WHAT we might call the “Mullins factor” was very evident again at the weekend when True Self rocked to victory in the Group 3 Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Flemington. It was a couple of days to remember as the Irish champion National Hunt handler Willie was joined by his flat equivalent, Aidan O’Brien, when Magic Wand earned a well-deserved success at the highest level after capturing the Group 1 Mackinnon Stakes.

Both winners are granddaughters of Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer), though by very different sires and from widely different female lines. While True Self, bred by Don Cantillon, is one of 78 blacktype winners sired by Oscar, she is his first group-winner on the flat and she is a true example of a talented dual-purpose runner.

On the level she is a triple listed winner at Gowran Park, Newmarket and Bath and she has been placed in group races in England and Australia. The six-year-old doesn’t get time to be bored and she also won a Grade 2 handicap hurdle at Punchestown. Winner or runner-up on 14 of her 20 starts, True Self has now earned almost £310,000.

True Self is the best of the three winning offspring of the unraced Mukaddamah (Storm Bird) mare Good Thought, though her seven victories just match the number of successes enjoyed by her half-sister Shared Moment (Tagula) and she has a few more to go to equal the 13 wins amassed by another half-brother Sir Boss (Tagula).

Good Thought is a half-sister to a single winner and is a daughter of the Austin Leahy-trained Only Great (Simply Great) who was a smart performer and won three times on the flat, including at two, and once over the smaller obstacles, a code in which she was placed 14 times. She gained valuable blacktype when she ran third in the Grade 1 Champion Four-Year-Old Hurdle at Punchestown behind Orbis and Jennycomequick.

Skip back two more removes to Ceili Mor (Irish Ball), the fourth dam of Saturday’s big race winner, and you find yet another smart dual-purpose winner – something of a feature in this family. Ceili Mor was placed in the Group 2 Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh in the late 1970s but three of her five career victories were over hurdles at the age of four.

Her five winners included Commanche Chief (Commanche Run). Though by a Coolmore sire, like Oscar, who had most of his stallion success in the National Hunt sphere, Commanche Chief was a high-class stayer in South Africa where he was born when Ceili Mor was exported while carrying him. More than half of his seven wins were at stakes level and included the Group 2 Owners’ and Trainers’ Handicap at Newmarket twice. He was runner-up in the Group 1 The Gold Cup at Greyville.

In a restricted racing career, Oscar was second to Sendoro on his only start at two when trained by Andre Fabre. He moved then to Pascal Bary and won over a mile and a half at three and was runner-up to Peintre Celebre in the Group 1 Prix du Jockey Club-French Derby on his fourth and final start. His current four-year-olds are members of his 17th and final crop.

While there is no Group 1 winner in four generations of the family of True Self, there are now two in the first remove of the family of Magic Wand. This €1.4 million Arqana yearling daughter of Galileo joins Chiquita (Montjeu), winner of the Group 1 Darley Irish Oaks which was her only success and sold that same year at Goffs for €6 million, as the best of six winners from the listed scorer Prudenzia (Dansili). This year’s Group 3-placed Je Ne Regretterien (Galileo), a €950,000 yearling, is another blacktype sibling.

Prudenzia is literally the mare who keeps on giving. This year she had her eighth yearling in nine years sell at Arqana, her daughter by Dubawi (Dubai Millennium) realising €1,625,000 from Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin.

This was the first time for Sheikh Mohammed to buy an offspring of Prudenzia, paying the sale top price in the process. Prudenzia struck gold when her first foal, Chicquita, sold as a yearling for €600,000, while this year’s yearling was the fifth to bring a seven-figure sum. The sale topper was sold just minutes after a Galileo colt out of Prudente (Dansili), a winning full-sister to Prudenzia, left the ring. The first foal of his dam, he sold to Japanese trainer Mitsu Nakauchida for €1,500,000.

Magic Wand was bred in partnership by Ecurie des Monceaux and Skymarc Farms and the family may have a lot more to give in the future too. This year’s colt out of Prudenzia is, you won’t be surprised to learn, a colt by Galileo.

Go back to Magic Wand’s fourth dam and you will unearth another five Group 1 winners, and one of these has a special resonance with the O’Brien family. He is the 2018 Melbourne Cup winner Rekindling (High Chaparral) who, along with his Group 3 winning and Group 1 Irish Derby runner-up full-brother Golden Sword, are the best winners from Sitara (Salse), herself a winning daughter of Magic Wand’s fourth dam Souk (Ahonoora).

Souk was listed-placed and bred 11 winners, but two of her granddaughters, Alexandrova (Sadler’s Wells) and Magical Romance (Barathea), join her grandson Rewilding as Group 1 winners. Triple Oaks winner Alexandrova – successful in the English, Irish and Yorkshire versions – is also grandam of this year’s Preis von Europa winner Aspeter (Al Kazeem), while Magical Romance matched that achievement when she became grandam this year of Group 1 Prix de Diane-French Oaks winner Channel (Nathaniel).

Galileo was rated the champion at three in Europe following Group 1 triumphs in the Derby at Epsom, the Irish Derby and the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. Magic Wand is his 84th Group or Grade 1 winner on the flat and this year alone 11 of his sons and daughters have been successful at that level. The others are new Ballylinch Stud sire Waldgeist, Magical, Anthony Van Dyck, Japan, Circus Maximus, Sovereign, Hermosa, Cape Of Good Hope, Search For A Song and Love.