Champion French 2YO Common Grounds, who stood in Victoria for a one off southern season in 1990, has died in Turkey.  He was 29.

Common Grounds (GB) was a homebred for Stavros Niarchos and won the 1987 Prix de la Salamandre at Longchamp.  The Greek shipping billionaire had won the Group 1 for juveniles the year before with iconic filly Miesque and he would win it again with champion colts Machiavellian in 1989 and Hector Protector in 1990.

Common Grounds (Kris) was also runner-up in the G1 Prix Morny and retired to Morristown Lattin Stud in County Kildare in 1989.

Bacchus Marsh studmaster Conor Broderick stood him at Kincora Lodge Stud for an $8,000 fee in 1990.  He stock didn’t live up to expectations albeit from a below-par book of 53 mares.

There were only 10 winners from that crop and they won a total of 30 races, however, not one of them scored on a city track.  His most successful galloper was Saint Jerome who won 11 sprints in 90 starts around the provincial and country circuits of Victoria and NSW.

Common Grounds achieved better results at Morristown Lattin and Yeomanstown Studs siring the top-flight winners Bad As I Wanna Be (G1 Prix Morny) and Earl Of Barking (G1 Hollywood Turf Cup).

Sold to stand in Turkey in 1998, he was pensioned in 2011 and died after suffering a heart attack at the Izmit Covering Station.

– Karl Patterson