DREAM Ahead stood his first five seasons at Ballylinch Stud and in 2017 commenced duties at his new home, Haras de Grandchamp. At the time of the move, John O’Connor explained the rationale behind the relocation.

“Dream Ahead has done well with his two crops of runners, having finished second in the European first-season sires’ table in 2015 and is third in this year’s second-crop sires’ list. We’d expect him to have a big year in 2017 as he’s had a number of promising two-year-olds in France this year. There were a lot of French breeders enquiring about him so we thought it would be the best career move for him to stand in France in 2017.

“We think he’ll cover a good book as he’s well-known from both the time he raced, and his first runners in France have gone well. It’s a one-year lease initially and we’ll re-evaluate it at the end of the season. He’s a horse that’s poised to make a good impact in both hemispheres having covered a full book of mares when he shuttled to Australia.”

O’Connor’s fortune-telling skills were spot on and in 2017 Al Wukair beat Inns Of Court and Thunder Snow to land the Group 1 Prix Jacques Le Marois and that stallion will have his first foals at the sales this autumn.

Now the Dream Ahead jackpot has come up, with recent weeks seeing two more Group 1 winners for the son of Diktat (Warning), Glass Slippers landing the Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp, and now Donjuan Triumphant, from the sire’s first crop, deservedly capturing the QIPCO British Champions Sprint at Ascot.

At the time of Dream Ahead’s move to France Donjuan Triumphant was his best runner, having won a Group 2 race as a juvenile, and the stallion was represented by one other Group 3 winner. Now his stakes tally of winners totals 25 from his first four crops of racing age.

This is surely no surprise really for a horse who had been a double European champion in his racing days, sharing the best two-year-old title with the mighty Frankel in 2010 and then being the outright champion three-year-old sprinter the next season.

The Darley-bred Dream Ahead is a wonderful outcross for most mares, as he is the best son of the European champion sprinter Diktat, while his dam Land Of Dreams, a very speedy daughter of Cadeaux Genereux (Young Generation), won the Group 2 Flying Childers Stakes at Doncaster and the Group 3 King George Stakes at Goodwood. The next dam Sahara Star, by Green Desert (Danzig), scored in the Group 3 Molecomb Stakes. Land Of Dreams’ daughter Queenofthefairies (Pivotal) is dam of the Group 1 winning two and three-year-old Fairyland (Kodiac).

As a two-year-old Dream Ahead comfortably won the Group 1 Prix Morny at Deauville before cantering home nine lengths clear in the Group 1 Middle Park Stakes at Newmarket. He shared the honour of European champion juvenile with Frankel and the next year he was the champion three-year-old sprinter in Europe after three more Group 1 triumphs.

The first of these was the Darley July Cup at Newmarket in which he produced a fine burst of speed to defeat Bated Breath, and then these two were again first and second in the Betfred Sprint Cup at Haydock. In his final outing Dream Ahead showed that he was just as good over seven furlongs when he was sent to Longchamp for the Prix de la Foret and outpaced the legendary mare Goldikova.

Bred at Kilcarn Park by Patrick Cosgrove and the Dream Ahead Syndicate, Donjuan Triumphant was sold as a foal to Eddie and Wendy O’Leary’s Lynn Lodge Stud for €58,000 as a foal. Having tried and failed to sell him as a yearling when bidding reached €50,000, the couple’s decision to keep him and sell as a breezer was not a success, and the colt sold to Middleham Park Racing for just 30,000gns.

The latest victory for Donjuan Triumphant could not be better timed. His Invincible Spirit (Green Desert) half-brother looks set to be one of the stars of the upcoming foal sale at Goffs, catalogued as Lot 728. He is from a female line that produces stakes winner in every remove. Mathuna’s six winning siblings include Group 3 winner Wilside (Verglas), while their dam Sigonella (Priolo) is an unraced half-sister to stakes-winner and Group 1 French Derby third Sestino (Shirley Heights).

Donjuan Triumphant’s fourth dam Mariella (Sir Gaylord), an own-sister to Scorpio, won the Group 1 Premio Roma in 1980 and her best winner was Mackla (Caerleon). The latter is also the grandam of Group 1 Prix Saint-Alary heroine Marotta (Highest Honor).

Terry Holdcroft bred the impressive Abbaye winner Glass Slippers at his Bearstone Stud in Shropshire and the three-year-old is set to stay in training at four. The last progeny of her dam Night Gypsy (Mind Games), a winner at two, Glass Slippers is the best of that mare’s seven winners, and Holdcroft says she will eventually join the broodmare band at the stud. He said in the aftermath of the filly’s Group 1 success “We knew [Night Gypsy] was on her last legs when we kept this one, her last foal.

“We thought this filly was pretty good, so last year I purchased back the dam’s [stakes-placed] half-sister Aunt Nicola (Reel Buddy) that I’d previously sold as a yearling. She was in foal to Markaz (Dark Angel) and that yearling filly is going to go to this year’s December Sale.”

Irish breeder’s loss is French breeding’s gain as Dream Ahead’s career trajectory is taking off.