TENEBRISM is a style of painting especially associated with the Italian artist Caravaggio and his followers. It is one in which most of the figures are engulfed in shadow, but some are dramatically illuminated by a beam of light. It is therefore a most appropriate name for the best horse sired by the stallion Caravaggio – to date.

Caravaggio won the Group 1 Keeneland Phoenix Stakes in an unbeaten two-year-old career, but his racing highlight was surely his defeat of Harry Angel and Blue Point the following year in the Group 1 Commonwealth Stakes at Royal Ascot. He went to stud at Coolmore for €35,000, had that fee raised to €40,000 in his third season, but US breeders got the best deal this year when they could use him at Ashford Stud for just $25,000.

In Ireland he covered 217 mares in his first year at stud, but that number fell to 141 and 120 for the ensuing seasons. Now his results with his first crop of runners tell us that America’s gain is certainly Europe’s loss in the stallion ranks. Caravaggio stood for one season in Australia and his first runners there are eagerly anticipated.

Twenty individual winners, four stakes winners, seven stakes horses and now a Group 1 winner show that Caravaggio is the real article. One of the best racehorses by Scat Daddy (Johannesburg), Caravaggio joined the undefeated Triple Crown winner Justify and Mendelssohn at Ashford Stud, while Coolmore still has No Nay Never and Sioux Nation here in Ireland.

Bred by Merriebelle Stables in partnership with Coolmore’s Orpendale/Chelston/Wynatt, Tenebrism provided Aidan O’Brien with his 360th Group 1 success as a trainer (he also has 22 Grade 1 National Hunt successes) with her Newmarket victory. The filly races for Coolmore, Westerberg and Merriebelle and she gave the Ballydoyle maestro his fourth win in the Cheveley Park Stakes, following Brave Anna, Clemmie and Fairyland.

Training feat

This was a training feat par excellence from O’Brien as Tenebrism was making just her second career start. Tenebrism has the pedigree of a champion, being a daughter, and the best of three winners, from the champion Immortal Verse. That Group 1 Coronation Stakes and Group 1 Prix Jacques Le Marois winner sold for 4,700,000gns in 2013, having originally traded as a yearling for €460,000. She is a daughter of the leading broodmare sire Pivotal (Polar Falcon).

Immortal Verse is a full-sister to Go Lovely Rose (Pivotal), the winning dam of a couple of Group 1-placed runners in Roseman (Kingman) and Baradar (Muhaarar). A daughter of the stakes winner Side Of Paradise (Sadler’s Wells), Immortal Verse is a granddaughter of Mill Princess (Mill Reef) and her 11 winners were headed by Last Tycoon (Try My Best).

That colt, bred and raced by Richard Strauss’ Kilfrush Stud, won eight of his 13 starts, including the Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes and William Hill Spring Cup in England, and then he travelled to the USA and won the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile.

Champion sire

Last Tycoon stood at Coolmore Stud from 1987 to 2003, and he was the first shuttle stallion to become champion sire in Australia.

He sired a number of top-class winners in both hemispheres, including Marju, Ezzoud, Taipan and Bigstone in Europe, Australian horse of the year Mahogany, and two New Zealand horses of the year, O’Reilly and Tycoon Lil.

This is a female line with a great depth of quality. Tenebrism’s fourth dam Irish Lass II (Sayajirao), a stakes winner in France, produced the Irish Derby winner Irish Ball (Baldric II) and is grandam of three classic-winning siblings in Assert (Be My Guest), Eurobird (Ela-Mana-Mou) and Bikala (Kalamoun).

A round-up of the other Group 1 winners descending from Irish Lass II gives us a stellar cast that includes French 1000 Guineas winners Tie Black (Machiavellian) and Valentine Waltz (Be My Guest), the US Matron Stakes winner Sense Of Style (Thunder Gulch), and the Group 1 winning siblings The United States, Hydrangea and Hermosa (all by Galileo). What a legacy.