Rolf Johnson

Rolf Johnson - 04/09/2010

The sun has shone on Harbinger - actually the land of the rising sun is where the highest-rated horse in the world will spend his future at stud, on Hokkaido Island, Japan.

Shadai Stud is known as "horse heaven" - ironic really because the horse heaven Harbinger flirted with a few short weeks ago was the permanent one. In another age his foreleg, fractured on the Newmarket gallops, might have been terminal.

Veterinary science has made enormous strides and Harbinger's future looks assured.

John Warren, having found the son of Dansili for Highclere (Admiral Rous), conducted negotiations with Japan's pre-eminent stud. It is worth remembering Harbinger's predecessor at Shadai, Sunday Silence, champion stallion there for thirteen years, was the sire of Deep Impact who came over to France in 2006 finish third in Rail Link's Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.

So overwhelming was the Japanese support for Deep Impact that day, betting on him swamped the Pari-Mutuel and he went off short-priced favourite.

Those same fanatical Japanese supporters will one day be back in Paris for their lost yen - perhaps with a son or daughter of Harbinger; it may even be owned by Highclere because there is no way that the champion racehorse is out of sight out of mind to Harry Herbert, John Warren, Alex Smith and the team.

A Highclere mare visiting Harbinger in "horse heaven" is being contemplated even before he jets off to the Orient.

How to react to the awful, premature end to his career? The enormity of that final Ascot victory ensures Harbinger's place in the pantheon will be debated throughout horse history - what might have been.

On the strength of his King George victory he can be mentioned, without embarrassment, in the same breath as the incomparables, Ribot and Sea-Bird.

Federico Tesio produced champions after Ribot but, understandably, never one so outstanding: Jean Ternynck couldn't replicate Sea-Bird because his dam had already gone to a Paris horse butcher.

Both champions died as stallions in America yet had, arguably, their greatest successes with offspring that raced in Europe.

Another of racing's greats, Dancing Brave, was bought by the same Yoshida family who have acquired Harbinger. Dancing Brave sired White Muzzle who was the Japanese Prix de l'Arc challenger in 1993. He finished neck second to Urban Sea, the same Urban Sea who produced Sea The Stars.

Racing's historical roots are deeply embedded: Harbinger is not lost to us. Nobody dared foretell that the year after Sea The Stars rode the waves through his unbeaten Classic career, a successor, Harbinger would make a wave all his own, such a monster that when it broke everyone riding with him was pitched, for a time, into infinity.

Fortunately the famous bay survived and we move on - spurred towards the next Harbinger.

Rolf Johnson - 4th September 2010