ELSEWHERE on this page I have written about the mare Xaloc, carrying a three-parts sibling to Foundation and she is catalogued as Lot 444 on Thursday at Goffs.

The very next lot due into the ring is the Sadler’s Wells mare Precious Gem, carrying an attractive covering by Kodiac. She received a timely sales boost when her second foal, a three-year-old colt by Sea The Stars, won last week on his debut. Owned and bred by Lady Bamford and trained by Sir Mark Prescott, Flymetothestars could be a horse to watch for and some blacktype might even be his before the year is out.

Precious Gem was twice a money spinner in the sales ring. As a yearling Dermot Weld purchased her for €230,000 and she went on to win the Group 3 Ballymacoll Stud International Stakes at the Curragh and the Listed Martin Molony Stakes at Limerick. Put in foal to Dansili, she was then sold at the December Sale for 480,000gns. That foal she was carrying has not raced to date.

Flymetothestars is the first runner for his dam and that win was gained on his racecourse debut. Following on is a two-year-old daughter of Dubawi and a yearling colt by Sea The Stars. In terms of matings Precious Gem has been given a wonderful start at stud, and she has a lot to live up to as her family is full of stakes winners.

Precious Gem is the best of a trio of winners from the Danehill mare Ruby. One of the others is Fiero and while he has won more than £1 million, his best effort in stakes company was to finish runner-up in the Group 1 Mile Championship in Japan. Ruby is a full-sister to one of the toughest racehorses we have seen for many years.

Rock Of Gibraltar was the champion of his year in Europe in 2002 and his 10 victories included no fewer than seven Group 1 races. As a juvenile he won the Dewhurst Stakes and the Grand Criterium, while the next year he added the Irish and English 2000 Guineas, St James’s Palace Stakes, Sussex Stakes and Prix du Moulin de Longchamp. He has sired heaps of stakes winners and he is reviewed elsewhere in this issue of the paper.

Precious Gem has some way to go to recoup the 480,000gns invested in her less than five years ago by Lady Bamford, but she could yet deliver and she makes for one of the more interesting lots due under the hammer next week.

Breeders, stallion masters and readers are invited to contact leopowell@theirishfield.ie and visit our website www.theirishfield.ie with breeding news