Speaking of Zimbabwe recently, Kitalpha (Mr. Prospector-Miesque, by Nureyev), who stands at War Horse Place in Kentucky for $12,500, actually began his career at stud there at Rumbavu Park Stud in 2003, and he’s the leading sire there from limited opportunity.
Zimbabwe, as I pointed out yesterday, is a so-called “Part II” country, so Kitalpha’s group winners over there get legitimate international black type.
It’s easy to see why Kitalpha was imported to stand in Zimbabwe in 2003. That was the year of Zim-bred Ipi Tombe, and she was by Manshood, a Mr. Prospector stallion, too. And like Kitalpha, Manshood was out of a great mare – Indian Skimmer! Like Manshood, Kitalpha was unraced, too.
In 2003, the Niarchos family’s Flaxman Holdings – the owner and breeder of Miesque and all her foals — sold Kitalpha through trainer Pascal Barry at the now defunct Goffs France summer sale to Kern Lillingston Bloodstock. The colt was purchased to go to Zimbabwe for a syndicate headed by John Harris. “With the best older stallions having passed on or been exported, we needed to make a firm commitment to the future of our industry,” Harris said at the time to a South African paper about Kitalpha’s importation to stand at Rumbavu Park Stud.
Kitalpha was a physically imposing young horse who had a knee problem, although it was reported in the press at the time that Kitalpha was retired after “suffering a tendon injury while in training in England with Henry Cecil at Newmarket.”
However, Lewis Rankin, who’s in the Flaxman racing office, put the record straight for me when he told me recently: “I have spoken to Alan Cooper, the racing manager to the Niarchos family, who advises that Kitalpha had some knee surgery as a 3-year-old and it was later decided not to race him.”
What Kitalpha does have is a big heart, and I don’t mean in the figurative sense!
Dr. Fred Fregin is an equine cardiologist who has been measuring equine hearts for 40 years. Much of his work and the inheritance of large hearts has been documented by Marianna Haun, author of the book “The X Factor.” According to Dr. Fregin, Kitalpha has one of the largest hearts he’s ever measured, in the same league as Secretariat’s.
Haun reportedly called writer Steve Haskin a few weeks before the 2008 Kentucky Derby to talk about Big Brown, who’s also out of a Nureyev mare, to say that Big Brown would get the Derby distance because of the big heart he had inherited from Nureyev.
Here’s what Haskin wrote about what Haun told him: “When we measured Miesque’s son, Kitalpha, we found the largest heart Dr. Fregin has seen in more than 40 years of measuring. It was the same size as Secretariat’s. Kitalpha bears a very close resemblance to his dam, Nureyev, and to Big Brown. So we know that the extraordinary heart of Nureyev is beating in Big Brown.”
Apparently it’s beating even bigger in Kitalpha!