SUPER-SUB Henry Longfellow stepped in when City Of Troy stepped out in the Group 1 Goffs Vincent O’Brien National Stakes, and this Dubawi (Dubai Millennium) son of Minding (Galileo) has given that triple champion racemare a near perfect start at stud.

It was also the occasion of Aidan O’Brien’s 4,000th winner as a trainer – and the serendipity of it happening in a race named in honour of his predecessor at Ballydoyle, the legendary Vincent, will not have been lost on too many people. Vincent won the race for the first time in 1967 with Sir Ivor, and for the last time in 1992 with Fatherland. In between his winners included Roberto, Storm Bird, El Gran Senor, Law Society and El Prado.

Desert King, in his initial year training at Ballydoyle, gave Aidan his first win in the race in 1996, and Henry Longfellow was winner number 12. The others have been King Of Kings, Beckett, Hawk Wing, One Cool Cat, George Washington, Mastercraftsman, Power, Gleneagles, Air Force Blue, and Churchill. It is also noteworthy that the 2004 winner of the race was Dubawi.

Group/Grade 1 winner number 55 for Dubawi, who had another son, Eldar Eldarov, win at this level at the weekend, Henry Longfellow is the second foal and first runner and winner for his dam.

Dubawi on Galileo mares has already given us the four-time Group 1 winner and Darley stallion Ghaiyyath, and dual Group 1 winner and Group 1 sire Night Of Thunder, while a number of others are out of mares by sons of Galileo.

Here is a summary of Henry Longfellow’s female line. Minding is a full-sister to Tuesday (Galileo), and last year she crowned her classic season with victory in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf. She won the Group 1 Oaks at Epsom, was placed in the English and Irish 1000 Guineas, and was runner-up in the Group 1 Yorkshire Oaks.

Minding and Tuesday are two of the three Group 1 winners, all classic heroines, out of the dual Group 1 winner Lillie Langtry (Danehill Dancer), and they also include Empress Josephine (Galileo). She won the Group 1 Irish 1000 Guineas, while yet another of Lillie Langtry’s daughters, Kissed By Angels (Galileo), was a Group 3 winner from four runs.

European champion

Minding was a European champion in each of the three seasons she raced. An incredible seven of her nine wins were at Group 1 level - the Moyglare Stud Stakes, Dubai Fillies’ Mile, 1000 Guineas, Oaks, Pretty Polly Stakes, Nassau Stakes and the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. After her racing career ended, she made a visit to Japan to be covered by Deep Impact (Sunday Silence), resulting in an unraced three-year-old filly, Victorium. Minding foaled a full-sister to Henry Longfellow last year, and this year had a filly foal by Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj).

Thirteen years ago Lillie Langtry won the Group 1 Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot, later adding the Group 1 Matron Stakes at Leopardstown. She is a daughter of the unraced Hoity Toity (Darshaan), and that mare also bred the Irish listed winner Count Of Limonade (Duke Of Marmalade), and Danilovna (Dansili) who was successful in a stakes race in the USA.

Two of Hoity Toity’s siblings worth noting are Sweet Emotion (Bering), and the unraced Elisium (Proclamation). The latter was exported to South Africa where her offspring include Russian Rock (Pomodoro), successful in the Group 1 Cape Guineas.

Sweet Emotion was stakes-placed, bred the Group 1 Racing Post Trophy runner-up Winged Cupid (In The Wings), and is the third dam of last year’s Group 1 Prix de l’Opera heroine Place Du Carrousel (Lope De Vega). Place Du Carrousel is now a leading fancy for this year’s Arc after her weekend win in the Group 2 Prix Foy.

Tamara

Meanwhile, in the USA, the two-year-old filly Tamara went from a winning debut to capturing the Grade 1 Del Mar Debutante Stakes on her second outing, and what a pedigree she possesses. The daughter of Bolt D’Oro (Smart Strike) is from that sire’s second crop, and she is his first Grade 1 winner.

