A thousand words on thousand words

28 Oct 2013

“Top Notch Tonto finished an excellent second in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot, ahead of the proven top-liners Kingsbarns, Dawn Approach, Elusive Kate, Gordon Lord Byron, Maxios and Soft Falling Rain, writes John Berry.

Like so many horses bred by Juddmonte, Thousand Words hails from a good family which has been serving Prince Khalid Abdullah well since the ‘80s. His grand-dam Alvernia was a good broodmare for Juddmonte, even if one of her relatives was even better: Ballinderry, a half-sister to Alvernia’s dam Miss Summer. The Prince largely founded his breeding operation on well-bred fillies, and Ballinderry was a classic example. Her dam Miss Manon had already bred the 1979 Poule d’Essai des Poulains and Prix Lupin winner Sharpman, the 1980 Prix Hocquart winner Mot D'or and the 1981 Gran Premio di Milano winner Lydian – and Ballinderry too won a Group race, carrying the prince’s colours to victory in the Ribblesdale Stakes at Royal Ascot in 1984. At stud she did even better, breeding his 1990 Prix du Jockey-Club winner Sanglamore.

Ballinderry’s close relative Alvernia didn’t do quite as well, but she did win a couple of races in America before breeding several winners for Juddmonte highlighted by Exterior, winner of two races in England before being Grade Two-placed in California, and by Acrobatic who won four races in England and then scored in Listed company in France.

Thousand Word’s dam Verbose, winner of a mile maiden race at Windsor as a three-year-old in 2000 before finishing second in a Listed race at Ascot, was another of Alvernia’s offspring. Covered in 2003 by the horse who has turned out to be Juddmonte’s best European-based sire (Dansili), Verbose bred Thousand Words, who looked a very good prospect when winning three races as a two-year-old from Barry Hills’ stable in 2006. These culminated with his Group Three victory over seven furlongs at Newmarket in the autumn, after which he finished fifth of 14 behind subsequent Derby winner Authorized in the Group One Racing Post Trophy.

Thousand Words had his first juvenile runners last year, he had 18 individual runners within the British Isles, of whom four won a total of six races. Remarkably, two of these winners – the Charles Hills-trained One Word More and the Ian McInnes-trained Top Notch Tonto – were Listed-placed.

This year, Thousand Words, has only had eight two-year-old runners in the British Isles – but three of them have won. Furthermore, One Word More has trained on well enough to win a good mile race at Kempton, while Top Notch Tonto, who cost 3,000 euros as a yearling and who now ranks as a Group One-placed, Group Three and Listed winner trained by Brian Ellison, has shown that, granted wet ground, he is one of the best milers in the world.

Here endeth our thousand-word look at Thousand Words. Let’s hope that we read a lot more than that about him in the future. He deserves it."

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