MARTALINE will stand for the coming season at a fee of €15,000. This is certainly at the upper end of the fee scale for a National Hunt stallion, but it is surely justified in the case of the Haras de Montaigu sire who is fully booked every year at stud.

The son of Linamix (Mendez) was trained by Andre Fabre and he won in each of his four seasons racing, his principal successes coming in the Group 2 Prix Maurice de Nieuil and the Group 3 Prix d’Hedouville. He has stood his entire career at the same farm, commanding a fee of €3,500 in his first season there in 2005. While he enjoyed some success with his flat runners, siring a group winner and a number of listed winners, it is as a National Hunt sire that his reputation has been sealed.

We Have A Dream continued his unbeaten run of success in the care of Nicky Henderson at the weekend, and did so in the Grade 1 Coral Future Champions Finale Juvenile Hurdle. This was his third win for the trainer and followed an earlier success in a Grade 2 hurdle at Doncaster. The four-year-old son of Martaline made three starts over hurdles in France and finished fourth twice and fifth. He has been transformed since moving to England.

This latest Grade 1 success brings to eight the number of top-level winners Martaline has sired, and it is fair to say that this will grow significantly as the years go on. He has just turned 19 and many of his best books of mares have been covered in more recent times. Nonetheless he has done magnificently well to date.

In Ireland and Britain he is best known for current Noel Meade star runner Disko (a dual Grade 1 winning chaser), and two Grade 1 Cheltenham Festival winners in Dynaste and Very Wood.

Martaline was bred to be a successful stallion. His siblings are Coastal Path (Halling), the sire of Grade 1 winner Bacardys, and Reefscape (Linamix), also a successful Grade 1 sire. Their dam Coraline (Sadler’s Wells) is a half-sister to the Group 1 Irish Oaks winner Wemyss Bight (Dancing Brave) and she in turn is responsible for Beat Hollow (Sadler’s Wells), the sire of many Group 1 winners including Irish St Leger and Grade 1 Punchestown Champion Hurdle winner Wicklow Brave.

The stallion connections don’t stop there. Another of Coraline’s half-sisters is Hope (Dancing Brave) and she is the dam of multiple Group 1 sire Oasis Dream (Green Desert) and grandam of the champion Kingman (Invincible Spirit), whose first crop will hit the track this year.

Sybille Gibson is the fifth generation of her family to run Haras de Montaigu and this year the farm welcomes back their home-bred Epsom Derby winner Wings Of Eagles (Pour Moi) to stand his first season. He will stand for €12,000 and in company with five other sires, including Martaline. Montaigu has built a strong brand name for standing leading flat and National Hunt sires, previously being home to the champion Kendor and top jumps sire Nikos.

We Have A Dream is a son of the dual three-year-old flat winner Sweet Dance, trained by Yves de Nicolay to win in the colours of Irene Catsaras, one of the co-breeders of Saturday’s Grade 1 winner. Sweet Dance is one of three winners from Madeka (Kadalko) and the best of these was Ladeka (Linda’s Lad). She was Grade 3 and listed-placed over hurdles in France.

This is a female line that is equally at home producing Group and Grade 1 performers on the flat and over jumps. Madeka’s winning half-sister Femme De Fer (Iron Duke) bred a pair of Grade 2 winners in the USA, both of which later went to stud there. Femme De Fer is also grandam of the 2013 Group 1 Premio Vittorio di Capua winner Shamalgan (Footstepsinthesand) and the Group 1 placed stakes winner Gabrial (Dark Angel).

Go back one more generation and up pops 2015 Grade 1 Punchestown Festival chase winner Blood Cotil (Enrique) and the rising star Cap Soleil (Kapgarde), winner of five of her six starts to date for trainer Feargal O’Brien, most recently capturing a listed hurdle at Haydock just days before Christmas.