is the wonderful ancestress Souk

This year, Prudenzia has again hit the heights on the racecourse and in the sales ring. She is a half-sister to this year’s Listed Derby Trial winner and Epsom Derby (G1) sixth English King, and despite this year’s difficult early yearling sales season her Galileo colt was sold at the Arqana Select Sale by Monceaux fetching €2 million bought by Coolmore. He is the mare’s toppriced sale progeny so far and is one of just four horses to have ever sold for €2 million or more at the Deauville-based auction house.

The other “lesser light” out of Puce was Sitara, her 1998 daughter of Salse. She had one win for trainer Cumani over 1m4f on firm ground at Musselburgh, and achieved a BHA career-high of 67.

“Sitara was by Salse, and who wanted then to keep a Salse mare? She won a race but was nothing special to look at, she was a cull for good reasons,” says Sara of the mare who was sold in 2002 and has since gone on to produce Rekindling, the champion stayer of 2017-2018 in Australia and winner of the Melbourne Cup (G1), and Golden Sword, who won the Chester Vase (G3) and finished second in the Irish Derby (G1).

There is obvious regret from the Cumanis that those got away, but the farm has many links to the pedigree now one of the strongest in Europe that it can still reap the rewards of the family’s ever-developing black-type.

“The Umniyah colt is exactly what you would imagine a Sea The Stars colt out of a Shamardal mare would look like – a big, strong man of a horse

This year’s Lot 51 at Tattersalls October Book 1 is a Siyouni colt out of Barter, a Daylami daughter of Souk. He is a threequarters relation to Haggle, a filly by Pivotal and winner of the Group 3 Prix Fille de l’Air and now resident in the Wertheimer Et Frere broodmare band.

“The family does just keep on going, still keeps on giving. Luckily, we held on to Barter, who has produced Haggle and we have a full-sister to Haggle in training with James Fanshawe called Quibble. She was small, which is not surprising as Haggle is small too,” explains Cumani.

“She is very strong and James is under instruction to try and win as a three-yearold. We might keep her in training as a four-year-old, but she must win at three.”

Of the closely related sibling for sale this year, Sara outlines: “He is a lovely horse, he is very strong, perhaps a little bit on the small side but the whole family is small. He also has a great big bum!

“His withers are not out yet and he was a May foal – May foals have done so well and the stats are so good for them. He will be a beautiful horse next year, he is flashy.”

THE 36-year strategic plan for the development of Fittocks does not rest though on one founding pedigree, and Lot 251, a bay colt by Dubawi, can trace his own link to the 1980s and that precious Derby winner of 1988.

His dam Koora is a Pivotal Group 3 St Simon Stakes-winning half-sister to the Fittocks-bred Milan (Sadler’s Wells), the European champion three-year-old stayer in 2001, winner of the St Leger and a champion NH sire.

Kahyasi’s overarching influence was again an important factor for the purchase of grand-dam Kalata – this time rather than helping finance a bloodstock purchase, the Derby winner’s prowess on the gallops influenced investment plans.

Kalata was a half-sister to the dam of the Derby winner and was purchased when Kahyasi was just a two-year-old, already impressing his trainer in his early work.

“This colt is a lovely typical Dubawi, in fact he is very Dubawi,” says Sara of this year’s Book 1 offering. “He is a Postponed type. His full-brother Kemari is with Charlie Appleby; we have heard he will run quite soon and they like him.”

The Fittocks Stud’s six-strong draft entered in this year’s Book 1 sale, the largest yearling draft offered by the farm to date, also includes a Sea The Stars colt out of Umniyah (Lot 506) and a Siyouni filly out

of Baltic Best (Lot 49). “The Umniyah colt is exactly what you would imagine a Sea The Stars colt out of a Shamardal mare would look like,” enthuses Sara. “He is a big, strong man of a horse, a very good walker and has a wonderful even temperament.”

Cumani adds: “The Siyouni filly out of Baltic Best is a second foal and she is right up there with the colts. We bought the mare in-foal to Ito… I beat him in the Grosser Preis von Berlin with Second Step.

“We had quite a fight to buy Baltic Best, and I think if she had been in-foal to anything else we wouldn’t have managed to get her. Her first foal It Girl is in training with James; I think she is quite exciting, she is very athletic and an easy mover.”

The benefit of hindsight and longevity in the business is certainly something that is appreciated by the couple.

“When you get older and longer in the tooth, you can look back and remember how it all started and see how the families all developed,” smiles Sara, adding: “The mares we shouldn’t have sold and ones we sold for very good reasons!”

Kahyasi, a son of Ile De Bourbon, returns in Derby triumph at Epsom led in by HH Aga Khan, ridden by Ray Cochrane wearing the owner’s second colours

THE TIMING of the latest stage of the strategic plan could not have come at a better time – the newly built house at Fittocks was completed a couple of years ago, Cumani retired from training in 2018, Bedford House Stables was sold last year to young trainer Charlie Fellowes and the couple completed their change of address. This year the global pandemic has arrived throwing the world into confusion and making the already stressful business of training racehorses an even more demanding occupation.

