Like Giant’s Causeway before him, Declaration of War stood his first season at stud at Coolmore Ireland before being imported by Coolmore America, where he stands for $25,000, stands and nurses. And again, like Giant’s Causeway, whose only European crop yielded the champion Shamardal, Declaration of War’s European crop has yielded a Two-Year-Old Champion Colt and now a Group One classic winner, Olmedo. On Sunday, May 13, Olmedo won the Poule d’Essai des Poulains-G1 at Longchamps, just outside of Paris, to cement his reputation after winning the Prix du Jockey Club-G1 as a two-year-old and being named French Champion. Olmedo won by a dramatic neck after many horses faltered in the very soft, wet going, including Coolmore’s own War Front colt, U.S. Naval Flag; the dire conditions on the track very nearly got Olmedo, as well, but he came out of the downward bend that was the end of many of his rivals and continued on. Trained by Jean-Claude Rouget and ridden by Christian Demuro, Olmedo is owned by the successful partnership of Antonio Caro and Gerard Augustin-Normand. Olmedo currently has a race record of five starts, two wins, three seconds.

While we await Declaration of War’s first American crop, this certainly bodes well for the proliferation of sons of War Front at stud in this country. To say they are everywhere would be an understatement, and many of them have had first foals that have sold very well, including Declaration of War and Summer Front, and we await the chance to see Air Force Blue’s babies.
Declaration of War, himself the Champion Older Horse, is out of the Rahy mare Tempo West, whose own dam was Tempo, the dam of successful young sire Union Rags. This strategy of starting a stallion with turf credentials in Europe for a single season before bringing him stateside is singularly Coolmore’s, and thus far, it has yielded nothing but outstanding success.

-- Roberta Smoodin