Blacklister

Courtesy West Ilsley Stables

Seeing as he's already been out a couple of times, we'll take a look at Blacklister as the first of the three Box 41 horses in England. The Box 41 syndicate has a long and proud history at Mick Channon's prestigious West Ilsley Stables, by the way, and I'm chuffed to bits to be a small part of it. Hopefully I will be for many years - at least until the money runs out, or the Grim Reaper decides my time has run out, whichever comes first!

Anyway, Blacklister was sired by Lawman - a French-registered stallion who won the coveted Prix du Jockey Club race in amongst his four wins (4-1-0 from seven races). His father was Invincible Spirit, who seems to have an uncanny knack of passing on Danzig's golden DNA, as well as that of Sir Ivor, Kris and Round Table (by Princequillo). All in all, some legendary bloodlines, with 'classic' winners aplenty, and the likes of Gulch (by Mr Prospector), Shirley Heights (by Mill Reef) and Nijinsky being added by his mother, Laramie, to further strengthen the gene pool...

On the dam side, Blacklister's mother is Lebenstanz, who picked up a 1-4-0 record before becoming a broodmare. Her sire was Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum's Singspiel, who was a worthy representative of Sadler's Wells blood, and added Shirley Heights in there for good measure. Her dam was Reamur, who has a habit of creating good runners, largely thanks to Ribot and High Top DNA, I guess, with Fairway and Hyperion a bit further back. 

Blacklister has been unlucky so far, but he shows a great deal of promise, and now he's been gelded, I'm positive he'll put in some good results over the new few months.