High Chaparral Euthanised During Colic Surgery Complication
Coolmore Stud has been rocked by the sudden death of champion sire
High Chaparral in Ireland while undergoing colic surgery.
The dual Derby winner
High Chaparral died suddenly at the age of 15.
HIGH CHAPARRAL
The six-time Gr1 winning son of
Sadler's Wells had just returned from his
Southern Hemisphere season at Coolmore Australia but succumbed to complications during exploratory colic surgery, due to a perforated intestine and was euthanised at Fethard Equine Hospital.
Winner of
10 races from 13 starts,
High Chaparral was a Gr1 winner at two, three, and four years of age. He completed the Epsom-Curragh Derby double in 2002 and landed the
Breeders’ Cup Turf at Arlington Park in 2002
and again the following year at Santa Anita before retiring to stud.
SO YOU THINK
Successful in both hemispheres,
High Chaparral’s most notable offspring include the top-class ten-time Gr 1 winner
So You Think, It’s A Dundeel, Descarado, Shoot Out and Toronado. Other stars of his stud career included Wigmore Hall, Redwood, Western Hymn, High Jinx and Free Eagle.
The 15-year-old shuttle stallion, had been at stud since 2004.
High Chaparral (Sadler’s Wells x Kasora, by Darshaan), best known as the sire of his NZ-bred international champion So You Think among his
61 stakes winners that include 11 Gr1 winners.
High Chaparral stood his first Southern Hemisphere season at
Windsor Park Stud in New Zealand as a replacement for Montjeu.
He proved a more than able substitute with
his first Southern Hemisphere crop producing Gr1 winners So You Think, Descarado, Shoot Out and Monaco Consul.
HIGH CHAPARRAL
Dual Cox Plate winner So You Think won 10 Gr1 races in both hemispheres including two Cox Plates, the Coral-Eclipse, Irish Champion Stakes, Tattersalls Gold Cup and Prince of Wales’s Stakes and will have his first crop yearlings offered in Australia in 2015.
Decarado won the Gr1 Caulfield Cup and Gr1 Caulfield Stakes; Monaco Consul landed the Gr1 Spring Champion Stakes and Gr1 Victoria Derby and Shoot Out was a five-time Gr1 and classic winner of the AJC Derby.
High Chaparral is also the sire of Dundeel (It’s A Dundeel), who collected six Gr1 wins in 2013 and 2014 including the Sydney 3YO triple crown of the Randwick Guineas, Rosehill Guineas and Australian Derby and is now at stud.
High Chaparral was moved from Windsor Park to Coolmore’s Australian base in the Hunter Valley in 2010, where he stood for a fee of $60,500 this year.
His yearlings averaged $128,647 at this year’s Australasian yearling sales.
He was sold at the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale in 2000 for 270,000gns to Demi O’Byrne on behalf of Michael Tabor and was trained at Ballydoyle by Aidan O’Brien.
From just 13 starts he won 10 races and never finished unplaced, winning six Gr1 races and
was England and Ireland’s top-rated middle distance 3-year-old and top-rated older horse in Ireland.
His first Northern Hemisphere crop included the Group winners and Gr1-placed Magadan, Unsung Heroine and Beach Bunny and his second crop yielded the Gr1 winner Redwood and five other Group winners.
High Chaparral is the sire of six Northern Hemisphere Gr1winners, including three this year headed by dual Gr1-winning miler Toronado, who took last year’s Gr1 Sussex Stales and this year’s Gr1 Queen Anne Stakes and will take up stud duty next year at The National Stud in Newmarket.
He is also the sire of Lucky Lion won this year’s Gr1 Grosser Dallmayr Bayerisches Zuchtrennen in Germany; High Jinx, winner of the Gr1 Prix du Cadran; dual Gr1 Northern Dancer Turf winner Wigmore Hall; and Gr1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner Wrote.
Bred in Ireland by Sean Coughlan, he was the second foal of the unraced Darshaan mare Kasora, who was later purchased privately by John Magnier and went on to produce Gr2 Dante Stakes winner Black Bear Island (Sadler’s Wells) and the dams of stakes winners David Livingston (Galileo) and Smuggler’s Cove (Fastnet Rock).
He is also making an impact as a broodmare sire, his daughters producing this year's French Gr1 winning two year-old
The Wow Signal (by Starspangledbanner) and
Suavito, winner of the Gr2 Matriarch Stakes.