WHAT have Irish Derby winners Balanchine (1994) and Sovereign (2019), four-time Group 1 winner Thunder Snow, French Oaks heroine West Wind and the unbeaten juvenile hurdler Duffle Coat got in common?

Well, they all descend from the Robert Sangster-owned Morning Devotion (Affirmed), a group-placed two-year-old winner on her debut of the Park Lodge Maiden Stakes at Newmarket over six furlongs in 1984.

Trained by Michael Stoute and ridden by Walter Swinburn, she then finished third to two subsequent Group 1 winners, Oh So Sharp and Helen Street, in the Group 3 Hoover Fillies’ Mile.

At stud Morning Devotion produced 10 winners, three of them at group level. Balanchine (Storm Bird) was the best of them and she won her first two starts for Sangster before attracting the attention of Hamdan Al Maktoum. She wintered in Dubai, part of the then experimental Godolphin team, and on her three-year-old bow she was beaten a short head in the 1000 Guineas, ironically beaten by Sangster’s Las Meninas.

The Oaks at Epsom was next and she made history by becoming the first classic winner for Godolphin, prompting Sheikh Mohammed to say that “This experiment has obviously worked. We will now have to think about campaigning horses from Dubai all over the world.”

Irish Derby

Instead of keeping Balanchine among her own sex, Sheikh Mohammed opted to take on the colts in the Irish Derby at the Curragh. Balanchine stayed on strongly to win by four and a half lengths from the Derby runner-up King’s Theatre. Her rider, Frankie Dettori, described her as “unbelievable”.

Less than three weeks later she contracted colic and became gravely ill. She did run three times at four, her best effort coming when a short-head second to the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Carnegie in the Prix Foy.

Balanchine’s unraced half-sister Alleged Devotion (Alleged) almost matched her dam’s effort and bred nine winners, four of them successful in blacktype races. One of her other winners, the Group 2 Debutante Stakes runner-up Devoted To You (Danehill Dancer), is the dam of classic winner Sovereign (Galileo).

The best of the four stakes winners from Alleged Devotion is Humble Eight (Seattle Battle). Four of her six wins were in stakes races in the USA and most notably included the Grade 3 Honeybee Handicap at Oaklawn Park. At stud three of her four winners were by Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer), and one of these was Humilis.

Smullen winner

Bought for 360,000gns as a yearling and raced by Kilboy Estate, Humilis was trained by Dermot Weld and ran up a sequence of three wins in the hands of Pat Smullen – a maiden at Clonmel, a Naas handicap and the Listed Blue Wind Stakes at Cork. While she comes from a leading flat family, Humilis is leaving her mark on the world of National Hunt racing.

To date her three winners are point-to-point, bumper and hurdle winner Redemption Song (Mastercraftsman), six-time winner Starchitect (Sea The Stars) who was runner-up in Grade 3 races over hurdles and fences but sadly met with a fatal accident at six, and now Duffle Coat who two weeks ago added a win in the Grade 2 Prestbury Juvenile Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham to an earlier win in the Listed Wensleydale Juvenile Hurdle at Wetherby.

Duffle Coat is now one of the favourites for the Grade 1 Triumph Hurdle.

The last foal out of Humilis is a yearling colt by Mount Nelson (Rock Of Gibraltar). I was delighted to hear this week from John and Olive Hackett and the Portlaw, Co Waterford couple are glorying in Duffle Coat’s success as they own the aforementioned Redemption Song.

Hackett delight

Redemption Song won a four-year-old point-to-point against geldings, sold for £65,000 at the Tattersalls Ireland Cheltenham November Sale in 2016, and went on to win a bumper and a hurdle race, and being placed in all her outings over fences before an injury ended her racing career.

The Hackett’s were lucky enough to secure her last year and she now has a colt foal by Westerner (Danehill) and is in foal to Maxios (Monsun). John and Olive keep a small band of mares and what an exciting one they have in Duffle Coat’s half-sister. Another half-sister, the winner-producer Humiliation (Cape Cross) was purchased a few years ago by David Stack’s Coolagown Stud, and she was covered this year by the stud’s Axxos (Monsun).

Duffle Coat is from the second crop of Tara Stud’s Group 2 winner Alhebayeb, a son of leading sire Dark Angel (Acclamation). The stallion’s first two crops include four stakes winners on the flat, while Duffle Coat is his first major winner, from a handful of starters, over hurdles. The three-year-old is trained by Gordon Elliott and was purchased having just turned a yearling for €16,000 by Kevin Ross at the 2018 Tattersalls Ireland February National Hunt Sale.

Arkle recalled with Navan bumper winner

TWO years ago Noel Meade spent €110,000 at the Tattersalls Ireland Derby Sale on a daughter of Jeremy (Danehill Dancer) and the unraced Mystic Cherry, a daughter of the Champion Hurdle winner Alderbrook (Ardross). She had lots of appeal, being a half-sister to a pair of blacktype winning mares in full-sisters Mystic Theatre (King’s Theatre) and Morello Royale.

Racing in the colours of Gigginstown House Stud, the now five-year-old mare, Castra Vetera, is actually trained by Joseph O’Brien. She has won three of her four bumper starts and, most significantly, at the weekend landed the Listed Coolmore EBF Mares INH Flat Race at Navan.

In addition to breeding three blacktype winners, Mystic Cherry is also dam of a point-to-point winning mare and she has a three-year-old gelding and a two-year-old filly, both by Sageburg (Johannesburg) to run for her.

Castra Vetera, named after a Roman camp near the Lower Rhine, was bred by Peter and Maria Byrne and is from a mare that Peter bought as a yearling for €11,000. What a shrewd investment that proved to be. Mystic Cherry is a half-sister to two winners on the track and three more who did their winning between the flags.

The best of the five was Cherry Tart (Persian Mews) and she won five races over hurdles and fences and got some blacktype when placed in a listed chase.

Resurgence

This is a family that has had quite a resurgence in recent years, but it is one that produced arguably the best chaser of all time in Arkle (Archive). For me, personally, he was the very best. Mystic Cherry did not race and neither did any of the next three dams in the family. However, all went on to breed winners, and all we sired by successful stallions.

Castra Vetera’s grandam was Cherry Avenue (King’s Ride), his third dam was Cherry Leaf (Vulgan), and his fourth dam was Cherry Bud (Mustang). The last named bred full-brothers Vulture (Vulgan) and Colebridge. The former was runner-up in the Aintree Grand National, while Colebridge won the Irish Grand National and was third in the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

Hero

One more generation back and there he is. Arkle, winner of 27 races, three-time winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup and a childhood hero of mine. He won everything going, the King George VI Chase, the Irish Grand National, the Whitbread Gold Cup, the Hennessy Gold Cup twice and the list goes on and on.

Arkle was the best of three winners (how could there have been better!) from Bright Cherry (Knight Of The Garter) and she was a good performer too, winning eight times over jumps and these included the Easter Chase at Fairyhouse.