DURING a recent visit to Boardsmill Stud I had the pleasure of seeing Kalanisi (Doyoun). It was appropriate that I should see him 20 years after he crowned a memorable season racing by travelling to Churchill Downs and winning the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf.

He had the likes of Fantastic Light and Montjeu behind him that day, and that was the culmination of a racing season that saw him win the Group 1 Dubai Champion Stakes, the then Group 2 Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot, and finish a head behind Giant’s Causeway twice, in the Group 1 Coral Eclipse Stakes and Group 1 Juddmonte International.

While he had plenty of stakes winners on the flat, it is over jumps that we have seen the best of Kalanisi’s stock. His very first crop included Katchit and he progressed from winning the Grade 1 Triumph Hurdle at Cheltenham to capturing the Grade 1 Champion Hurdle at the same venue. He was followed a few years later by Grade 1 Champion Four-Year-Old Hurdle winner Barizan.

Barter’s Hill won the Grade 1 Challow Hurdle and then Fayronagh appeared. What a champion she was and would have been, winning the Grade 1 champion bumpers in Cheltenham and Punchestown. The Grade 1 tally has since been added to by the chaser Kalashnikov, while there are many other winners of blacktype races in bumpers, over hurdles and fences.

One of Kalanisi’s winners at this year’s Cheltenham Festival meeting was the Headfield Farm Ltd-bred Imperial Aura. He won a listed novices’ handicap chase. Now he is winner of seven of his 11 starts, has never finished out of the first three, and Imperial Aura supplemented his Cheltenham win with victories in his two starts since, the Listed Charlie Parker Memorial Chase at Carlisle, and last weekend’s Grade 2 Chanelle Pharma 1965 Chase at Ascot.

Ryanair favourite

Today, Imperial Aura is favourite for the 2021 Grade 1 Ryanair Chase at Cheltenham. Owners Imperial Racing, through trainer Kim Bailey, paid €26,000 for the gelding at the Goffs Land Rover Sale, a nice profit for the €5,600 invested in him by Susan Traynor as a foal at Tattersalls Ireland when he sold from Ballyconnigar Stables.

The better of two winners to date from his bumper-winning dam, Imperial Aura is one of just six offspring of Missindependence. That daughter of Executive Perk (Lord Gayle) was a bumper winner at Punchestown when trained by Charlie Swan and she placed a number of times over hurdles. Her first five offspring were geldings, and her final produce is a now four-year-old daughter of Milan (Sadler’s Wells).

Missindependence was the only winner for her dam Bonnies Glory (General Ironside) and that mare visited the winners’ enclosure at a point-to-point at the age of eight. She had four winning siblings. You have to go back to Imperial Aura’s fourth generation to find the next blacktype winners, both mares. They were Grade 2 Leopardstown Chase winner Kilkilwell (Harwell) and the listed hurdle winner Kilkilrun (Deep Run).

Court Cave

While William Flood will have derived great pleasure from Imperial Aura’s win, he will have been jumping for joy watching Call Me Lyreen extend his unbeaten run to three at Naas.

The four-year-old son of Boardsmill’s Court Cave (Sadler’s Wells) raced for the first time in mid-September, winning a maiden hurdle at Tramore, and last month he was successful at Sligo before snuggly winning the Grade 2 Old Persian At Glenview Stud Fishery Lane Hurdle.

Recent winners of the same race have been top-level performers Jezki, Unaccompanied, Early Doors and Espoir D’Allen, so the future is certainly bright for Call Me Lyreen who was bred by William Flood and sold at last year’s Derby Sale to Aidan O’Ryan and Gordon Elliott for €34,000.

His sale appeal was obvious as his dam is a half-sister to one of Court Cave’s best runners, Champion Court.

Indeed, Champion Court is from the first crop of Court Cave who did not race himself. In spite of this his appeal as a stallion was obvious. A son of Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer), he is out of the Group 1 Irish Oaks winner Wemyss Bight (Dancing Brave). She is the dam of the multiple Group/Grade 1 winner and successful sire Beat Hollow.

As it that is not enough, Court Cave comes from one of the very best Juddmonte families. He shares the same grandam as champion and leading sire Oasis Dream (Green Desert), the French classic winner Zenda (Zamindar) whose best runner is four-time Group 1 winner and leading sire Kingman (Invincible Spirit), the stakes-placed Trellis Bay (Sadler’s Wells) whose grandson is the French Derby winner New Bay (Dubawi), and finally Coraline (Sadler’s Wells) who three sons, Reefscape (Linamix), Martaline (Linamix) and Coastal Path (Halling), all have the distinction of siring Grade 1 National Hunt winners.

Humble start

From humble beginnings Court Cave battled his way to prominence and Grade 1 winners Willoughby Court and City Island head a growing number of high-class National Hunt performers he has sired. It is interesting too that despite not winning a Grade 1 race, Champion Court is one of the two highest-rated runners for his sire. He is a Grade 2 winner at Cheltenham over hurdles and fences and he was successful eight times in all.

Call Me Lyreen now shares with Champion Court the distinction of being the only blacktype winners in five generations of the family. Hopefully a couple of younger full-brothers to Call Me Lyreen will bring even more success in the future. They are out of the unraced Dilshaan (Darshaan) mare Mooneys Valley.

Champion Court and Mooneys Valley were produced by Mooneys Hill (Supreme Leader), and she won a two-mile maiden hurdle at Clonmel when trained by Al O’Connell. She was eight at the time but she beat Over The Furze, two years her junior, and he went on the following year to win a Grade 3 novice chase at Leopardstown.

Mooney’s Hill, in turn, was the only foal of Lamally Princess (Le Bavard) and the latter was a Navan bumper winner who, on the day, beat 17 opponents, a number of which went on to become household names. Sometimes, when looking at pedigree pages, the devil is in the detail!