THERE will not be too many better updates for the Tattersalls December Sale than that of Lot 1618, the four-year-old New Approach (Galileo) mare Bandiuc Eile. This Group 2 Debutante Stakes runner-up was withdrawn from the same sale 12 months ago and instead put in foal to Profitable (Invincible Spirit).

The wait has already paid dividends as her half-brother Twilight Payment (Teofilo) this week won the Group 1 Emirates Melbourne Cup.

In so doing he provided Jim Bolger, still a part-owner, with a third Group 1 winner in just over a week as a breeder, following victories for Mac Swiney and Gear Up. This latest success was an eighth for Twilight Payment, his first at Group 1 level, and brought his winnings to a staggering €3.2 million.

He is the sixth Group 1 winner of 2020 for Teofilo who stands at Kildangan Stud, and the sire’s third in less than 10 days after the previously mentioned Gear Up and also Subjectivist. Twilight Payment is a second Melbourne Cup winner for Teofilo, following Cross Counter two years ago.

Twice a Group 2 winner, Twilight Payment was bred by Bolger from Dream On Buddy, an Oasis Dream (Green Desert) half-sister to Banimpire (Holy Roman Emperor), a filly that Bolger bought as a yearling for just €52,000 from Pat O’Kelly’s Kilcarn Stud, won the Group 2 Ribblesdale Stakes with, and sold for €2,300,000 as a three-year-old in 2011. The week after selling Banimpire, Bolger reinvested some of his takings when paying 240,000gns for Dream On Buddy, sold through Jacqueline Norris’ Jockey Hall Stud.

Dream On Buddy won a couple of races when trained by Barry Hills and she is one of five winners from My Renee (Kris S). That filly was bought as a yearling by Miss O’Kelly and put in training with Michael Grassick for whom she won listed races at Ascot and Cork and was group-placed from only a handful of starts. She was the best of seven winners from the unraced Mayenne (Nureyev).

Four of Mayenne’s five winning siblings won stakes races, while the odd one out, Wayne County (Sadler’s Wells), was runner-up in the Group 3 John Porter Stakes. He was not in the same league as his own-brother Carnegie (Sadler’s Wells), winner in 1994 as a three-year-old of the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and the Group 1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud.

In landing the Arc, Carnegie emulated a feat previously achieved by his dam Detroit (Riverman). Forty years ago in 1980 she won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in the colours of Robert Sangster when trained by Olivier Douieb. She set a record time in winning her only Group 1 race.

Antoinette chuffed to bits with Freyja’s win

ANTOINETTE Kavanagh will surely have been delighted with the weekend success of the Mark Johnston-trained Freyja. The three-year-old daughter of Gleneagles (Galileo) carried her colours to victory in the Listed James Seymour Stakes at Newmarket, a fifth win for the filly and an important one from a breeding or potential sales point of view.

Perhaps Freyja’s trainer knew what he had in the yard when he bought her yearling half-brother in October for just 22,000gns. The son of Churchill (Galileo) has already been named Chuffed To Bits! Freyja herself cost 37,000gns as a yearling, has won more than £48,000 in prizemoney, and becomes the seventh stakes winner from the first crop of her sire. That crop now numbers a dozen stakes performers among them.

Freyja was bred by Christopher Hanbury and is from a family with which he has had a long and distinguished association. With her listed success Freyja is the third stakes winning offspring of the two-year-old winner Crystal Valkyrie (Danehill). She is one of 11 winners from that mare whose progeny include the Group 3 Sandown Classic Trial winner Above Average (High Chaparral) and the Group 3 winning two-year-old Sent From Heaven (Footstepsinthesand).

Crystal Valkyrie’s dam Crystal Cross (Roberto) won four times and she is a half-sister to Iktamal (Danzig Connection), winner of the Group 1 Haydock Sprint, dual Group 2 winner First Magnitude (Arazi) and the Grade 2 Arkansas Derby winner Rockamundo (Key To The Mint). They are all out of Crystal Cup (Nijinsky), a daughter of Rose Bowl (Habitat).

Rose Bowl was one of the very best fillies of her generation. She won six of her 14 races, her first big race success coming at three in the Group 3 Nell Gwyn Stakes on her first run of the season. Injury caused her to be side-lined for some time but she returned to her best form in autumn, winning the Group 2 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes over one mile and then beating a top-class international field in the 10-furlong Group 1 Champion Stakes.

She won a second Queen Elizabeth II Stakes and was narrowly beaten in the Champion Stakes in 1976, when her season was again disrupted by injury. After she retired from racing she became a successful and influential broodmare.

Bargain buy Skyace upsets the big guns

BARGAIN of the year. One serious contender for that accolade has to be Skyace, the five-year-old daughter of five-time Group 1 winner and champion stayer Westerner (Danehill). Trained by Shark Hanlon, Skyace gained her third and most important success when she won the Grade 3 Lough EBF Mares Novice Hurdle at Down Royal.

Originally in the care of Willie Mullins, Skyace made three starts last year in bumpers and after finishing second on her debut at Ballinrobe, she ran third at Galway and Tramore. Sent to the Tattersalls Ascot Autumn Sale, she was sold for the scarcely believable price of £600 to Hanlon. She has won or been placed in four of her seven starts since and earned almost €39,000.

Skyace is the first of four foals for her unraced Milan (Sadler’s Wells) dam Graigace, and the others include a three-year-old full-sister. Graigace is a daughter of Ace Ciel (Be My Native) and she won a Thurles bumper on her racecourse debut. She was one of three winners from Vital Touch (Le Bavard), a hunter chase winner at Downpatrick who also won four point-to-points, her wins between the flags include being partnered to success by Adrian Maguire and Enda Bolger.

Another winning daughter of Vital Touch was Erkindale Touch (Supreme Leader). She won a bumper at Fairyhouse and was runner-up in another at Limerick from just three starts and her winners at stud are headed by the listed chase winner A Genie In Abottle (Beneficial), trained by Noel Meade and who was third in the Grade 1 Champion Novice Chase at Punchestown to stable companion Disko and Anibale Fly.

A horse for the future

CAPTAIN Morgs is a horse to watch for, and one man who will delight in his future success is Peter Inch in Cornwall.

Working in association with his friend Peter Molony at Rathmore Stud, Pete bought Captain Morgs as a foal from breeders Brendan and Bronagh Lawler for €26,000 at Tattersalls Ireland, and resold him last year at the Goffs Land Rover Sale for €55,000.

Beaten a neck on his debut in a bumper, the four-year-old son of Milan (Sadler’s Wells) won at the second time of asking, this time over hurdles, at Ascot on Saturday. He is trained by Nicky Henderson who bought him at the sales with the help of Highflyer Bloodstock. Were he to become a big-race winner, Captain Morgs would be following a family tradition.

His fourth dam is the winner Gold Pin (Pinza) and her seven successful offspring include the Aurelius Hurdle (at Ascot) winner Golden Jet (Jolly Jet).

That gelding’s half-sister Rievaulx Abbey (Double Jump) had just a single winner, but he was a good ‘un. Deep Idol (Deep Run) won the Grade 1 Irish Champion Hurdle and Grade 1 Denny Gold Medal Novice Chase, both at Leopardstown.

Rievaulx Abbey’s daughter Colleen Donn (Le Moss), Captain Morgs’ grandam, was another mare to breed seven winners, and two of these gained their biggest success at Aintree. Chief Dan George (Lord Americo), nine times a winner, captured the Grade 1 Sefton Novices’ Hurdle, while his half-brother Macgeorge (Mandalus) landed the Grade 2 Martell Cup Chase.

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