ODELIZ developed in to a Group 1 winner for owner Barbara Keller last year and the Swiss-based owner, with many connections to Ireland, is hoping that she has another potential winner at the highest level with her ownership of Blond Me.
A four-year-old daughter of Tamayuz, Blond Me is trained by Andrew Balding and is a dual listed winner in Britain and she was also runner-up in a Grade 2 race at Belmont. She was recently off on her international travels again and landed the Group 2 Longines International Topkapi Trophy at Veliefendi in Turkey. Oisin Murphy was on board the winner who boosted her career earnings to more than £340,000.
It has been a good racing year for breeders Mark and Elaine Clarke at Wardstown Stud with such as Magical Memory and Blond Me performing with great distinction. Hopefully the latest win for Blond Me will serve to increase interest in her half-brother by Clodovil who sells on Tuesday at the Goffs Orby Sale as Lot 78.
The Clarkes purchased the dam of Blond Me from Ballymacoll Stud for 30,000gns at Tattersalls back in 2006. The then three-year-old Docksider filly had only made a single start over seven furlongs and won her maiden at Newmarket as a two-year-old. She came from one of the Co Meath farm’s great female families but she was just the first foal of her dam Spring Symphony at the time and it was a bit of a gamble to buy her, hoping that future siblings would step up to the mark.
Well, the gamble paid off and those siblings now include the Verglas colt Glass Harmonium who won the Group 1 Longines LKS Mackinnon Stakes in Australia, and Arab Spring who recently added the Group 3 September Stakes to his victory last year in the John Porter Stakes. This is a family that keeps on giving and there will be many more stakes winners to emerge in the years ahead.
Holda is the dam of five foals of racing age, four of which have raced. The only one yet to start is the two-year-old Arcano filly My Brunette.
The four that have run have yielded three winners and Blond Me stands head and shoulders over the others. One of these is Red Larkspur and this dual winning daughter of Red Clubs has a yearling filly by Sir Percy as her first offspring.
The Clodovil at Goffs on Tuesday is only the second colt produced by Holda, the other was the winner Antarctic and he was the mare’s first produce. The son of Alhaarth sold as a yearling at Goffs for €80,000. At home in Wardstown is a colt foal by Holy Roman Emperor.
Another major boost to the pedigree since the Clarkes bought Holda is the fact that her dam Spring Symphony’s half-brother Conduit became an outstanding international runner, landing the Breeders’ Cup Turf twice as well as winning the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the St Leger.
The next dam bred Irish 2000 Guineas and Champion Stakes winner Spectrum and is grandam of Petrushka, the Kildangan Stud Irish Oaks winner. Another generation back and the St Leger winner Millenary pops up. The first five dams of the Clodovil yearling at Goffs have bred at least one group winner each. That is quite an achievement.