CON Marnane’s visit to Italy in 2012 to attend the SGA September Selected Sale was to yield an unintended consequence, but a highly pleasurable one.

His purchases at the sale included a daughter of Red Rocks (Galileo), a half-sister at the time to two winners, the better of the pair being Dandy Boy (Danetime) who was runner-up to Beethoven in the Group 3 Desmond Stakes at Leopardstown and a six-time winner in Ireland and the UAE. Dandy Boy had been bought by Marnane as a yearling too and was trained by his brother David for Malih Al Basti.

Red Rocks won the 2006 Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf and died last September at the age of 15. He had just completed his fourth season at Calumet Farm in Lexington at a fee of $10,000. He went to stud at Centro Equino Arcadia in Italy for the 2010 breeding season, and shuttled to Chile for two seasons.

Red Rocks started his career in Europe with Brian Meehan. At three he ran second in the Group 1 Grand Prix de Paris at Longchamp, before shipping to Churchill Downs for the 2006 Breeders’ Cup Turf. He won by a half-length from Better Talk Now in the silks of J. Paul Reddam. He later clocked up many air miles, running in the USA, England, Ireland, Hong Kong, and the UAE. He added a further Grade 1 success when he beat Curlin to win the Man O’War Stakes. He went to stud with six wins in 24 starts for earnings of $2,903,382.

The filly Con Marnane bought was from his first crop, but when she was reoffered at the 2013 Tattersalls Craven Breeze-Up Sale she failed to realise her consignor’s ambition and was retained at 35,000gns. Named Folegandros Island (a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea that, together with Sikinos, Ios, Anafi and Santorini, forms the southern part of the Cyclades), she was put in training in France and placed a couple of times at three. Marnane brought the filly back to Bansha and sent her to be covered at Tally-Ho Stud by Kodiac, whose fee that year had risen to €25,000. The resulting foal, a colt, was sent to the Tattersalls December Sale where he sold for a handsome 75,000gns. The following September, as part of the Grove Stud consignment, the colt was traded at the Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale for £260,000, the second highest price of the week.

The buyer was listed as the Hong Kong Jockey Club, but the colt reappeared the following spring at the Tattersalls Craven Breeze Up Sale from Church Farm and Horse Park Stud, selling to SackvilleDonald for 420,000gns on behalf of King Power Racing. Named Fox Champion, he was sent to be trained by Richard Hannon and last weekend he won for the fourth consecutive time, landing the Group 2 Mehl-Mulhens Rennen at Cologne, the German 2000 Guineas.

Speaking of the winner, Hannon said: “He’s a very talented horse and I still don’t think we have quite gotten to the bottom of him. He doesn’t win his races impressively, he just does what is required. He was in front for a long way and did well to fight it out – I think it was a very strong race.” Next stop could be the Jersey Stakes or the St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot.