WHILE the eyes of the racing world were likely to have been focused on Tiger Roll on Sunday, the race was won by another runner in the Gigginstown House Stud colours.

Beacon Edge’s victory in the Grade 2 Boyne Hurdle at Navan was his most important success to date.

Bred by Harry Browne, Beacon Edge is a seven-year-old son of Doyen (Sadler’s Wells), rated the best older horse in Europe at four when he won the Group 1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the Group 2 Hardwicke Stakes, both at Ascot. A Group 1 classic sire on the flat, Doyen stood his first three seasons at Dalham Hal Stud, three season in Germany, and had his first year at Michael Hickey’s Sunnyhill Stud in 2012. Doyen is also sire of Battleoverdoyen, Andy Dufresne, Valdez and more.

Beacon Edge was sold as a store at the 2017 Goffs Land Rover Sale to the late Gerry Griffin, acting for Nicky Richards. A bumper winner at four, he was resold for £88,000 at the Tattersalls Ireland Cheltenham November Sale and moved to join Noel Meade.

The following April he ran third in the Grade 1 Champion INH Bumper at Punchestown.

Now he is a Grade 2 and Grade 3 winner over hurdles, is Grade 1-placed and, apart from a fourth-place finish behind Envoi Allen in a Leopardstown bumper, has not been out of the first three in 11 career starts. It would be in keeping with his family tradition were he to step up to Grade 1-winning class.

His dam was purchased by the Browne family for just €1,700 as a four-year-old. She is Laurel Gift, an unraced daughter of leading sire Presenting (Mtoto). A couple of years after her purchase, Laurel Gift’s full-brother Jessies Dream emerged and he went on to win the Grade 1 Drinmore Chase and to be beaten a neck by Bostons Angel in the Grade 1 RSA Chase at Cheltenham.

Beacon Edge’s third dam Decent Slave (Decent Fellow) was, like the first four dams in the family, unraced. She bred three winners and her daughter Gift Of Freedom (Presenting) was a successful broodmare, producing Roaring Bull (Milan), the Grade 2 Paddy Power Chase winner.

In the pedigree’s fourth remove you will find one of the most popular runners in Ireland during the 1980s. Slave De (Arctic Slave) is dam of the Grade 1 Queen Mother Champion Chase winner Buck House, and earlier in his career he was also winner at the Festival when he took the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.

Give this Grade 1 winner more than a Passing Glance

WITH his victory in the Grade 1 Ascot Chase at the weekend, Dashel Drasher credited his veteran sire Passing Glance (Polar Falcon) with the honour of joining that select club of stallions who have sired winners at the highest level on the flat and over jumps.

Eight years ago his son Side Glance, a winner of £1.7 million around the world, gained a well-deserved Group 1 success in the 10-furlong Mackinnon Stakes in Australia. That gelding’s many Group 1 placings included running third in Frankel’s Queen Anne Stakes win at Royal Ascot.

Now Dashel Drasher becomes a fourth National Hunt blacktype winner for Passing Glance who stands this year at Batsford Stud in Gloucestershire for £3,000. The sire himself won a Group 2 race over a mile in Germany, the Group 3 Diomed Stakes at Epsom and five other races. He can certainly lay claim to be largely responsible for the success of Dashel Drasher.

The eight-year-old was winning for the ninth time; a bumper and four successes each over hurdles and fences. He is the best of three winners from So Long (Nomadic Way), the others being Popping Along (Volochine) and Lady Longshot (Needle Gun), both of whom won three times over hurdles.

While Dashel Drasher was stealing the headlines at Ascot on Saturday, the concluding bumper on the card saw his five-year-old full-sister Drash On Ruby (Passing Glance) finish third, and she looks an assured winner.

All of these son and daughters of So Long are trained by Jeremy Scott, and were bred by the trainer’s wife Camilla. She had bred, trained and owned So Long when she ran with great success between the flags, winning five point-to-points. Incredibly, So Long was the first winner of any type in the family for four generations!

The best previous form in the family was the fact that Dashel Drasher’s grandam Cherry Picker (Nearly A Hand) was placed three times in point-to-points, while the fourth dam Indian Cash (Indian Ruler), who ran with not even a placing until the age of 11, bred two placed horses.

American Pharoah spreads his influence into Japan

AMERICAN Pharoah has a lot to live up to at stud. The Triple Crown winner, a champion at two and three years, will have his third crop racing for him as two-year-olds in 2021. His fee for this year is down to $100,000, a lot of money, but it could yet prove to be a bargain.

His first crop included the US Grade 1 winner Harvey’s Lil Goil, and last weekend’s Japanese Group 1 winner Cafe Pharoah. Last October Aidan O’Brien saddled Van Gogh, from American Pharoah’s second crop, to win the Group 1 Criterium International at Saint-Cloud by four lengths.

These are three of the Ashford Stud stallion’s 14 stakes winners from those initial two crops. The news of Cafe Pharoah’s victory will be sweet music to the ears of the BBA Ireland as they paid $500,000 at last month’s Keeneland January Sale for Cafe Pharoah’s dam Mary’s Follies (More Than Ready) as part of the Paul Pompa dispersal.

That price was exceeded by her daughter Regal Glory (Animal Kingdom) who was joint top-price at the sale, realising $925,000. She is a multiple stakes winner at up to Grade 2 level, so Peter Brant will be hoping the five-year-old can go one level better during 2021.

Mary’s Follies was a Grade 2 winner and three of her four winners to date have been graded stakes winner. Cafe Pharoah first came to our attention when he did an impressive breeze at the OBS Sale in 2019, consigned by Eddie Woods. This led to his sale to Narvick International’s Emmanuel de Deroux for $475,000 and his export to Japan. He is now the winner of five of his seven starts, a Group 1, a pair of Group 3 races, and a listed success.

This is a family that has, with the emergence of Mary’s Follies as a quality racemare, enjoyed a real uplift.

Cafe Pharoah’s third dam Wave To The Queen (Wavering Monarch) was a stakes winner at Louisiana Downs and Remington Park, have of her eight victories coming at stakes level. Two generations later Mary’s Follies added the next blacktype, and now she on her own has become a broodmare gem.