THERE is no avoiding it, but it is time to look at another Northern Farm bred winner in Riyadh at the weekend, the Group 2 Turf Sprint heroine Ascoli Piceno, another success for a dominant Japan.

In fact, that country provided the 1-2 in the Turf Sprint over just short of seven furlongs. Win Marvel was caught on the line by Ascoli Piceno. Christophe Lemaire timing his run to perfection on the four-year-old Daiwa Major (Sunday Silence) filly, and her record now stands at five wins and two seconds in eight starts. The Yoichi Kuroiwa-trained Ascoli Piceno won the Group 1 Hanshin Juvenile Fillies in Japan, after which she was voted champion two-year-old filly, and she was runner-up twice at that level, including the Japanese 1000 Guineas, all over a mile.

Shadai Farm’s Daiwa Major was a champion sprinter and miler in his native Japan at the ages of five and six. He also won the first leg of the Japanese Triple Crown, their 2000 Guineas. He is a son of the American stallion Sunday Silence (Halo), a major figure in Japanese breeding and the sire also of Deep Impact.

Daiwa Major went to stud in 2008, and Ascoli Piceno is one of his nine Group 1 winners. Eight of Daiwa Major’s top-level winners have been in Japan, with the dual Prix Royal-Oak winner Double Major being the exception. That said, the sire’s best runner, Admire Mars, did venture outside Japan and is the only three-year-old to win the Group 1 Hong Kong Mile. Admire Mars, like his sire and grandsire, is a Shadai stallion.

When Ascoli Piceno won her Group 1, she lowered the stakes record for the mile race, and was 0.3 seconds off the course record. She was the third winner of the race that Daiwa Major sired. Ascoli Piceno’s dam Ascolti (Danehill Dancer) won a couple of times in Japan and her first four foals to race have all been successful, including the stakes winner Ascoltare (Duramente). Ascolti is a half-sister to Touching Speech (Deep Impact) and Satono Lux (Deep Impact), a Group 2 and a listed winner respectively who were both placed in Group 1 contests. They are all out of Listen (Sadler’s Wells).

Winner of the Group 1 Fillies’ Mile and runner-up in the Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes, Listen is a daughter of Brigid (Irish River) who bred three blacktype winners, including the Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes winner Sequoyah (Sadler’s Wells). She in turn is the dam of two noteworthy offspring in Henrythenavigator (Kingmambo) and his full-sister Queen Cleopatra.

Successful in the Coventry Stakes at two, Henrythenavigator won four times at three, all at Group 1 level. He beat New Approach to win both the 2000 Guineas and the Irish equivalent, and then added the Prince of Wales’s Stakes and Sussex Stakes to his roll of honour, beating Raven’s Pass each time. Queen Cleopatra was a Group 3 winner and she was placed in two classics, the Irish 1000 Guineas and the Prix de Diane. She has been a multiple stakes producer

O’Callaghan’s winner

Irish connections to winners on the card were scarce, though the US-bred Golden Vekoma, a three-year-old son of Vekoma (Candy Ride), has a strong connection, being bred in Lexington at Woods Edge by Gay and Annette O’Callaghan’s son Peter. Golden Vekoma won the Group 3 Saudi Cup, a race captured 12 months ago by Forever Young.

Representing the UAE on this occasion, Golden Vekoma was given a fine steer by Connor Beasley who wore down the longtime leader to snatch victory, his third in four starts, and bag the $900,000 winner’s purse. Among the vanquished was the smart Irish juvenile of last season, the group-winning Apples And Bananas.

Immediate plans for the recent Group 3 UAE 2000 Guineas winner Golden Vekoma include targetting the UAE Derby on Dubai World Cup night. A trip to the Kentucky Derby is not ruled out. A $145,000 Keeneland yearling, Golden Vekoma cost his winning trainer Bin Harmash $90,000 last April in Ocala. He is a son of last year’s champion first-crop sire in the USA, dual Grade 1 winner Vekoma, is one of his eight stakes winners, and his leading earner.

On the dam side of the family, Golden Vekoma joins last year’s US stakes winner Midshipman’s Dance (Midshipman) as the second stakes winner and one of a quartet of winners out of Sticks Wondergirl (Stevie Wonderboy). They are the mare’s first four runners, and she herself won half of her six starts as a three-year-old, one of those wins coming in the Listed Remington Park Oaks. There’s no shortage of winners, and stakes performers, in this family; all that is missing in four generations is a Grade 1 winner.

Straight No Chaser

Speightster was humanely euthanized in February, 2022, after kicking a wall of his stall and fracturing a hind leg, This happened in Ontario, where the stallion had moved six weeks before for the breeding season.

A Grade 3 stakes winner by champion sprinter Speightstown (Gone West), he moved after five seasons at WinStar, and connections revealed that he had attracted a book of more than 40 mares at the time, a large number for Canada.

Bred and raced by WinStar Farm, Speightster looked ideal for his new home. His dam was an own-sister to their Horse of the Year and multiple champion Dance Smartly (Danzig), the dam of two outstanding runners there, and a half-sister to leading sire Smart Strike (Mr Prospector). Speightster retired to stud unbeaten at three and won the Grade 3 Dwyer Stakes at Belmont Park. He went to WinStar at a fee of $10,000.

Speightster was a top-10 freshman sire in 2020 by earnings, and fifth-leading second-crop sire with more than $4.28 million in progeny earnings. At the time of his relocation, he was making an impact in Canada, his daughters Dreaming Of Drew winning the Princess Elizabeth Stakes and Aubrieta successful in the Glorious Song Stakes, both at Woodbine. While he was getting stakes winners, none were at graded stakes level.

His five crops have now yielded 15 stakes winners, two of them at graded level. Straight No Chaser, successful in November’s Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Sprint, is his best runner by a longshot.

He gave a first indication of class at four when he won a Grade 3 at Pimlico, and while he did not run at two, he has only made 11 starts as he embarks on his fourth season racing. His win in the Group 2 Riyadh Dirt Sprint is his seventh victory in 11 starts, and those successes include the Grade 2 Santa Anita Sprint Championship.

Straight No Chaser’s big year in 2024 came a full decade after his half-sister Hangover Saturday (Pomeroy), the only other stakes performer in two generations of the family, won a restricted stakes as a two-year-old. While there are various graded stakes winners in distant removes of the family under the third dam, including last year’s Grade 2 winner and Grade 1 runner-up Gun Song (Gun Runner), it is the fourth dam, Big Dreams (Great Above), who was responsible for the star performer on the pedigree page.

That was the dual champion sprinter Housebuster (Mt Livermore), winner of 15 of his 22 starts, three of those wins coming in Grade 1s,