JIM Bolger got the 2019 flat season off to a flying start at Naas on Saturday, saddling a treble which included the feature Group 3 Lodge Park Stud Irish EBF Park Express Stakes. It was highly appropriate that the Coolcullen maestro should win the race, named in honour of a filly he trained with great success.

Park Express showed promise as a two-year-old in 1985 before developing into a top-class middle-distance performer at three.

Racing against her own age and sex she won the Lancashire Oaks and Nassau Stakes before recording her biggest success against colts and older horses in the Group 1 Phoenix Champion Stakes. She has been an outstanding broodmare, producing the Derby winner New Approach.

Bolger obviously spotted the potential in the now five-year-old Normadel (Le Havre) after she made a single start for him at the concluding meeting of the season last year at Naas. That day she was a well-beaten fourth in a listed race, having moved from Pia Brandt’s stable in France, and the ownership of Gerard Augustin-Normand, to Ireland and now racing for Ballylinch Stud. Normandel won a listed race in France at three and was group-placed.

Her appeal as a potential broodmare was enhanced in 2016 when her half-brother Mont Ormel (Air Chief Marshal) won the Group 1 Juddmonte Grand Prix de Paris, and he regained the wining thread recently in Hong Kong when he was successful at Happy Valley. He is now named Helene Charisma.

That pair of stakes winners are out of Lidana (King’s Best) who was sold by her breeder, the Aga Khan, as a three-year-old for just €38,000. She won at two but her new owners covered her with Danehill Dancer (Danehill) and turned a profit a year later when selling her for 140,000gns.

Lidana is now dam of four winners, including Normadel’s full-sister La Pyle, and given that this cross has twice been successful it is no surprise to learn that their yearling sibling is another by Le Havre (Noverre).

Mont Ormel, or Helene Charisma, is not the only Group 1 winner up close in the pedigree. Lidana is one of five winners from Lidakiya (Kahyasi) and this three-time victress bred Linngari (Indian Ridge). That globetrotter won in England (biggest win was the Listed Superior Mile at Haydock), Germany (Group 1 winner), Italy (Group 1 winner) and the UAE where he was twice a Group 2 winner. He was Group 1 placed in France, England, UAE and Hong Kong.

Le Havre commands a fee of €45,000 this year and his first crop included the dual classic winner Avenir Certain and the Grade 1 Shadwell Turf Mile winner Suedois, while his third crop produced another dual classic winner in La Cressonniere. She, like her paternal sibling, won the French 1000 Guineas and Oaks – the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches and Prix de Diane.