I bought Estrelle off an Irish website from a German owner via an Englishman living in France. One evening, I happened to be looking at the Irish Point-to-Point website when I noticed a ‘For Sale’ area. Not many horses were offered there, but one on offer was a mare named Estrelle, claimed to be a winning half-sister to a Group 2 winner of circa €250,000, Egerton. I thought it was probably an error – that the dam of the mare was half-sister to Egerton or some such; but I checked Estrelle’s pedigree and the statement was indeed true!
I rang the advertiser, a bloodstock agent named Crispin de Moubray, who told me that the mare was for sale at a price of only £12,000, this being so reasonable because her pedigree was little known outside Germany. He described her conformation, ‘warts and all’, arranged for a photograph to be sent from Germany (where she was located) and I bought her. A particular attraction was that she could be mated either for Flat or NH purposes, since her family contained good examples of each.
Since Estrelle had to travel from Germany I took the opportunity to have her covered by a stallion located in France, the German-bred Lando, who not only had a decent record as a Flat sire but had also produced the promising jumper Air Force One (later a Grade 1 winner). I first met her in person when she was already in foal to this cover; and found a medium-sized, well-balanced mare with a very pretty head but somewhat lacking in power and bone.
Her filly by Lando was born at Shadwell Stud when she was visiting Haafhd for her next mating; and, without being asked, Shadwell’s Johnnie Peter-Hoblyn kindly sent us regular updates stating how weak, underweight and backward the foal was. I don’t believe I really wanted to know that. However, once home, the foal initially made good progress and by late summer she was beginning to look rather better, though still small. She then developed what was diagnosed as ‘wobbler syndrome’ and had to be put down. This provided a somewhat sub-optimal start to Estrelle’s breeding career.
Haafhd had been selected as Estrelle’s mate because, although lacking size, he had plenty of speed and power, which the mare needed if she was to produce a Flat racehorse. He produced a colt foal rather resembling himself, which would have been fine had Haafhd not by then come to be regarded as a failure as a stallion. Despite a significant pedigree update, in the form of Estrelle’s half-sister, Enora, having recently won the German Oaks, the colt brought only €3,000 as a yearling to race in Italy. Named Super Smeraldo, no more was heard of him.
After being rested in 2010 (her 2009 colt was a late April foal and I was still aiming at Flat production), Estrelle was next covered by another German-bred, Tiger Hill, a powerful son of Danehill who was a lovely walker and sire of Estrelle’s Group 1-placed nephew, Eliot. The resulting filly, Asanteni, was stronger than her dam, as well as more compact and a better walker. She brought €10,000 at the Tattersalls September Yearling Sale but never raced, producing only one foal herself, an unraced colt.
By now we had decided to switch Estrelle to NH production, this seeming more appropriate for a light-framed mare with plenty of stamina in her pedigree. Her first NH covering was by Schiaparelli, her third German boyfriend and a multiple Group 1 winning son of Monsun from an Old Vic mare that had produced two other Group 1 winners. A strong, bold chestnut filly resulted, but my split from Sandra dictated that she be sold to Michael Moore as part of a package deal in December 2012. Rather oddly re-offered at a Flat Sale, she brought only €1,400 as a yearling.
In due course the filly was named Is She Diesel and became a very useful hurdler in Ireland, winning two races and being placed in six others, with a highest OR of 130 and RPR of 138. Her various trainers seemed to think it was a good idea to run her repeatedly in fairly short periods of time (5 races in 9 weeks, 6 races in 10 weeks) after which she unsurprisingly disappeared for prolonged periods (during one of which she produced a filly foal by Yeats). Given more considerate handling she might have proved a far better racehorse.
The personal circumstances referred to above dictated the sale of Estrelle in November 2012. With a decent Flat pedigree but in foal to the NH stallion Fair Mix, she brought only €2,200. However, by this time I had come to the conclusion that the stallion needed to put a great deal into her foals to counter her lack of power, substance and bone, so I was not tempted to keep her.
Subsequently, her purchaser gave Estrelle every chance by covering her with such decent stallions as Azamour, Sholokhov, Free Eagle and Shirocco (three times). To the first of these she produced Jerandme, an adaptable horse whose eight wins have included AW flat, turf flat, NH Flat, hurdles and chases, along with placing second in a Grade B chase. None of the others has yet achieved anything of note, but Jeranme did at least join Is She Diesel in confirming Estelle’s innate genetic potential – although I very much doubt I would have found the stud fee necessary to send her to Azamour!
Estrelle’s last foal was produced when she was nineteen, in 2021 However, Is She Diesel is the dam of three filly foals to date, by Yeats, Westerner and Maxios; and the first of these, Switch From Diesel, has already proved herself a very useful performer, winning one NH Flat race and placing in three others including a Grade 2 race. I wonder if , having belatedly worked out that Estrelle was best suited to NH production, using suitable NH stallions, we might have enjoyed much more success had we chosen to keep her.