NIGHT Of Thunder (Dubawi) is having a fine 2024 season on the track, and no sire can touch him for the number of winners he has sired among his three-year-old crop.

That cohort includes Nighteyes, sent by David O’Meara to contest the Yeomanstown Stud-sponsored Listed Sweet Mimosa Stakes which she won by three lengths, and this progressive filly was placed in another listed race on her previous start.

Sold as a yearling to Jason Kelly Bloodstock for 150,000gns, Nighteyes has now won four times over six furlongs and only been out of the frame twice in 10 starts. Bred by John Tuthill’s Owenstown Bloodstock, Nighteyes was the icing on the cake during a good week for Tuthill, which also included picking up an ITBA breeders’ award for Art Power (Dark Angel), a relation to Nighteyes.

A daughter of Penny Pepper (Fast Company), Nighteyes is the best of three runners to date for her dam. Her half-brother The Grey Wolf (Dark Angel) is now a three-time winner, twice this year, while the other runner has been placed. Meanwhile, Tuthill has a yearling half-brother to the Naas listed winner, this one by Mehmas (Acclamation).

Penny Pepper was bred and raced by John Tuthill, and she was runner-up on both her juvenile starts, then in the care of Eve Johnson Houghton. She was transferred to the care of Kevin Prendergast, raced for three more seasons, and on her final outing, in foal, she earned a coveted Group 3 success at the Curragh in the six-furlong Ballyogan Stakes. Tuthill had tried to sell Penny Pepper as a yearling, but she returned to Owenstown.

Art Power

The ITBA award was earned after Art Power won his ninth race, the Group 1 British Champions Sprint at Ascot, and his five other pattern race victories included the Group 2 Weatherbys Greenlands Stakes at the Curragh. His career earnings of some €925,000 puts him eighth on the all-time list of winners sired by Yeomanstown Stud’s Dark Angel (Acclamation).

Art Power is the best of 10 winners out of Evening Time (Keltos), three of which are stakes winners, and two more earned blacktype. Art Power and Penny Pepper are joined by the French stakes winner Morning Frost (Duke Of Marmalade), while the most recent winner in the family is Art Power’s full-brother Symmetric Power (Dark Angel). A three-year-old, he won at Chantilly in February and was third in the Group 3 Prix Sigy there in April.

Tuthill and his aunt Averil Whitehead retained Evening Time as a yearling, and the daughter of the sub-fertile Keltos (Kendor) was put into training with Kevin Prendergast. At two she ran out a nine-length winner of a six-furlong maiden, and eight days later at the Curragh added the Listed Flame Of Tara EBF Stakes, beating Theann by five lengths.

As a three-year-old, Evening Time added a second stakes win at Leopardstown, most impressive when landing the Sweet Mimosa Stakes (the race won by Nighteyes but now run in Naas) by five lengths, and she was twice placed in Group 3 races at the Curragh. She won or placed on five of her seven starts. At the December Sale at Tattersalls in 1996 the Juddmonte owned and raced Shadow Casting (Warning), the dam of Evening Time was sold for 7,000gns to Mrs Whitehead. The three-year-old was trained by Barry Hills to win and place from just a handful of starts.

Bad start

Shadow Casting’s career at stud could hardly have had a worse start, the first foal she produced selling for just IR£1,000 at Goffs as a yearling. He made his way to Italy where, named Distinctly Dancer (Distinctly North), he was a leading two-year-old, going on to win 11 races, two at listed level, and he was group-placed

Shadow Casting had six foals at stud, five of them raced and all of them won. She had three fillies and one of these was Mujadil Shadow (Mujadil). She found her way to Italy, won a couple of races, and is the dam of 11 winners, including her three-year-old Portomatto (Buratino) who has now won four times. More importantly, she is the dam of three stakes winners, Titus Shadow (Titus Livius) and Orpen Shadow (Orpen) successful at Group 3 level.

Shadow Casting’s half-sister Fanciful Dancer (Groom Dancer) produced the stakes winner and Grade 1 Arlington Million runner-up Fanciful Angel (Dark Angel), and the Listed Wolferton Stakes winner at Royal Ascot, Mountain Angel (Dark Angel).

Night Of Thunder has 17 stakes performers this year, including his three-year-old son Economics, the very easy Group 2 Dante winner at York but not seen since, juvenile filly Fairy Godmother who was a sensational winner of the Group 3 Albany Stakes at Royal Ascot, and the US Grade 2-winning three-year-old Dynamic Pricing.

Strawbridge is In Clover yet again

GEORGE Strawbridge is one of the world’s great owner-breeders, and his latest big race success come courtesy of Friendly Soul (Kingman). She is now three from four, adding the Group 3 Valiant Stakes at Ascot to an earlier win in the Listed Pretty Polly Stakes at Newmarket. The only blot on her record was an inexplicably bad run in the Musidora Stakes where she hung throughout the race.

There must be a great chance that John and Thady Gosden will continue Friendly Soul’s upward trajectory, and could she provide her dam, In Clover (Inchinor), with a fourth Group 1 winner, putting her among an elite group of mares in breeding history? Already responsible for Call the Wind (Frankel) and the full-sisters With You (Dansili) and We Are, In Clover’s nine winners include no fewer than seven stakes winners.

This family had another major boost last year when In Clover’s granddaughter Kelina (Frankel) won the Group 1 Prix de la Foret. She justified the Wertheimer brothers 420,000gns investment in the filly’s dam, Incahoots (Oasis Dream), nine years ago. Then a three-year-old, Incahoots topped the first session of the 2015 Tattersalls December Sale, and the George Strawbridge-owned and bred filly had won once. She was not far away from getting blacktype, and the Wertheimer brothers stated their intent to pursue that aim. It was achieved at Cagnes-Sur-Mer at four.

Wonderful broodmare

Incahoots is an own-sister to the dual stakes winner and group-placed Dream Clover (Oasis Dream), yet they are among the ‘lesser’ winners out of Strawbridge’s wonderful broodmare In Clover. As a racemare herself, In Clover won the Group 3 Prix de Flore, the highlight of her four victories.

Her son Call The Wind (Frankel) won the two and a half mile Group 1 Qatar Prix du Cadran at ParisLongchamp in 2020, and this followed a victory earlier in the year for his half-sister With You (Dansili) in the Group 1 Prix Rothschild. The latter’s full-sister We Are (Dansili) was previously successful in the Group 1 Prix de l’Opera Longines. In Clover’s other stakes winner is In Crowd (Dubawi).

In Clover’s dam Bellarida (Bellypha) was also a Group 3 winner, successful in the Prix de Royaumont. She had eight winning offspring, three stakes winners, and she is grandam of the Australian Group 2 winner Adjusted (Montjeu) and Group 3 winner and Group 1 Matron Stakes runner-up Lily’s Angel (Dark Angel). Bellarida is the third dam of Dominant (Cacique), winner of the Group 1 Hong Kong Vase, classic heroine Teppal (Camacho), winner of the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches-French 1000 Guineas, and the Group 1 Prix Jean Romanet winner Aristia (Starspangledbanner).