TWO decades after the Dermot Cunningham-bred The Bunny Boiler win the Irish Grand National the Co Kilkenny breeder was back in the news at the weekend.

He bred the Grade 2 mares’ hurdle winner at Newbury, Largy G, and that eight-year-old daughter of Shantou (Alleged) was actually winning for the first time.

That said, she is a mare with few miles on the clock. Bought by Crawford Brothers and Largy Bloodstock as a four-year-old at the Tattersalls Ireland August Sale for just €2,200, she was raced twice in point-to-points at the age of six, being placed third of three finishers on the second occasion. A further long break off the track followed before she made her hurdling debut in mid-April 2021, and in five starts she has won a Grade 2 and been placed three times.

Her victory came in a race that has been won in the last decade by such as Roksana, Snow Leopardess and Polly Peachum, and she comes from a predominantly flat female line. She is the first foal of G Day Sile, a cleverly-named daughter of Aussie Rules (Danehill). Largy G’s year-younger own-brother Barnabas Collins (Shantou) won a bumper, while there are a number of young stock waiting to appear, including a five-year-old gelding Easy Fella (Yeats).

While the female line has produced no end of high-class flat winners, there has been an occasional jumper too. Largy G’s grandam Filandre (Cadeaux Genereux) is a half-sister to a pair of group winners on the level, but two of her siblings produced blacktype National Hunt scorers.

The group-placed Epistole (Alzao) bred the Grade 2 Cheltenham hurdle winner Aigle D’Or (Halling) who was placed in the Galway Plate, while Epistoliere (Alzao) is the dam of the Grade 3 winning hurdler Simenon (Marju) who ran third in the Group 1 Ascot Gold Cup).