A 'win-win' for Cheveley Park Stud as Humidity emulates full-brother in the Chesham

What distinguishes the Chesham Stakes from other two-year-old races is its rule that runners must have been sired by a stallion who won over at least a mile and a quarter.

Something even more unusual happened in Saturday's edition at Royal Ascot as it was landed by a colt whose full-brother was already on the roll of honour from three years earlier.

Humidity, unlike his sibling Holloway Boy, was not making his debut in the seven-furlong Listed race but had made enough of an impression in getting his head in front at Newbury last month that Wathnan Racing swooped with a bid to take him off Cheveley Park Stud's hands.

The pair are both sons of Ulysses, who stands at the Thompson family's Cheveley Park in Newmarket and has now sired eight stakes winners, a cohort headed by Tattersalls Gold Cup victor and top middle-distance horse White Birch.

"It's great for the breeding programme and it's great for the mare, who we've still got and is in foal to Mehmas," said Chris Richardson, the stud's managing director after watching Humidity edge out St Mark's Basilica colt Thesecretadversary by a length.

Holloway Boy (right): scored on his debut in the 2022 CheshamCredit: Mark Cranham

"Obviously it's great for Ulysses too. We've done some good business so we're very happy that he's won, and for Wathnan to have had a huge success. At the end of the day it's a business, and we're in a business."

Holloway Boy was bought by Karl and Kelly Burke for 60,000gns at Book 2 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale but his younger brother, who is similarly a chestnut with bold white markings, was not as lucky at Park Paddocks.

"He was the most lovely foal and yearling, which is why we didn't sell him," Richardson said of Humidity. "He was seven lots in from the end of Book 2 and everybody was saying goodbye to me, I was saying 'hey, hang on, there's a nice horse coming through the ring'. 

"We bought him back for 120,000gns and I thought somebody might ring the next day and say they'd like to make an offer, but we decided to put him into training and Andrew Balding and his team have done a fantastic job with him. It's a win-win all round."

While Holloway Boy is a Group 3 winner who was placed in the Futurity Stakes and in top-class company behind Romantic Warrior in Dubai during the winter, they are the only two winners out of their dam, Sultry. The unraced Pivotal mare is a granddaughter of one of the farm's most significant broodmares, the 1994 Cheveley Park Stakes winner Gay Gallanta.

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