The winner of the French stake and the second bull Hashtag found its first winner a few months after it was sold and moved to Whytemount Stud in County Kilkenny, Ireland.
11 year old son of Sea The Stars entered the stables at Calumet Ranch in Central Kentucky and stood there until it went on sale this winter during the January All Age Horse Sale in Keeneland for $3,500 to William Nicks. Behesht was later sold to Ronnie O’Neill, who owns the Whytemount Stud, according to Nicks.
“I like the horse, but he doesn’t have enough mares in Calumet. I think he’ll work somewhere else like Maryland or Canada, where they have a lot of turf or Polytrack,” he said.
He advertised the stallion and soon got a call from O’Neill.
O’Neill told the Thoroughbred Stallion Guide. “I followed him and saw him in France one day and thought he was going to make some sort of stallion, because it’s a strong pedigree. There are 1st place winners and winners. won the 1st national hunt in his first two generations. And she (Behera, of Mill Reef) was a group 1 winner, who finished second in the Prix de l’Arc.”
Yurena, a stout 3-year-old boy bred by Calumet, became the first Behesht winner on March 13 at Monterrico in Peru. She knocked on the door for her first win, finishing second or third five times from nine starts for Jet Set owner and coach Juan Suarez Villarroel. Yurena was sold as weaned for $2,000 during a November 2019 sale at Keeneland to a buyer named Dayol in Buckland Sales shipment.
As further proof of Behesht’s overseas potential, Yurena is not Sadler’s Wells’ daughter. Harpeth , who also produced the Irish Queen Anne’s Lace, winner in Ireland. The lineage directly produced the French champion and then the leading male in France Darshaan.
The Behesht was bred by Aga Khan and sold at the Arqana Saint Cloud Arc de Triomphe 2014 for €525,000 (US$656,985) to Dermot Weld after the foal won the Prix Turenne at Saint Cloud and was runner-up in the Prix. Frederic de Lagrange at Vichy. Behesht began to fall into the hands of Calumet in 2016 and had 8 matches in the US army without winning. He was retired with a 3-2-0 record in 16 starts and earned $143,833.
“He’s been wasted there (US) but his being Sea The Stars will make him famous here. It’s too good to be true and I can’t turn him down when he was present, although we were not looking for another stallion,” said O’Neill.
