NEWS
Lahudood lands champion turf female honors
Posted: Monday, January 21, 2008 10:33 PM
2007 CHAMPION FEMALE TURF HORSE LAHUDOOD
Gary Rothstein/Equi-Photo
A year after Invasor (Arg) captured Horse of the Year and champion older male honors for owner Shadwell Farm, Lahudood (GB) secured another Eclipse Award for Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid al Maktoum.
The five-year-old Singspiel (Ire) mare is the first Eclipse Award winner bred by Shadwell. While Sheikh Hamdan has bred eight European classic winners, Lahudood is his first homebred to earn United States champion honors as well as the first to win a Breeders’ Cup World Championships race.
“Any time you have a homebred, it’s that much more special,” Shadwell Farm General Manager Rick Nichols said. “She was born at Shadwell Estate in England and then raised at [Sheikh Hamdan’s] Derrinstown Stud in Ireland, so it has been a real team approach with her.”
Believing young females produce better foals, Sheikh Hamdan typically retires fillies after their three-year-old seasons. He believed Lahudood failed to display her best in 2006, however, when she earned a listed stakes win in France but came up short in three group stakes in that country. For her four-year-old season, Sheikh Hamdan sent Lahudood to the U.S. and trainer Kiaran McLaughlin, who also conditioned Invasor and Belmont Stakes (G1) winner Jazil.
After making her first U.S. start in June, Lahudood was at her best when it counted most, closing the year with victories in the Flower Bowl Invitational Stakes (G1) at Belmont Park and Emirates Airline Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf (G1) at Monmouth Park.
