Cambridge Stud stallions striking form at the right time
Richard Edmunds - Raceform • June 20th, 2025 10:30 AM • 4 min read

A flurry of recent successes for Hello Youmzain and Almanzor has put a spring in the step of the Cambridge Stud team in the countdown to the 2025 breeding season.
It has been a hugely productive autumn and early winter for Hello Youmzain. Coming into April, he was only third on the New Zealand first-season sires’ premiership with two winners from 11 runners and total progeny earnings of $119,090.
At that stage Lucky Vega held a runaway lead with $226,250 – thanks in large part to Karaka Millions runner-up Vega For Luck, who earned $212,200 of that amount. The second-placed Bivouac’s total earnings of $120,830 included $115,000 from the Gr. 2 Wakefield Challenge Stakes winner Intention.
A couple of months later, Hello Youmzain’s 18 runners in New Zealand this season have now produced five winners and a premiership-leading total of $238,585.
Cambridge Stud homebred Lucy In The Sky became his first black-type winner in the southern hemisphere with her victory in the Listed Champagne Stakes at Riccarton on May 3. There have also been smart wins by Bulgari at Te Rapa on April 13, Platinum Diamond at Wanganui on May 31, and a seven-length stunner by Cream Tart at Te Aroha on June 2. Platinum Diamond will contest Friday’s Listed Castletown Stakes at Otaki.
Those domestic successes have been backed up by a continuation of Hello Youmzain’s excellent form in the northern hemisphere, while his barnmate Almanzor was credited with a new Group One winner when Gezora took out the Prix de Diane at Chantilly last weekend.
“There’s nothing like good results to get the phone ringing,” Cambridge Stud’s sales and nominations manager Scott Calder told RaceForm on Monday.
“We were thrilled to see Almanzor sire the French Oaks winner over the weekend. It’s a nice reminder to people of what he’s capable of as a stallion. That filly is probably as good a racehorse as he’s sired to date. It continues a good run for Almanzor, who’s also sired Group winners in Germany and Italy since the beginning of June.
“As for Hello Youmzain, he’s always had a good following, but now he’s the horse that’s been brought up by everyone I’ve spoken to over the last couple of weeks or so. That’s a nice position to be in leading into the new breeding season.
“Hello Youmzain was leading first-season sire in France last year and tops the second-season standings in Europe in 2025. Now he’s got himself in front on the New Zealand first-season premiership and is on track to win that too – you can’t ask for much more from a young shuttle stallion.”
Calder is excited for what the future might hold when Hello Youmzain’s first southern hemisphere crop turns three.
“I think he’ll have quite a number of well above-average horses stepping out in the new season,” he said. “A filly like Cream Tart, for example – you don’t see two-year-olds winning races by seven lengths all that often. She has a strong staying pedigree on the female side and there’s every reason to expect her to continue to improve as a three-year-old.
“Lucy In The Sky is another one in a similar boat, while Hello Romeo is a very progressive type in Melbourne who won again first-up at Sandown on Saturday.
“I think Hello Youmzain will continue this late-season momentum. He was a Group Two winner in the back end of his two-year-old season himself, then got better at three – winning a Group One against older horses – and won the Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot as a four-year-old.
“Although he’s from a sire line known for its speed and precocity, he got better as he matured. The mares he’s been serving here in New Zealand, you wouldn’t expect them to naturally have a lot of early speed.
“My opinion is that many of them will have the scope to stretch out over 1600 to 2000 metres and produce some of their best performances over those distances. We’re seeing some of that in France already, so it bodes really well for his future.”
Cambridge Stud is also set to feature prominently in the NZB National Weanling Sale at Karaka on Thursday of next week.
“We’re taking a really nice draft of weanlings up to Karaka,” Calder said. “We’ve got six weanlings to go through the ring there, and I think it’s the nicest group of weanlings we’ve taken to this sale.
“These weanlings could be a nice opportunity for people looking for some longer-term prospects, but there are some colts that could be well worth looking at from a pinhooking point of view as well.
“Our own stallions are represented in the draft, while we’ve also got progeny of some well-proven outside sires like Savabeel and Spirit Of Boom.
“With how well Sword Of State’s first yearlings sold earlier in the year, we have every reason to expect a bit of demand for his weanlings too.”
Cambridge Stud’s two Sword Of State weanlings will go through the ring in quick succession as Lots 69 and 71. Lot 69 is a colt out of Solar Cry, who is a winning half-sister to the triple Group One winner Sunlight.
Lot 71 is an unraced colt out of the unraced Zabeel mare Special Diamond. The dam is a full-sister to the Group One winner and sire Don Eduardo, and she is a three-quarter-sister to Octagonal, Tristalove, Mouawad, Shower Of Roses and Antwerp.
Lot 25 is a Savabeel colt out of the So You Think mare Meghan, who won two races and placed in the Gr. 3 Sunline Vase at Ellerslie.
Lot 110 is a colt by Spirit Of Boom out of Chenzel, a winning daughter of Snitzel and the Auckland Cup-winning mare Chenille.