GLENEAGLES was a Group 1 star at two when he won the Goffs Vincent O’Brien National Stakes, having captured the Group 2 Futurity Stakes and Group 3 Tyros Stakes, but he was disqualified and placed third after passing the winning post in front in the Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere. He was crowned the champion juvenile in Ireland.

The next season Gleneagles (Galileo) was accorded another honour, that of being the best miler of his age in Europe. He won his first three starts that year, becoming a dual Group 1 classic-winning miler and Group 1 St James’s Palace Stakes scorer. He retired to stud at Coolmore at a fee of €60,000, but this year breeders can avail of his services for €20,000, surely outstanding value for a sire who has proven himself repeatedly. His 42 stakes winners include four Group 1 stars, Mill Stream, Loving Dreams, Palladium and Highland Chief. His son Calandagan looks a near certain Group 1 winner.

In addition to going to stud with an excellent race record, Gleneagles possesses an outstanding sire’s pedigree. He is a son of the Group 2 Cherry Hinton Stakes winner and phenomenal broodmare You’resothrillling (Storm Cat), the dam of eight talented winners, all by Galileo (Sadler’s Wells). His full-sisters Marvellous (Irish 1000 Guineas), Happily (Moyglare Stud Stakes) and Joan Of Arc (Prix de Diane) all won at the highest level, full-siblings Toy, Coolmore and Taj Mahal are Group 1-placed pattern winners, while his full-brother Vatican City was runner-up in the Group 1 Irish 2000 Guineas.

You’resothrillling is a full-sister to the great Giant’s Causeway (Storm Cat), champion three-year-old, multiple Group 1-star and multiple US champion sire, and their sister Pearling (Storm Cat) is the dam of multiple Group 1-winner Decorated Knight (Galileo).

This year’s juvenile crop by Gleneagles is his seventh, and at the weekend he took his tally of group winners to 27 when a daughter and son were both successful in Group 3 contests at the Curragh. The four-year-old One Look is the latest winner of the Lodge Park Stud Irish EBF Park Express Stakes, while Galen, from the same crop, was a comfortable winner of the Tote.ie Alleged Stakes. Paddy Twomey trains One Look, while Joseph O’Brien has charge of Galen.

Tullpark Limited

Bred by Tullpark Limited, a trading name for Stanley Lodge, the Cashel nursery owned by William Kennedy and John Wall, One Look has now won half of her eight starts, which also includes the Listed Ruby Stakes at Killarney, and she was runner-up twice at Gowran Park, in Group 3 and listed races.

This €65,000 yearling purchase has earnings of £625,000, and if you are scratching your head and wondering how a Group 3 winner could have won so much, I would remind you that she made a sparkling debut and won the 2023 Goffs Million worth €610,000 to the winner by six lengths.

One Look’s dam Holy Salt (Holy Roman Emperor) only won once from 13 starts, but she placed eight times in France, and was acquired by Tullpark at the end of her racing career for 120,000gns. She is the dam of two stakes winners, the other being Baptism (Sea The Stars). That €460,000 foal was a juvenile winner for Cheveley Park Stud and John Gosden, and later won a Group 3 in Italy where he was second in the Group 2 Premio Federico Tesio. Holy Salt has a juvenile, Tiberius Tide (Sea The Moon), to race, and a yearling filly by Saxon Warrior (Deep Impact).

Soon after Holy Salt was bought, the team at Stanley Lodge celebrated a Group 1 win for the filly’s half-brother I’m Your Man (Cape Cross). He was renamed He’s Your Man following his move from France, where he was a listed winner, to Australia. Down under he won the Epsom Handicap at Randwick and was placed a few times at that level.

Pedigree boosts

The pedigree has been boosted a number of times by Holy Salt’s sibling Perfect Hedge (Unfuwain). A listed winner in Ireland, she added the Group 3 Prix Penelope to her tally of victories and she placed in the Group 1 Prix Saint-Alary. At stud, the best of Perfect Hedge’s winners is the Group 2 French winner Called To The Bar (Henrythenavigator), and he was runner-up to Oscar Performance in the Grade 1 Belmont Derby, and beaten less than a length when second in the Group 1 Prix Royal-Oak.

Selected and purchased as a yearling by Joseph O’Brien for 55,000gns, Galen (Gleneagles) took his tally of wins to three in the Group 3 Alleged Stakes, and he was certainly race fit, having run three times in Meydan earlier this year. The trainer has high ambitions for the gelding, and has mentioned the Group 1 Tattersalls Gold Cup as a future possibility.

Galen was bred and sold by Moyns Park Stud in Essex, and they dispersed their stock at Tattersalls in December. Alex Elliott spent 210,000gns on Galen’s dam Apache Storm (Pivotal), and that investment has been well rewarded by the weekend result, and by the fact that the mare has already foaled a full-brother to Galen this spring.

Mexicali Rose

Galen is not the first smart runner produced by Apache Storm. The mare’s second foal is Mexicali Rose (Zoffany), and this triple listed-placed, dual winner is now racing in the colours of Loughtown Stud’s Helena Burns, and is still with Joseph O’Brien. She formerly raced for Kevin Blake and others.

Moyns Park Stud took possession of Apache Storm at the end of her racing career for 70,000gns. She raced 23 times, won three, and was in the first five on 17 occasions. She proved to be thoroughly sound and consistent.

While connections will hope for some more form on the racecourse, Mexicali Rose will be a most interesting breeding prospect. John Gosden trained Apache Storm’s half-brother Azmeel (Azamour), and he won four of his first five starts before contesting the Derby at Epsom. Winner of the Listed Washington Singer Stakes at two, he landed the Group 3 Sandown Park Classic Trial and the Group 3 Dee Stakes on his first two outings at three.

Significantly. Apache Storm’s listed-winning half-sister Baisse (High Chaparral), also purchased by Alex Elliott for just 105,000gns in 2023, is the dam of Best Of Days (Azamour).

That Group 2 Royal Lodge Stakes winner at two later was exported to Australia where he was a multiple pattern winner, and was victorious in the Group 1 Kennedy Mile Cantala Stakes at Flemington, and he was also placed at that level.

Correction

I WAS reminded on Saturday of a comment made by the late Fr Sean Breen at the funeral of Bobby Coonan, when he called me out from the pulpit to point out an omission in the great man’s obituary. “Don’t worry Leo”, he said, adding that “even Homer nodded!”

Homer (aka me) nodded last week. In my piece about Aintree winners, I said that Caldwell Potter was a graduate of the Tattersalls Ireland Derby Sale, when he was not. He did sell at Fairyhouse, as the star of the Andy and Gemma Brown dispersal, for €740,000, but as a store he had been a headliner at the Goffs Land Rover Sale (now the Goffs Arkle Sale) when sold by Walter Connors’ Sluggara Farm for €200,000. He was named Aide Memoire at the time, and his price was the third-best of the sale.

The best price was €230,000 for the Patrick Mullins-bred My Trump Card (Shantou), a full-brother to Airlie Beach. He has won twice for Bective Stud in a light campaign.

Firm Footings (Walk In The Park) was also purchased at Goffs that same day by the Brown team for €220,000, and this half-brother to Monalee (Milan), bred by Aidan Aherne and Cathal Ennis, sold at the Brown dispersal for €330,000. He is a three-time winner.