Sometimes a stallion comes along and leaves all too quickly, leaving us wondering if things could have turned out very differently.
In 2019, Cambridge Stud in New Zealand took charge of the 2018 European Horse of the Year Roaring Lion (USA), who was shuttling from Tweenhills Stud in the UK for the very first time.
The dashing grey had finished covering his first book of mares in the Northern Hemisphere and was set to cover his first book in New Zealand at a fee of $40,000 when he suffered a bout of colic that resulted in complications which ultimately proved fatal.
It was a bitter blow to the entire New Zealand breeding industry, not to mention his Northern Hemisphere owner Sheikh Fahad's Qatar Racing, but the real magnitude of that loss is only really now being calculated.
Roaring Lion produced one crop of 107 foals (now NH 5YOs) , 89 of which have raced and 55 have won highlighted by eight stakes-winners including the G1 winner Dubai Mile, which represent 9% SW to runner.
Interestingly six of the Roaring Lion progeny have found their way to Australia and four of them raced at Flemington Cup Day.
He had two runners in the Melbourne Cup with Middle Earth (GB) impressing with a gallant third, while the well fancied Valiant King (GB), who was third in the Caulfield Cup, finished unplaced.
Earlier in the day, Roaring Lion had the quinella in the Listed VRC Kirin Ichiban Plate (1800m) with the Gavin Bedggood trained Kingswood (GB) scoring a half length win over Saint George (GB), whose form appears to be on an upswing following an unplaced effort in last year’s Melbourne Cup.
In a bloodstock landscape where we are sorely in need of a new generation of sires that can put stamina and durability into our speed oriented commercial broodmare pool, Roaring Lion is one stallion that will always leave us wondering.
