A flyer on the track, Telemon Thorougbreds’ JUNGLE CAT Is off to a lightning quick start from the stallion barn with two winners from his first two runners in the Northern Hemisphere!
While the first of his Australian bred yearlings were on offer this year (selling up to 10x service fee), Jungle Cat covered just a small book of mares in Ireland in 2019. It just goes to show, yet again, that quality beats quantity with Miss Jungle Cat winning convincingly on debut in England in mid April, while not to be outdone, Jungle Cat’s second 2YO runner – Jungle Time – repeated the dose with a win at Musselburgh last Thursday.
“Jungle Cat received only modest support In Ireland before he came to us: we suspect that stemmed largely from him saving his very best performances for places foreign to UK breeders such as Meydan and Caulfield,” Telemon Thoroughbred’s Dan Fletcher muses.
“He (Jungle Cat) was a Group 2 performed 2yo and raced with merit in the UK, including a 4th in the Group 1 King’s Stand in England, but perhaps we got to see the best of him after he won the (Group 1) Al Quoz Sprint in Dubai and then the (Group 1) Rupert Clarke here in Australia.
“It's fair to say yearling buyers embraced him much more than breeders: it really goes to show that type counts for so much in this industry. Despite only eight Jungle Cats going through the yearling sale ring in Europe they sold exceptionally well and, as we can all see, they’re producing the goods where it counts."
Retiring a multiple Group 1 winner of 8 and over $2.3 million in stakes, Jungle Cat is by the boom stallion Ifraaj, sire of 83 stakes winners including 11 Group 1 winners.
Shuttling for a number of seasons to New Zealand, he produced the Southern Hemisphere Group 1 winners Turn Me Loose (now a Group 1 producing sire in his own right), Gingernuts, Western Empire, Jon Snow and co. Iffraaj has become something of a sensation as a sire of sires via the likes of Wootton Bassett and yet another young Group 1 sire in young French based stallion Hot Streak.
In what Telemon will be hoping may be an uncanny parallel, Wootton Bassett’s first crop produced just 23 live foals but included Champion 3YO and New Zealand sire, Almanzor. Wootton Bassett is now the sire of 27 stakes winners and stands this season at Coolmore at a fee of $71,500.
Conversely, Jungle Cat – with what appears to be a very promising career ahead of him – will stand at Telemon Thoroughbreds in 2022 at a fee of just $11,000.
“Breeders that have supported Jungle Cat so far have every right to be excited about his exceptional start,” Fletcher said. “Those that are yet to support him may be well advised to take notice. He was a genuinely world class sprinter and the early signs of his stallion pre-potency could not be more encouraging.”
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