LAST weekend saw 10 Group 1 races contested in Britain and France, and 10 different stallions were represented. Three Darley sires were among them, Blue Point, Cracksman and Night Of Thunder, and Coolmore sires past and present matched that total.

Caravaggio now stands in Japan, Justify is at Ashford Stud in Kentucky, while Churchill (Galileo) is at Coolmore. The latter’s daughter, Blue Rose Cen, a dual classic winner this year, the champion French filly last season, was back to her best to bring her tally of victories to eight, half of them at Group 1 level, when she landed the Group 1 Prix de l’Opera.

Her latest success was a year on from running out a five-length winner of the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac from a pair of Irish-trained fillies. This year she added the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches-French 1000 Guineas and the Group 1 Prix de Diane-French Oaks to her roll of honour.

Owned and bred by Leopoldo Fernandez Pujals’ Yeguada Centurion, Blue Rose Cen is the first foal out of a €15,000 yearling buy at Goffs who went on to win the Group 3 Lodge Park EBF Park Express Stakes at the Curragh when trained by Patrick Prendergast. Queen Blossom.

A daughter of Jeremy (Danehill Dancer), more noted now in National Hunt circles, Queen Blossom was bred by the Irish National Stud. In the USA she was sold on for $220,000, won the Grade 3 Santa Barbara Stakes at Santa Anita at the age of five, and was sent back across the Atlantic to the Tattersalls December Sale where Ted Durcan picked her up for just 110,000gns. Now she is the dam of a Group 1 winner with her first foal, and has a colt foal by Frankel (Galileo).

Grassick

Bloodstock agent Cathy Grassick and Carisbrooke Stud’s owner Yvonne Jacques purchased the dam of Queen Blossom, the group-placed juvenile Mark Of An Angel (Mark Of Esteem), in February 2019 at Arqana for €72,000.

The foal she was carrying, Capo La Gala (Le Havre), became her fourth winning offspring, and there are surely more to come. She has a two-year-old filly by Starspangledbanner (Choisir), a yearling colt by Showcasing (Oasis Dream) who sold recently at the Goffs Orby Sale, and a colt foal by Bated Breath (Dansili).

Blue Rose Cen is the second classic winner in the first two crops by Churchill, with Group 1 Prix du Jockey-Club-French Derby winner and Arc runner-up Vadeni heading up his first crop. His 13 stakes winners also include Group 2 winners The Foxes and Ladies Church.

Apart from Queen Blossom and her classic-winning daughter, you have to go back to Blue Rose Cen’s fourth dam, Grey Angel (Kenmare), to find the next blacktype winner. That mare was sent to South Africa to race, won eight times, and five of these successes were achieved in stakes races. She won twice at Group 3 level and was runner-up in the Group 1 Gosforth Park Fillies and Mares Challenge.