Aidan and Annemarie O’Brien, Whisperview Trading Ltd

Santa Barbara (Ire), 2018 f. by Camelot out of Senta’s Dream, by Danehill

ORDER Of Australia was a rank outsider for the 2020 Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile. He only got into the race at the last minute, but as the field flashed past the winning post he led home a 1-2-3 for Ballydoyle.

There was double delight at the time for his trainer Aidan O’Brien and his wife Annemarie as they bred the colt who is out of the unraced Senta’s Dream. The colt was continuing an amazing run of success for his breeders at the top level of racing. Picked up for a mere 14,000gns as an in-foal broodmare, Senta’s Dream was actually producing her second Breeders’ Cup winner.

The previous year her daughter Iridessa added the Filly and Mare Turf to victories in the Group 1 Fillies’ Mile Stakes, Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes and Group 1 Matron Stakes. Order Of Australia and Iridessa are two of the five winners for their dam, and that sale bargain can now claim a third Grade 1 winner in the USA following Santa Barbara’s success in the Belmont Oaks for just her second win.

Senta’s Dream is a daughter of the outstanding racemare Starine. Successful at listed level in her native France, Starine transformed herself when sent to the USA where her victories included the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf and the Grade 1 Matriarch Stakes.

Aidan and Annemarie O’Brien are previous winner of the Connolly’s Red Mills/The Irish Field Flat Breeder of the Year award.

Denis Brosnan, Epona Bloodstock

Broome (Ire), 2016 c. by Australia out of Sweepstake, by Acclamation

THERE was a well-earned Group 1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud victory for Broome in early July.

Bred at Croom House Stud by Denis Brosnan’s Epona Bloodstock, this 150,000gns yearling has winnings approaching the €800,000 mark, and the five-year-old could well go on to more success at this level. He has twice been runner-up in Group 1s.

His victory adds further to the success story of his dam Sweepstake. At Royal Ascot her two-year-old son Point Lonsdale, also by Australia, kept his perfect record when he won the Listed Chesham Stakes, and last month he extended his unbeaten record to three with victory in the Group 3 Tyros Stakes at Leopardstown.

Broome and Point Lonsdale have a number of choice entries and they are two of the five winning progeny from their juvenile stakes-winning dam who was bought for $280,000 at Keeneland in 2011. Her yearlings sold to date have realised in excess of €2 million.

Broome is the fourth Group 1 winner for Australia, and his second this year. In May his son Mare Australis won the Prix Ganay. While Broome is from his first crop, Mare Australia, the St Leger winner and Starfield Stud stallion Galileo Chrome and the Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Order Of Australia are from his second crop, now four-year-olds.

That first crop also includes Group 2 winner Sir Ron Priestley, Leo De Fury, Bangkok and Patrick Sarsfield. Australia stood for €25,000 this year.

Nicky Hartery

Laws Of Indices (Ire), 2018 c. by Power out of Sampers, by Exceed And Excel

THE leading first season sire of 2016 in Ireland, Power was sold to New Zealand, where he won the same title in that country, and then he sold again to Oaklands Stud in Australia. A Group 1 winner twice, he won the Goffs National Stakes at two and the Irish 2000 Guineas at three.

Now he has his second Group 1 winning offspring, Laws Of Indices, following on from Helvic Dream’s success in this year’s Tattersalls Gold Cup. Laws Of Indices last year gave trainer Ken Condon a day to remember at the Curragh when he swooped to victory in the Group 2 Railway Stakes. Now he has added the Group 1 Prix Jean Prat to his record, and his earnings of £300,000 are well ahead of his purchase price at Goffs of €8,000, Dermot Farrington being the buyer. Last year the colt was also third in the Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere.

Laws Of Indices was bred by Horse Racing Ireland chairman Nicky Hartery and he is one of four winners from Sampers. She was something of a Dundalk specialist, winning three and being placed numerous times there in Hartery’s colours when trained by Michael Halford.

While this family traces back well, Laws Of Indices is the first blacktype horse in a couple of generations. His third dam Privity won the Group 2 Prix de Malleret and was one of nine winners from a Group 3 winning own-sister by Alleged to Leading Counsel.

Last year Laws Of Indices half-brother, a colt foal by Starspangledbanner, sold for €80,000 at Goffs.

Sean Gorman, Cleaboy Stud

Royal Rendezvous (Ire), 2012 g. by King’s Theatre out of Novacella, by Beyssac

WELL done to Randox founder and Aintree Grand National sponsor Dr Peter FitzGerald, owner of this year’s Tote Galway Plate winner Royal Rendezvous. Bred at Sean and Catherine Gorman’s Cleaboy Stud, the nine-year-old son of King’s Theatre is from the final crop of that multiple champion National Hunt stallion. What an amazing success story the son of Sadler’s Wells was for Ballylinch Stud.

A champion racehorse, King’s Theatre sired just one Group 1 winner on the flat, but under National Hunt rules his list of Grade 1 winners would need more space that this write-up would allow. Royal Rendezvous is the latest in that enormous list. This win was compensation for finishing second in the race a year ago.

Sold by Virginia Considine and Fiona Magee for £130,000 at the 2017 Goffs UK Aintree Sale after winning a point-to-point at the third time of asking, Royal Rendezvous has now fully repaid the investment Dr FitzGerald has made in him. He is one of a pair of winners for Novacella, three times a winner over hurdles in France and placed in a listed race.

Novacella is well-connected. Her half-brother Marcel, a son of Bateau Rouge, won the Grade 1 Tolworth Hurdle, while her winning half-sister is the dam of three blacktype winners over jumps. We would be most familiar with her son Vieux Lion Rouge. That David Pipe-trained runner’s 13 wins include two editions of the Grade 3 Becher Chase at Aintree.