FOUR White Socks won the Group 3 feature at Gowran Park on Thursday and few will have cheered her home the winner as loudly as Michael Shefflin (pictured) of Annshoon Stud. He is the registered breeder of the winner’s yearling half-sister by Sepoy (Elusive Quality), just the sixth offspring of the Green Desert (Danzig) mare Peppermint Green.
The mare was sold carrying her Sepoy daughter for 4,000gns at the Tattersalls December Sale and she comes from one of the famous female lines at Meon Valley Stud. The price was quite the bargain, given that Four White Socks, a daughter of Lope De Vega (Shamardal), sold for 110,000gns as a yearling and was in training with Luca Cumani.
A winner at Goodwood on her second start at three for the now-retired Newmarket trainer, the appropriately-named Four White Socks was sold at the end of her three-year-old career to Stephen Hillen Bloodstock for 50,000gns and made two starts this year for Harry Fry before moving on to Joseph Tuite. Her Gowran win was the first start for her new trainer and in the colours of Rebecca Hillen.
Four White Socks and Declan McDonogh win the Group 3 Denny Cordell Lavarack & Lanwades Stud Fillies Stakes \ Healy Racing
Peppermint Green showed little ability on the racecourse but with two winners, and another in waiting, she can be deemed a success at stud. The best of her siblings was the Grade 2 San Diego Handicap winner Sun Boat (Machiavellian) and they are out of One So Wonderful (Nashwan), winner of the Group 1 Juddmonte International Stakes.
This is a female line that traces to Four White Sock’s fourth dam One In A Million (Rarity), the 1979 Group 1 1000 Guineas heroine. This is also the family of Anapurna (Frankel), winner of the Group 1 Investec Oaks in June.