THE first running of the Listed Agatha Christie Mares’ Novices’ Chase at Exeter on Sunday saw just five go to post, and three of the runners travelled from Ireland for the contest.

The first prize of £23,000 found its way into the bank account of Only By Night’s owner, and what a star this seven-year-old is turning out to be. In November 2023 I mentioned her as a mare to watch for in the future, and this was following her first blacktype win.

That victory was a seminal moment in the career of her sire Affinisea (Sea The Stars). Only By Night was the stallion’s first blacktype winner, a number that now stands at four, and she is from his first crop.

In my comments on Only By Night, I wrote that “she is a mare to keep on the right side of as the season progresses.” Less than a month later she added a maiden hurdle to her tally, and at the end of last season she was placed in a listed hurdle race at the Punchestown Festival. Now, sent chasing by Gavin Cromwell, Only By Night is unbeaten in three starts, and this latest success comes after she beat Nara in a Grade 2 at Cork. Next stop will be Cheltenham, where she may prove hard to beat in the Grade 2 mares’ chase, a race won last year by Cromwell with Limerick Lace.

Only By Night won the Listed Coolmore EBF Mares INH Flat Race at Navan, her second victory in as many starts after her move to Cromwell from Jonjo O’Neill, for whom she was placed. She was bred by Jenny Prior-Wandesforde and sold as a three-year-old for €13,500. Only By Night made a less than auspicious start to her racing career with Garret Murphy, falling on her first two outings in point-to-points.

She picked herself up and at the third time of asking when she beat a good field at Lingstown to win by four lengths. Sent for sale, she was snapped up for £110,000 by Stroud Coleman, Colin Russell and Jonjo O’Neill at the 2022 Goffs UK Tingle Creek Sale.

Three months later Only By Night was third on her only start for O’Neill, and then came the move to Ireland. She is the first foal of the unraced Leyhill (Getaway), and she has been joined in the winner’s enclosure by her full-brother Crawter (Affinisea), as he landed a point-to-point last year in England. Leyhill is out of the unraced winner-producer Horner Hill (Oscar).

Personal favourite

Horner Hill is half-sister to Somersby (Second Empire), a great personal favourite of mine from the first decade of this millennium. He came into his own when sent chasing, though he won a bumper and a hurdle race. Somersby won the Grade 1 Clarence House Chase at Ascot and on three occasions was runner-up at Cheltenham, twice in the Grade 1 Queen Mother Champion Chase and also in the Grade 1 Arkle Chase.

Only By Night is just the second blacktype winner in four generations of the family, though it is one that certainly has not been devoid of smart runners. Somersby’s dam Back To Roost (Presenting) did not race, but the best of her three successful siblings was her own-brother, Horner Woods. That son of Presenting (Mtoto) won once each in a point-to-point, bumper, hurdle race and chase, and was a creditable runner-up to Cooldine in the Grade 1 RSA Chase at Cheltenham.

Affinisea has been popular since he retired to the O’Neill’s Whytemount Stud in Co Kilkenny, and in the last three seasons combined he has covered 900 mares. His foals have made up to €62,000, and a winning point-to-point son sold for £380,000. Affinisea is also sire of Thursday’s Grade 2 Sandown mares’ hurdle winner Hollygrove Cha Cha, Cheltenham Grade 2 hurdle winner Sixmilebridge, and the listed bumper winner Avakate. Three of his four blacktype winners are mares.

Affinisea’s son Affordale Fury, Noel Meade’s smart hurdler, was runner-up in a pair of Grade 1 races two years ago, notably the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham, and recently came back with a promising run over fences after a long lay-off.

Jim Bolger

Affinisea was bred by Jim Bolger and sold for €850,000 as a foal to Sunderland Holding. His owners, the Tsui family, and trainer John Oxx exercised patience with the colt, and it said a lot for the regard in which they held him that he was kept in training at four, making a belated racing debut over a mile and a half at Roscommon in the summer of that season.

We did not see Affinisea again for a year, and his second start was at Killarney when he was beaten a short head over 14 furlongs, ironically going down to Hidden Cyclone, a son of the Whytemount Stud sire Stowaway. Perhaps that was when the late Ronnie O’Neill cottoned on to the ability of Affinisea, who was not to race again. Given his foal price and pedigree, it was obvious that the colt had the looks too. He is a sibling to Grade 1 sire Soldier Of Fortune (Galileo), and they are by half-brothers.

Following the success he had with Stowaway, breeders had faith in any horse Ronnie O’Neill retired to stud, and they thronged to use Affinisea. Since he went to stud in 2017, Affinisea’s books of mares have numbered 112, 122, 227, 209, 324, 382, 269 and 246. If that does not amount to a huge stamp of approval, I don’t know what does.

Hollygrove Cha Cha

Ciara Brennan bred the most recent blacktype winner by Affinisea, and this is Thursday’s Grade 2 Jane Seymour Mares Novices’ Hurdle winner Hollygrove Cha Cha.

Trained by Jamie Snowden and racing in the Hot To Trot colours, the five-year-old has only been beaten once in six starts, when second in a listed hurdle on her penultimate start, and she is from a distinguished female line that has served the Brennan family well.

At the most recent Tattersalls Ireland Winter Sale, Richard Rohan spent €38,000 for an Affinisea own-sister to Hollygrove Cha Cha. That weanling’s value will have increased with this week’s success. At the sale, Rohan said of his purchase: “I bought her for my client, Will Smith, who is based in England. Her future is undecided as yet; she might be kept to race or could be returned to be resold.”

He added: “We absolutely loved the filly since she arrived at the sale. Will has been building up a nice stock of young horses. He is a good client and a good man and so I hope he is lucky. Not only did I like this filly as an individual, but everything is hot in this pedigree, what with Gowel Road, and she being by Affinisea too. I really like him as a sire.”

The unraced Hollygrove Rumba (Indian Danehill), the filly’s dam, is a half-sister to Grade 1 Challow Hurdle winner Captain Cutter (Westerner), and to Gowel Road (Flemensfirth) who days earlier had been a good winner of the Grade 2 Cleeve Hurdle at Cheltenham.

Two other outstanding runners in the immediate family are the Grade 1 Aintree Hurdle winner Mister Morose (King’s Ride), and the three-time Cheltenham Festival Grade 1 winner Albertas Run (Accordion).