OVERBURY STALLIONS

Sparkling debut for Art Jewel thrills Bailey 15/05/09

With four winners and a 40 per cent winners to runners ratio, Bertolini is top of the table for leading sires of two-year-olds but then that should come as no surprise. Ever since Bertolini started having runners, his juveniles have done an excellent job in advertising their sire’s considerable merits to breeders.

His most recent two-year-old winner, Art Jewel, brought a big smile to the face of her breeder Jane Bailey, as this was the last foal she bred from Ma N’Ieme Biche, whom she sold the following year.

‘She was a very good mare and her winners have included Drifting Snow, who was trained by Dermot Weld, and Whatabob,” says Jane of the Key To The Kingdom mare, whose most recent representative won a five-furlong maiden at Lingfield for Matthew Green and Simon Callaghan. Jane and her husband Brian have kept a three-year-old High Chaparral half-sister to Art Jewel, named Dolores Ortiz, who is in training in Newmarket with Stuart Williams.

Jane adds” “We’ve had about seven mares over the years but we felt at the moment it was time to take stock and see what happens with the bloodstock market. I’ve always had horses and we got involved in racing about 18 years ago – then you just get the racing bug. It would be nice to keep the family line going by breeding from Dolores Ortiz when she retires from racing.”

During her hiatus as a breeder, Jane has plenty to keep her occupied alongside the exploits of her horse in training as she is also deputy mayor of Newmarket and has been an ardent supporter of moves to protect the historic racing town from over-development via her seat on the council.

“I was brought up in Bedford but my family had businesses all over East Anglia and we decided to settle in Newmarket after living for a few years in Ireland,” she explains. “I was keen to stand for election to the council and felt that my knowledge of the racing and bloodstock industry, which employs so many people in the town, would be useful. I’m interested in everything that goes on in the town and it is a very special place, after all, but the horseracing industry is what Newmarket is all about.”

Since Art Jewel’s first-start win on 1 May, she has added a third place to her résumé and has given her breeder hope for the future. She says: “The mare always produced nice-looking animals and this filly is nice and scopey so let’s hope she can build on what she’s done already. I’ve never sent a mare to a stallion without knowing that I liked the horse. Bertolini made such a good start to his stud career and I was convinced he offered a cross that would suit Ma N’Ieme Biche so it’s been an enormous pleasure for me to see Art Jewel win so early in her career.”