The family
So Many Roads is the second foal from winning Pointer Spotthestripe, who
herself hails from a stout jumping family full of English
Point-to-Point winners.
Spotthestripe was not devoid of ability by any means and as well as
her Point success, she was placed a couple of times in Hunter
Chases. On her last appearance at Cheltenham she was upsides the
winner, well clear of field when falling 5 out - unlucky.
The grand dam (Teeton Bubbly) was placed over hurdles and won a Point and bred several runners who ran well in Points also. The best of these was Teeton Babysham, a Point winner who won/placed over hurdles and was also placed chases for Kim Bailey.
In the same vein, the 3rd dam was the Sunley Builds mare Teeton Frolic who bred several prolific winning horses in English Point-to-Points, the best of whom was probably Teeton Priceless who also won Under Rules over fences.
About the sire
Bred by the Niarchos family and trained by Patrick Bary in France as a 3yr old (winning the French Derby), Sulamani (bay horse, b 1999) continued to prosper as a high class racehorse for Godolphin over the next 2 seasons. He added no less than 5 Group 1 victories to his tally for Godolphin.
Season 2023-24 outlook
Last season So Many Roads ran a nice race on reappearance when
5th in a hot novice at Carlisle (2½ miles) before his final novice
over 2 miles at Kelso which gave him his opening handicap mark
(OR94). The latent potential of his outings came to the surface on
his handicap debut over 2½ miles at Ayr's New Year's meeting where, under a fine Craig
Nichol ride, he stayed on strongly to beat a field of 17.
A bit unlucky next time over course and distance, he mistimed a
hurdle early on and came to grief.
That was a hefty fall and he was shaken for quite some weeks
afterwards but he was back in full training at the back-end although
it was never intended to run again that season.
"Andy" has again been working well in the early few weeks of the season, and we'd be looking for this 16.2hh sturdy, chasing type to be making his seasonal debut over hurdles when the ground is soft, before moving onto chasing around year end.
Profile....
Being by Sulamani (sire of
our own Eternally Yours) 'Andy' was an obvious
addition to our inspection list
at the Goffs UK NH sale at Doncaster in the January of 2019.
Principally a yearling sale, he was one of several 2 year old colts
on show and although not really on the shopping list, you couldn't help but admire the
horse. Unsold in the ring however, the vendor
Andrew Sansome was approached post-sale and
a deal was struck.
Roll forward a couple of years and former Dodlands
Steadings owner 'Lucky Dave' Leslie (of Well Disguised fame) was
roped in to form
the basis of The Wellfed Boys in whose name So Many Roads will run.
After a couple of spells at Dodlands as a 3 yr old, So Many Roads
re-joined the yard in mid April '21 and was given several weeks of
steady training before being moved out to summer grass.
After the obligatory 10 weeks at summer grass, Andy came back for
preparation for his first season (2021-22) on the racecourse.
He hadn't yet fully furnished into his frame and did look slightly
weak in his races that
season but Craig
(Nichol) gave him nice introductions first a bumper and then in his first race over
hurdles - 2½ miles at Ayr - where he made steady headway out of the
back straight to be on the heels of the leaders approaching 2 out
before tiring into 8th. .
Season | win | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | other | |
NH Flat | 2021-22 | 1 | ||||
Hurdles | 2021-22 | 1 | ||||
Hurdles | 2022-23 | 1 | 3 | |||
Hurdles | 2023-24 | 1 | 3 |