NEWS
Johannesburg sold to stand in Japan
Posted: Thursday, October 08, 2009 10:13 AM
by Jeff Lowe
Johannesburg will not return to Ashford Stud for the 2010 breeding season after Coolmore sold the 2001 champion two-year-old male and ’06 leading freshman sire to the Japan Bloodhorse Breeders’ Association.
The ten-year-old Hennessy stallion out of Myth, by Ogygian, will stand at the JBBA’s Shizunai Stallion Station in Hokkaido. He will join former Ashford sire Stravinksy, who moved there after his sixth season in 2005.
Johannesburg, currently in Argentina for Southern Hemisphere duty, stood seven seasons at Ashford in Versailles, Kentucky. His advertised fee was $35,000 in 2009.
Racing Post had news of the sale on Thursday morning, and Ashford manager Dermot Ryan confirmed the report.
Johannesburg led the freshman sire list with $1,955,459 in progeny earnings in 2006, paced by Champagne (G1) and Sanford (G2) Stakes winner Scat Daddy. In 2007, Scat Daddy scored consecutive wins in the Fountain of Youth Stakes (G2) and Florida Derby (G1), before beginning his stud career at Ashford in 2008.
Johannesburg also is the sire of 2008 French highweight Sageburg, Australian Group 1 winner Turffontein, Grade 2 winner and Florida sire Teuflesberg, and a total of 26 stakes winners in four crops of racing age. His two-year-old son, Radiohead, won the Norfolk Stakes (Eng-G2) at Royal Ascot in June and is a candidate for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1) at Santa Anita Park.
Bred in Kentucky by W. G. Lyster III and Jayeff “B” Stables, Johannesburg was a $200,000 purchase in the 2000 Keeneland September yearling sale.
Trained in Ireland by Aidan O’Brien for Michael Tabor and Susan Magnier, Johannesburg won all seven of his starts as a two-year-old, capping a string of six stakes wins with a 1 1/4-length victory in the Bessemer Trust Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1) at Belmont Park. He was the highweighted two-year-old colt in England, France, and Ireland, and an Eclipse Award recipient in the United States.
Johannesburg finished eighth in the 2002 Kentucky Derby (G1) and retired later that year with seven wins in ten career starts and earnings of $1,014,585. His progeny earned $19,849,891 through Wednesday.
Jeff Lowe is a Thoroughbred Times staff writer
