This is the first in a series of US bred winners of the Melbourne Cup
Beldale Ball was trained for the Cup by the late Colin Hayes. He was perhaps the first of the true imports that came over with the Cup in mind, and managed to scrape into the field with a postage stamp weight of 49.5kgs. Beldale Ball was by the US stallion and champion racehorse in Nashua. Although he is getting pushed back further in modern pedigrees, Nashua was truly outstanding on the track, winning both Champion 2 and 3yo, and Horse of the Year in the US in the mid 1950’s. His influence will continue unabated with Nashua appearing as the damsire of the legendary, Mr Prospector.
Beldale Ball’s dam, San Cat, was a daughter of the little known US stallion, Barbizon, by Polynesian. The female line is called the A1 family, making it one of the true foundation US families. It is fair to say that the family has had its shares of ups and downs, and in most cases in the modern breed, is found through a distant mare in Heraldry who is the 12th dam of Beldale Ball. There are a number of wonderful horses that share this family, although as expected, many are US horses. Rock Hard Ten, who was one of the premier horses in the US a few years ago, with wins in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Handicap and a second in the Preakness, is but one who hails from this family. He now stands at stud in Kentucky, so perhaps we may see his influence extend here in the future. Another more recent winner in the US is another stallion in the boom 2yo, and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner, Stevie Wonderboy. A little further back in the family we see that very good horse, Silver Buck who sired almost 40 stakes winners in a long career. Delving even further back, we see that the very good sire of the early 20th century in Bunting also hails from this family. He can be found today in the pedigrees of horses carrying stallions like Habitat, Northfields and Kris S.
Closer to home, the line has had success in Australia in some contrasting horses. The good NZ based stallion, Istadaad who performed well racing in Australia is another from this family. Most significantly though the good sprinter All American who won last year’s Group 1 Emirates Stakes and is now at stud at Arrowfield also calls this family his own.
In terms of pedigree, we see that Beldale Ball has the good stallion, Sardanapale, duplicated 4fx5f, as well as seeing the presence of three quarter siblings, Mumtaz Begum and Mahmoud within five generations. His four generation dosage profile read [0.64/2.83] which is certainly not what we would have expected for a two mile winner especially at that time.
Beldale Ball was returned to the US where he was to stand at stud with little success. He was later sold to Switzerland, and then to Czechoslovakia which was a sad footnote to such a wonderful Melbourne Cup victory.