THERE is no shortage of smart two-year-old form about, and it was on display at Naas on Wednesday when Arqana gave their support to the Listed Marwell Stakes.

Ado McGuinness landed the feature with Tiger Belle, a daughter of Cotai Glory (Exceed And Excel), and now the ninth stakes winner for her sire in his first three crops. That list famously includes last year’s Group 1 Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp winner The Platinum Queen, and the two-year-old then sold at the December Sale for 1,200,000gns.

Tiger Belle was bred by Paul Giles and sold at the Tattersalls Ireland September Yearling Sale through his Moyfinn Stud for €18,000. It was the ace talent-spotter Con Marnane who signed for her, and he resold the filly at the Goffs UK Breeze Up Sale this year for a profitable £70,000 to Shamrock Thoroughbreds.

A winner on her debut at Cork and runner-up two weeks later in Tipperary, Tiger Belle was offered at the Goffs London Sale, but was unsold at £100,000.

Fourth next time out at Tipperary in a listed race, any limitations commentators may have placed on her were dispelled when she battled to win her first stakes race, and £100,000 would only be an opening bid now were she to be sold.

Tiger Belle is the second foal and winner for her placed dam, Dark Acclamation (Acclamation). She is a daughter of the stakes-placed juvenile On The Dark Side (Kheleyf).

Ballylinch-bred

Shuwari gave rookie trainer Ollie Sangster a day to remember on Thursday when the two-year-old won for the second time, retaining her unbeaten status in the Listed National Stakes at Sandown.

The daughter of New Bay (Dubawi) was bred by Ballylinch Stud, and sold to Sangster last year for 80,000gns, and though she runs in the colours of Lucy Sangster, she is co-owned by Ballylinch.

The Co Kilkenny nursery paid $425,000 to purchase Shuwari’s dam, Lady Pimpernel (Sir Percy), eight years ago. A listed winner in England, this 800gns yearling and 8,500gns breezer went to the USA and added the Grade 3 Robert J Frankel Stakes to her tally of victories. Shuwari is now her third winning offspring.

Congratulations to the purchasers of Shuwari’s four-time winning half-sister True Scarlet (Make Believe). A year after she sold for 100,000gns, she traded for $20,000 at Keeneland last November. What a bargain.

This is a very interesting pedigree. From one of the German studbook’s best families, Lady Pimpernel is out of a half-sister to none other than the brilliant Annie Power (Shirocco). She counted the Grade 1 Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham among her five successes at the highest level over the smaller obstacles.

Weatherbys

The hugely valuable, and prestigious, Weatherbys Super Sprint Stakes was won by Relief Rally, the Group 2 Queen Mary Stakes runner-up. It is interesting that this came a decade since Tiggy Wiggy, also a daughter of Kodiac (Danehill), won the race after she too had finished second in the Queen Mary at Royal Ascot. She went on to win the Group 1 Connolly’s Red Mills Cheveley Park Stakes. Can Relief Rally do likewise?

Bred by Canice Farrell, Relief Rally sold to Highflyer Bloodstock for 58,000gns last year at the Tattersalls Somerville Yearling Sale, and now she has banked some £160,000 with three wins and a placed run in four starts.

Relief Rally is a full-sister to Koropick (Kodiac), a Group 3 winners, and they are among five winning produce of the Fayruz (Song) mare Kathoe. She was unraced but had five winning siblings, though none of them reached stakes level.

First stakes winner for Cloth Of Stars

VICTORY for Birr Castle in the Listed Prix Pelleas at Compeigne was significant on a couple of fronts.

The three-year-old colt became the first stakes winner for his sire, Cloth Of Stars (Sea The Stars), and he is from the Group 1 Prix Ganay winner’s first crop. His only other stakes performer to date is Maymay, a two-year-old who was placed in a listed contest in France earlier this month.

Next month, at the Arqana Yearling Sale, Lot 149 is a Teofilo (Galileo) half-brother to Birr Castle, and this latest update now means that their dam, the winning Turtle Bowl (Dyhim Diamond) mare Baki, has bred four winners with her first four foals, and three of them are stakes winners. All three have won listed contests in France, and Birr Castle is preceded by Waltham (Wootton Bassett) and King Shalaa (Shalaa).

By becoming the dam of three stakes winners, a notable achievement even at listed level, Baki has replicated the feat of her own dam, Bensolina (Second Empire). She bred seven winners in all, and the best of her three listed winners was Baine (Country Reel) who ran second in the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches-French 1000 Guineas. That mare’s son, Qatar Dream (Makfi), was classic-placed in Italy.

Being a son of Turtle Bowl, the only blacktype winner under the third remove of this family, Bapaume, is bred on similar lines to Baki. Bapaume was trained by Willie Mullins and was a Grade 1 winner over hurdles as a four-year-old at Punchestown and a Grade 2 winner in France.

Another generation back and Birr Castle’s fourth dam bred Balbonella (Gay Mecene). That then Group 1 Prix Robert Papin winner was a huge success at stud, producing Group 1 July Cup winner Anabaa (Danzig) and the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches-French 1000 Guineas winner Always Royal (Zilzal). The latter mare bred the Japanese champion Shonan Adela (Deep Impact).

Somerville graduates winning around the world

THE Tattersalls Somerville Yearling Sale is quickly building quite a reputation for success among its graduates. One of the latest to advertise the sale’s prowess is Anisette.

The three-year-old daughter of Derrinstown Stud’s Awtaad (Cape Cross) is the tenth blacktype winner for the Group 1 Tattersalls Irish 2000 Guineas winner, and I am convinced more and more that he is the best value stallion in Europe.

Sold to Mark McStay’s Avenue Bloodstock as a yearling for 26,000gns, Anisette improved with every one of her starts at two, obliging at the third time of asking two days after Christmas.

Transferred to be trained by Leonard Powell (no relation – even though Tattersalls linked me to the tweet celebrating her latest win), Anisette has started twice, won both, and most recently captured the Grade 2 San Clemente Stakes at Del Mar. I would venture to suggest that she could yet join Group 1 Prix d’Ispahan winner Anmaat as a winner at the highest grade for Awtaad.

Anisette is the fourth foal of her dam Tutti Frutti (Teofilo), her second winner, and the other pair have both been placed. Next to race will be Tutti Frutti’s two-year-old son Eton Mes (Expert Eye), and he is followed by a yearling filly by Make Believe (Makfi).

Tutti Frutti had four winning siblings, and the best of these was the Group 1 Nassau Stakes heroine Sultanina (New Approach).

Goodwood

Their dam Soft Centre (Zafonic) won the Listed Lupe Stakes at Goodwood, as did the next dam in the family, Foodbroker Fancy (Halling). Though she did not breed a Group 1 or 2 winner, Foodbroker Fancy did produce three stakes winners and a stakes-placed winner, and they were all of her successful progeny on the racecourse. Last year one of that trio of stakes winners, French Dressing (Sea The Stars), sold at Newmarket for 925,000gns, and she is the dam of the Group 3 Royal Ascot winner Mohaafeth (Frankel).