However, most will be more interested in the fact that Tamara is the first Grade 1 winner for her dam, the four-time champion racemare Beholder (Henny Hughes). Winner of 18 of her 26 starts, and more than $6 million in prizemoney, Beholder won three Breeders’ Cup races, the Juvenile Fillies and the Distaff twice. She was some value as a yearling when sold to Spendthrift Farm for $180,000. Five of the six times Beholder finished second were in Grade 1 races.

This year is proving to be an excellent one for Beholder. While neither of her first two foals managed to win a race, it has been very different for the third and fourth offspring. Tamara is her fourth, while the three-year-old Teena Ella (War Front) has also won twice this year, and the second of these was in the Grade 3 Senorita Stakes at Santa Anita.

This resurgence all fed into the fact that Beholder’s fifth produce, a yearling colt by Curlin (Smart Strike), sold for $4,000,000 to bloodstock agent Donato Lanni, acting for Zedan Racing, to top this year’s Saratoga Yearling Sale. He was the first of Hall of Fame inductee Beholder’s foals to be offered at public auction. The price matched the third highest ever realised at the Saratoga Sale, and the most expensive since 2000.

Exceptional

Beholder is one of three Grade 1 winners out of the 2016 Broodmare of the Year, Leslie’s Lady (Tricky Creek). Her record at stud has been exceptional, but not also without its disappointments.

The lowest point surely was the news that her daughter America’s Joy died after an accident in training, and before she had a chance to race. America’s Joy was by the Triple Crown winner American Pharoah (Pioneerof The Nile), and she had been purchased as a yearling for a record $8,200,000 by Mandy Pope’s Whisper Hill Farm, and put in training with Todd Pletcher.

At the time of America’s Joy’s sale, Clarkland’s Fred Mitchell said: “I don’t have any words, it’s unreal, but in my opinion, this was the best individual the old mare has ever had. Can you believe a 22-year-old mare (in 2018) had something like this?” Selling the filly for $8.2 million was “something we never dreamed of in our life,” Mitchell said. “We dream of breeding a nice horse, and this is what it’s all about for the little consignors and the small guys.”

Mandy Pope added at the time: “You can’t fault her. She’s perfectly balanced. She’s gorgeous - not too big or small. This will probably put me out of shopping in November; I think I pretty much went through my broodmare budget for November.”

Leslie’s Lady, a stakes winner who was purchased by Clarkland Farm for just $100,000, is also the dam of the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner and promising sire Mendelssohn (Scat Daddy), and the multiple champion sire Into Mischief (Harlan’s Holiday).

Grade 1 winners

While Leslie’s Lady is the dam of eight winners in all, none of her other runners earned any blacktype. Two of her daughters have gone on to become stakes producers, the most recent being Leslie’s Harmony (Curlin). That $1.1 million yearling was placed once, but her son Scotland Yard (Quality Road) won a listed race in Saudi Arabia this year.

From a family that consistently makes headlines at the sales and on the racecourse, Ashford Stud’s $3 million yearling Mendelssohn is currently represented by two crops of runners, and his first crop includes the Grade 2 winning filly, Delight. He has a way to go to match the achievements of his Spendthrift-based sibling Into Mischief, the multiple champion stallion who broke his own earnings record in 2022 when his progeny won more than $28 million.

Also standing at Spendthrift, Bolt D’Oro has eight stakes winners in his first crop of three-year-olds, while second-crop member Tamara is the ninth, and most important. It was appropriate that she should gain her first Grade 1 win at Del Mar, the scene of Bolt D’Oro’s most important success, He won three of his four juvenile starts, including the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity, and was third to Good Magic in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.

At three, Bolt D’Oro started just four times, winning the Grade 2 San Felipe Stakes from McKinzie, and he ran second to Justify in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby. He was the leading freshman sire in the USA last year, and yet covered this year for what looks to be a value fee of $35,000.