Pedigree analysis of Jonbon and his sire Walk In The Park
Two impressive winners on Saturday put the spotlight on a sire who first came to prominence thanks to Jonbon's brother Douvan.
Lightning rarely strikes twice when it comes to a mare producing genuinely top-class performers and that’s probably even more true over jumps than it is on the Flat. But that doesn’t stop owners spending a lot of money in the belief that if it’s happened once it can happen again.
J. P. McManus’ purchase of Jonbon for £570,000, a record for a pointer at public auction when sold at Goffs UK November Sale in 2020, made plenty of headlines at the time given that the four-year-old had won his only start in Irish points, albeit by 15 lengths.
But that’s looking increasingly like a good investment. In eight starts under Rules for Nicky Henderson, Jonbon has only had his colours lowered once, by hugely exciting stablemate Constitution Hill in last season’s Supreme at Cheltenham.
Whilst smart over hurdles, it hasn’t taken long for the big, well-made Jonbon to prove even better over fences, as his physique suggested, and he looks potentially another top-class two-mile chaser for his yard judging from Saturday’s eight-length win in the Henry VIII Novices’ Chase at Sandown which took Jonbon’s record over the larger obstacles to two out of two.
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Jonbon’s price tag as a once-raced pointer was also influenced by the fact that his dam Star Face had ‘form’ as a broodmare as she was already the dam of the outstanding chaser Douvan who achieved a Timeform rating of 182 over fences. Rather than in Irish points, Douvan began his career over hurdles in France, finishing second on his debut before winning his next start and then being acquired privately to race in Rich and Susannah Ricci’s colours for Willie Mullins.
Douvan went on to compile a winning streak of 14 races, succeeding where Jonbon was to fail by winning the Supreme and then returning to the Festival 12 months later for the Arkle which will be Jonbon’s own big target in the spring. Douvan’s unbeaten run finally came to an end at his third Festival when he was sensationally beaten in the Queen Mother Champion Chase for which he was sent off the shortest-priced favourite for a Festival race this century.
Found afterwards to have sustained a hairline fracture to his pelvis, Douvan was seen out only infrequently thereafter (he fell when returning in the same race a year later), but his final appearance on a racecourse was nonetheless a winning one when he gained the fifteenth win of his career from 18 completed starts in the Clonmel Oil Chase in 2019.
Star Face has therefore produced a couple of top-notchers from her only two foals to have raced but she showed precious little ability herself. She was certainly in the right hands to do so but one run over hurdles in France for Guillaume Macaire, in which she finished a tailed-off last of five finishers, was apparently enough to convince her trainer that she wasn’t worth persevering with. Star Face was sold for just €2,000 in 2012 destined for export to Tunisia but, not surprisingly, once Douvan began winning races she suddenly became a much hotter property and remained in France where the mating that led to Jonbon took place. Star Face is now in Ireland, however, following her sale to County Westmeath breeder Cyril O’Hara at Deauville in December 2019, in foal to Doctor Dino, for €62,000.
While Star Face was of little account herself, she was bred to have some ability if only because she was by a top sire of jumpers in Saint des Saints who sired the Riccis’ dual Cheltenham Gold Cup runner-up Djakadam. Star Face’s dam Folie Star Gate won over both hurdles and fences in France and she in turn was out of a full sister to a smart hurdler, Discover d’Auteuil. He was one of the leading four-year-old hurdlers of his generation in France and remained an entire, siring some good winners, including, in Britain, Poker de Sivola, winner of the National Hunt Chase and bet365 Gold Cup for Ferdy Murphy.
Douvan’s success, therefore, had a big part to play in the destiny of his dam, but he also did a great deal for the career of his sire Walk In The Park. The hard-pulling Walk In The Park, by Montjeu out of the the Irish 1000 Guineas winner Classic Park, gained his only career win in France for John Hammond – who’d also trained his sire - as a two-year-old but ran much his best race (after being beaten a neck in the Lingfield Derby Trial) when runner-up in the Derby itself to another son of Montjeu, five-length winner Motivator, with Dubawi behind him in third.
Timeform’s course reporter that day at Epsom described Walk In The Park as ‘huge, one of the biggest horses we’ve seen on the Flat in recent times’ but while he had the size to make a jumper, Walk In The Park’s sole attempt over hurdles at Auteuil on his final start wasn’t a success. His stallion career had a low-key start in France too, where Douvan came from one of his small early crops, but so too did another top chaser for the Mullins/Ricci team, Min, who finally gained a deserved Cheltenham Festival victory in the 2020 Ryanair Chase.
This success didn’t go unnoticed by Coolmore who brought the Irish-bred son of one of their best stallions back into their fold – Walk In The Park had raced in the Michael Tabor colours like his sire – by importing him from France and setting him up in their National Hunt division’s Grange Stud from 2016.
Jonbon was therefore one of the last French-bred foals by his sire. It almost goes without saying that Walk In The Park proved considerably busier in his new home that he had been in France, with his first book for Coolmore reported to have contained 224 mares.
There was obviously quality as well as quantity in that 2016 book and Walk In The Park’s first Irish mares didn’t come much better than Quevega, winner of six Mares’ Hurdles at the Cheltenham Festival. The foal from their mating, Facile Vega, won last season’s Champion Bumper and, like Jonbon, he too confirmed himself an exciting prospect on Saturday when keeping his unbeaten record by making all for an impressive win on his hurdling debut at Fairyhouse.
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