“What a time to have given up!” exclaims Sara. “It must be so hard for trainers at the minute. We built and moved in, and sold Bedford House at the same time; imagine if it had been this year!”

And although her husband adds that he is not missing the world of training at all, a view probably enforced by the fraught year being endured in 2020, he adds: “If I were 25, I’d do it again! When it is good it is good

and we were very lucky, but the plan was always to walk out and not be carried out.” Although now with the bloodstock cap firmly on his head, Cumani appreciates the benefits that training can give affording unique insights to the characteristics of individuals and pedigrees, but as he says it

The couple are now very much settled in their new home in the midst of the 360 acres that the stud has become, and though the house is still settling onto its foundations, it would be difficult to argue it has not been in situ for 100 years and borne witness to the prowess of carriage horses arriving along its long and winding drive.

“It was always the plan to do this,” say the pair in unison. “The whole farm has been set out with a view to one day having a house on this site. In the late 1980s John Gummer [then Environment Secretary] decided that not enough good houses were being built in the countryside, and PP55 of the National Planning Policy Framework allowed houses of architectural value to be built, so we immediately applied.

“We got permission, kept it alive since then and four years ago started; it is much smaller than the original design, but it is always easier planning-wise to go smaller than bigger!”

And while the sales of some of those subsequently industry-important broodmares, fillies and Group 1 horses may be regretted, the finance that the auction ring has generated has allowed for continued inward investment.

“The stud has grown organically, we have never put money in, everything has grown slowly and, whenever we have made any money, we have bought another mare or a little more land,” explains Cumani, adding: “The one thing we got wrong… we put more investment into the stud, bought a few more mares, upgraded the stallions, and now we hit this!

“We might have to dig into the pockets this year and we will if we need to… the alternative is to grow carrots here, but I am not sure we are there yet!”

The farm has only recently started selling the younger horses in its own name, but has sold mares and older horse for some time under its own banner.

“Over the last 20 years we have been incredibly lucky with the prices we have got at the sales,” says a realistic Sara, Fittocks Stud listed as having sold Seta for 1.1 million guineas, Blue Symphony for a million, as well as another 12 in excess of 200,000gns.

With Highclere, Silk Sari’s 2016 Dubawi colt fetched 1.3 million guineas bought by Godolphin.

Cumani explains: “We started selling yearlings in our own name last year. When I was training I never wanted to sell ourselves because I was busy looking around for yearlings myself, and I thought it would be better, as a trainer, to be at arms-length. We always sold then with Highclere.”

Of the plans for this year’s draft, Sara says: “The horses will all have sensible reserves, and if they don’t make that we will train.

“We keep colts from young families, and we keep what we really believe in if doesn’t make what we think it should, whether it is a colt or a filly.

“We have a good syndicate that we have carried on since we were training,” explains Sara.

The recent second placing by the Fittocks-owned and bred Kirstenbosch behind Enable in the Group 3 September Stakes, the first Group-placed black-type for the four-year-old daughter of Mount Nelson out of Kassiyra from the family of Kahyasi, a great example of the benefit of keeping the “right” ones in training to back the family lines.

With the wonderful pedigrees at their disposal, it had to asked whether, after a life training racehorses, surely it would have been easier for the power couple to have handed over the day-to-day guardianship of the stud to others in order that they could enjoy a more relaxed lifestyle?

“The stud has grown organically, we have never put money in, everything has grown slowly...

“We are lucky to have a very competent, happy team headed here by Martin Languillet,” explains Sara, recognising the capable team of staff at Fittocks.

“It is wonderful to be able to walk out and see the foals, see the yearlings, the mares, the yearlings in prep.

“It is a great world and there is always something to do, something happening. We don’t want to just be sitting in front of the TV!” laughs Cumani, who is in charge of the paddocks and husbandry of the farm.

In fact, the astute Italian is as far from retired – when not busy on the stud or at the sales, he is fully involved with the BHA as a member-nominated director; through this COVID year it is a role that you can imagine has kept him plenty occupied.

Fittocks has around 18-19 of is own mares, three in partnership, and around the same number of permanent boarders. A few seasonal boarders arrive with the swallows each spring.

Fittocks Stud does the job of producing top class horses well, and Team Cumani’s continuing development of the farm has meant that the stud can do a good job even better.

Luca and Sara Cumani can be confident the plans they made in the 1980s will see the stud and its pedigrees through a good few generations to come yet.

But, first, the most immediate requirement... getting the 2020 yearlings to Tattersalls, and sold.

Lot 292: the Muhaarar colt out of Maglietta Fina with Natasha Gory leading the draft on exercise