A BIG well done to Guy O’Callaghan this week. The owner of Grangemore Stud on the Curragh was celebrating a double first after Birchwood was the record-lowering winner of the Group 2 Superlative Stakes at Newmarket On Saturday. The son of Dark Angel is the first group winner who Guy bred and also sold in his own name.

The now Godolphin-owned two-year-old is winner of three of his four starts and his entries include the Gimcrack Stakes at York and the Group 1 National Stakes at the Curragh.

Birchwood continues a fine tradition of top-class winners from Grangemore Stud where the Prendergast and Colleran families produced no end of good horses, most recently the successful stallion Scorpion. It looks like Guy is well on his way to enhancing the stud’s reputation.

The dam of Birchwood is the Exceed And Excel mare Layla Jamil and Guy claimed her for just £10,000. Birchwood more than repaid the investment when he sold as a yearling last year for 77,000gns and his yearling full-brother now heads to Doncaster next month where he is sure to be the centre of attention. Guy also has another full-brother on the ground and the mare is in foal to the first season sire Slade Power. As the breeder himself said this week, “happy days”.

GOOD WEEK

It was additionally a good week for Guy’s mum Annette as she owns and bred Promised Money who overturned the odds-on favourite Independence Day to capture the Excelebration Tipperary Stakes, a listed race over five furlongs. This daughter of the O’Callaghan’s Dark Angel is out of Hartstown House and she, like Promised Money, was trained by Eddie Lynam. Promised Money is the second stakes-winning juvenile filly out of Hartstown House, joining Beldale Memory (by Camacho) who won a listed race at York two years ago. Hartstown House was bred by the late Mrs T. V. Ryan at Kilcoran House Stud out of Searching Star, and that mare’s other winning offspring include the Irish 2000 Guineas runner-up Fa-Eq.