Finally, top flight racing returned to Europe, with English and Irish racing beginning, and with France leading the way. On Monday, June 1, Victor Ludorum won the Group 1 Poule d’Essais des Poulins, bringing his record to five starts, four wins and one third, with earnings of €473,164, and making him a leading contender for classic races for the rest of this bizarre 2020 racing season.

More than this, Victor Ludorum is by the recently deceased Shamardal, a great loss for Godolphin breeding and breeders, out of the Kaldounevees mare Antiquities, herself Group Stakes Placed and producing. Godolphin bred this colt too, and he has a unique pedigree that was graded F by one of the online nicking services. A rare achievement, and another reason to discount those services completely and look more deeply into a pedigree, particularly into its dams’ sides.

The nay-sayers undoubtedly dislike the 3 x 3 inbreeding to Helen Street, the dam of the great Street Cry. In this pedigree, she is the dam of Helsinki, a full sister to Street Cry, Shamardal’s dam, and the dam of Victor Ludorum’s second dam, Historian (Pennekamp), making Street Cry’s tail female line, Shamardal’s tail female line, and Victor Ludorum’s tail female line the same, and powerful.

The pedigree that this one most reminds me of is that of the young star of Ballylinch Stud, Lope de Vega, who is inbred 3 x 3 to Machiavellian, and is also by Shamardal, and is evidence that close inbreeding to Street Cry, Machiavellian and their relatives works. In both pedigrees, we also see inbreeding to Halo, 6 x 5, complementing all of the Northern Dancer in each (Storm Cat, Lyphard and Nijinsky II in Victor Ludorum, and through Nijinsky II in Lope de Vega, no coincidence as Storm Bird and Nijinsky II are closely related).

The bonus in Victor Ludorum’s pedigree comes through Pennekamp his second broodmare sire, who was by Bering, a wealth of Almahmoud through her daughter Bubbling Beauty, Lyphard (by Northern Dancer, who was out of Almahmoud’s daughter Natalma), and the aforementioned Nijinsky II, also by Northern Dancer and out of Natalma. Add the doses of Halo, out of Cosmah, Almahmoud’s other stellar daughter, and Victor Ludorum’s pedigree represents a huge build-up of Almahmoud, through the two most common sources, and an additional, unusual daughter.

It is worth noting that Victor Ludorum’s pedigree, because of its inbreeding to Helen Street, features inbreeding as well to stamina source Riverman. Add in other stamina sources Le Fabuleux and Val de Loir, inbreeding to Spy Song top and bottom, and a dose of Prince John through Antiquities’ sire Kaldounevees, calling out to the Princequillo in Storm Cat’s Secretariat dam, the Princequillo mare Somethingroyal, and this pedigree demonstrates many of the strands that point out top class runners.Victor Ludorum’s dam, Antiquities, is the only Kaldounevees mare to be bred to Shamardal, with the resulting two foals being Victor Ludorum and his full sibling.

A shame that Shamardal won’t get a chance to breed with mores from this line, as Storm Cat had great success in the United States when bred with the Caro line: witness Tactical Cat. Nevertheless, we now have Victor Ludorum, who will be one of the many offspring of the lamented Shamardal at stud, carrying on his father’s legacy.

-- Roberta  Smoodin