In the 1970s, it became a standing joke that when an erstwhile British- or Irish-based sire was sold to Japan, a top-liner was sure to emerge shortly afterwards from among the young stock which he had left behind in Europe. Nowadays Japan is no longer usually the destination for stallions whom the major European studs decide to move on, but the same truism seems to apply. Thus it should have come as no surprise that, only months after his removal from the Darley roster and his arrival at Whitsbury Manor Stud in Hampshire, Refuse To Bend should have come up with a Group One winner from his second crop of three-year-olds, writes John Berry.
In truth, there should never have been any doubt that Refuse To Bend would sire a high-class horse because he is blessed with pretty much all the attributes required by a successful stallion. Formerly a top-class racehorse blessed with both precocity and durability, Refuse To Bend is a magnificent specimen with an excellent pedigree. Thus the victory in the Group One Prix Saint-Alary of his daughter Sarafina should not have come as any surprise.
Although he recorded his later victories wearing the royal blue livery of Godolphin, Refuse To Bend began his racing life as a Moyglare Stud home-bred. Consequently, when he entered training as a two-year-old in 2002, he joined the stable of Dermot Weld, the long-time trainer for the Moyglare Stud string. Weld was, naturally, well acquainted with Refuse To Bend’s family, and in particular with one of his close relatives: his half-brother Media Puzzle was already one of the stable’s stalwarts. Two years previously, Media Puzzle had carried the black, white and red Moyglare Stud livery creditably in two Classics, finishing seventh to Sinndar in the Irish Derby and fourth to Millenary in the St Leger. However, after these good runs, which confirmed that Media Puzzle might have the potential to develop into a live Melbourne Cup contender, the horse was bought by another patron of Weld’s stable: Dr Michael Smurfit, owner of the Weld-trained 1993 Melbourne Cup winner Vintage Crop. Having been gelded, Media Puzzle made a winning resumption as a four-year-old but sadly went amiss after only two starts in 2001 and thus was still on the side-lines when his younger half-brother Refuse To Bend was starting his two-year-old training in the spring of 2002. As history relates, however, Media Puzzle made a full recovery from his troubles, progressing throughout the year until, on the first Tuesday of November, he made his ninth and final start of 2002 a historic one, galloping to victory at Flemington to become only the second European-trained Melbourne Cup winner.
Refuse To Bend, therefore, had much to live up to, but happily he wasted no time in proving that he was a very worthy member of a distinguished family: he raced only twice as a two-year-old, but those two races provided opportunity enough to allow him to prove himself a top-class horse because, after winning a maiden race at Gowran Park in August 2002, he landed Ireland’s premier juvenile event, the Group One National Stakes over seven furlongs, at the Curragh the following month, beating Van Nistelrooy by three quarters of a length.
Refuse To Bend stretched his unbeaten run to four by winning his first two races at three. As the second of these victories came in the 2,000 Guineas, Refuse To Bend was clearly a most exciting colt; consequently, the Derby naturally beckoned. To head to Epsom after the 2,000 Guineas was clearly the obvious decision, not least because Refuse To Bend was both a son of Sadler's Wells (who had sired the previous two Derby winners, Galileo and High Chaparral) and a half-brother to the previous year’s Melbourne Cup winner. However, his stamina was not necessarily as guaranteed as that cursory overview of his pedigree might suggest: overall, there were as many influences for speed in his pedigree as there were for stamina, while the colt’s solid physique suggested that shorter distances might be his métier. And so it proved, with Refuse To Bend losing his unbeaten record when finishing only 13th behind Kris Kin at Epsom. Happily, normal service was resumed when, dropped back to a mile, he justified odds-on favouritism ten weeks later in the Group Three Desmond Stakes at Leopardstown, but the remainder of his season was rather an anti-climax: he finished among the tail-enders in two top-class mile races in the autumn, the Prix du Moulin de Longchamp and the Breeders’ Cup Mile.
