Royal Artillery, Almasty join Pin Oak Lane stallion roster
Royal Artillery is a newcomer to Pin Oak Lane’s stallion roster for 2018. Photo courtesy of Pin Oak Lane Farm.
From a Pin Oak Lane Farm release
Two stallions have taken up residence at Dr. William Solomon’s Pin Oak Lane Farm in New Freedom, Pa., to stand their first seasons in 2018.
The most recent arrival is Royal Artillery, a 5-year-old son of top sire and rising sire of sires War Front. Owned by a partnership between Crystal Lane Racing and Pin Oak Lane, Royal Artillery is the only graded/group stakes winner by War Front to stand in the mid-Atlantic region and enters stud for $4,000, with discounts available with multiple bookings ($3,000 for two mares, or $2,000 for three or more mares).
Royal Artillery was a stakes winner at 3, winning the 2016 Group 3 Rose of Lancaster Stakes at a mile and five-sixteenths over the Haydock turf in England in course record time, as well as finishing third in the Group 2 Prix Guillaume d’Ornano at Deauville in France. Raced by the powerful stable of Mrs. John Magnier, Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith and trained by John Gosden, Royal Artillery was purchased as a weanling for $450,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky November sale.
In his only start at two, the powerful dark bay showed tremendous promise when winning by two and a half lengths at seven furlongs. He retires with two wins and a third in seven European starts, for earnings of $110,720.
Royal Artillery is out of multiple graded winner Masseuse, a daughter of Dynaformer and earner of $439,652 from 14 starts while counting the Grade 2 Dance Smartly Stakes and Grade 3 Beaugay Handicap among her five wins. Royal Artillery’s second dam, Pedicure (by Mr. Prospector), produced additional graded stakes performers Buff, a four-time stakes winner of $646,468, and stakes winner Second Performance. Masseuse’s half-sisters have produced the likes of millionaire Green Mask and Argentinian Group 1 winner Peristaltica (Arg). Also found in the family are multiple graded winners Forty Tales and Banned.
Almasty, the only son of Scat Daddy to stand in the mid-Atlantic region, enters his first season for an introductory fee of $2,500 live foal, with discounts available if breeding two ($2,000) or three or more ($1,500) mares. The property of John Wentworth, the six-year-old descends from the remarkable family of Flight Dancer, which has produced Horses of the Year Gun Runner and Saint Liam.
A four-time winner from nine starts at three, Almasty became a graded winner when scoring by four and a quarter lengths in Churchill Downs’s Grade 3 Commonwealth Turf Stakes at a mile and a sixteenth, defeating graded stakes winners Saham, Granny’s Kitten and One Go All Go. At four he finished third in the $300,000 Kentucky Downs Turf Sprint, less than two lengths behind Successful Native and Hogy, and retired with nine on-the-board finishes in 16 starts while earning $239,281.
Out of the Pleasant Colony mare Minicolony, Almasty is a half-brother to stakes winner Suzy Smart, group stakes-placed $290,753-earner York Glory and stakes-placed stakes producer Sea Pines. His second dam is Irish champion 2-year-old Minstrella, a three-time Group 1 winner and dam of graded winners Colonial Minstrel and Minidar and stakes winner Unrestrained.
Nearly two dozen stakes winners appear under Almasty’s first three dams, including Gun Runner, the second-richest North American runner in history who retired with earnings of $15,988,500 and six Grade 1 wins, including the Breeders’ Cup Classic and Pegasus World Cup Invitational. Saint Liam won the 2005 Breeders’ Cup Classic and three additional Grade 1 races and sired Horse of the Year Havre de Grace from his only crop.