Just as Moyglare Stud had sold Media Puzzle at the end of his three-year-old season, so it sold Refuse To Bend at a similar stage. In this case, though, the purchaser was Sheikh Mohammed. The colt duly joined Godolphin – and joined Godolphin with something to prove, having run well below form in his final starts of 2002. Happily, this proved to be a major success story for Saeed bin Suroor and his team because, although Refuse To Bend ran below form again on his first three starts as a four-year-old, he burst back to his best at Royal Ascot, recording the third Group One victory of his career by outrunning 15 high-class opponents, headed by Soviet Song, to take the Queen Anne Stakes up the straight mile. Furthermore, he then added a fourth Group One victory to his haul the following month by winning the Eclipse Stakes over ten furlongs at Sandown. Although, once again, he was unable to sustain his excellence through to the autumn, he had done enough to prove himself a member of that elite band of racehorses able to win at the highest level at ages of two, three and four. He had also done more than enough to guarantee himself a place on the Darley stallions’ roster, and he duly retired to Kildangan Stud in Ireland in the spring of 2005 at a fee of 20,000 Euros.
As mentioned above, Refuse To Bend’s pedigree contained a confusing mixture of influences. Although a son of Sadler’s Wells and although a half-brother to a Melbourne Cup winner, he was most notably a grandson of Moyglare Stud’s famous matriarch Grenzen, formerly a brilliantly fast filly who at one stage held (jointly) the six-furlong track record at Santa Anita. The best of her offspring was Twilight Agenda (a Grade One winner over 1800m and runner-up in the 1991 Breeders’ Cup Classic) but overall she is remembered best as a dam of broodmares: no fewer than seven of her daughters produced Group or Graded stakes performers. Arguably the best of these daughters on the track was Refuse To Bend’s dam Market Slide, a daughter of the Mr Prospector stallion Gulch, who himself had been a wonderful racehorse, winning a total of seven Grade One races at distances ranging from six to nine furlongs, his most notable victory coming in the 1988 Breeders’ Cup Sprint. Market Slide, the daughter therefore of two very fast parents, was herself very fast, winning five races between six and 6.5 furlongs and being placed in the Grade Three First Lady Handicap over six furlongs.
Overall, therefore, it would not have been correct to regard Refuse To Bend as a typical son of Sadler’s Wells. He had raced best at around a mile, just as his physique had suggested might have been the case, while his pedigree was very different from the backgrounds possessed by many of Sadler’s Wells other notable sons. While many other successful sire-sons of Sadler’s Wells – eg Montjeu, Galileo and High Chaparral – possess pedigrees laden with middle- and long-distance influences, Refuse To Bend (despite the Melbourne Cup victory of Media Puzzle and despite the Belmont Stakes success of Go And Go, another grandson of Grenzen, albeit from a daughter of the staying sire Alleged) does not fall into the same category. If one were to compare him to another sire-son of Sadler’s Wells, Barathea might be the chosen one: Barathea, another powerful muscular horse, also excelled at around a mile and failed to stay in the Derby, and also comes from a very fast damline. It is interesting, therefore, that Sarafina is the second offspring of her dam Sanariya to have made the frame in the Prix Saint-Alary, Sarafina’s recent victory in the race having been proceded four years earlier by the third place posted by her Barathea half-sister Sanaya.
While Refuse To Bend is a lovely horse whose impressive stud credentials have now been validated by Sarafina’s Group One victory (a victory which could well turn out to be the first of several which she records at the highest-level), it is easy to understand why he was marginalized by Darley once his first runners had completed their three-year-old campaign. While he came up with many seemingly promising prospects in his first crop, the fulfillment of this promise was not universal. Darley statistics produced in the spring of 2009, with the members of his first crop in the early stages of their three-year-old campaigns, showed that 37.8% of his runners had achieved a Timeform rating of 80 or above. However, this creditable statistic was not able to be converted into tangible success: by the end of 2009, his first two crops had yielded only four individual stakes winners. From his first crop, Mibar had won a Listed race in Italy as a two-year-old in 2008 while Grace O'malley and Alaiyma had won in Ireland as three-year-olds in 2009 at Group Three and Listed level respectively; and from his second crop Neon Light had won a Group Three race in Germany as a two-year-old in 2009. Overall, this clearly was less impressive than one might have expected.
However, racing’s history-books are full of stallions over whom judgement was passed prematurely, and it is now easy to believe that that might have been the case with Refuse To Bend. After winning the Prix Saint-Alary comfortably on only her second start, Sarafina looks sure to advertise her sire’s merit further, and it seems very likely that more good horses will emerge from Refuse To Bend’s current batches of young sons and daughters and from his future crops. And it is likely, if for no reason other than the fact that the cross of a Sadler’s Wells stallion over a Darshaan mare is a popular and well-tried one, that some of these might - like Sarafina, Grace O'Malley and Alaiyna - be from Darshaan mares.
