ALWAYS Dreaming captured the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on Saturday and this improving three-year-old has a fair shot of becoming a Triple Crown winner given his rate of improvement this year. He was placed twice at two years and back in January landed his maiden success. He is now unbeaten in four starts in 2017 and they also include the Grade 1 Florida Derby, his first run in a stakes race.

The Kentucky-bred Always Dreaming was sold through Gerry Dilger’s Dromoland Farm by the Santa Rosa Partners for $350,000 as a yearling at the Keeneland September Sale. With earnings now of almost $2.3 million and a potential stud value of multiples of that amount, it has proven to be a dream investment by agent Steven Young on behalf of the extensive partnership who now own the three-year-old.

The name Santa Rosa Partners disguises the real identity of the breeders of the Derby winner. They are two Irishmen, Mike Ryan and the aforementioned Gerry Dilger. What a tonic this win was for Ryan who recently lost his father, the renowned Irish breeder Con.

Always Dreaming comes from the first crop of his sire Bodemeister who only raced at three, winning two of his six starts and finishing second on all his other runs. He won the Arkansas Derby and was runner-up in both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes. That first crop contains three stakes winners and the Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes runner-up Royal Copy, and this year breeders can avail of Bodemeister for a fee of just $25,000. Co-breeder Ryan bought a share in the sire when he went to stud, believing him to be “one of the most magnificent specimens of a stallion that I had seen in a number of years.”

Bodemeister, whose fifth dam was the champion two-year-old filly and Queen Mary, Lowther and Molecomb Stakes winner Bitty Girl, is a son of Empire Maker who was runner-up in the Kentucky Derby and won the Belmont Stakes, Florida Derby and Wood Memorial Stakes at three. He is also sire of multiple champion Royal Delta and the Santa Anita Derby winner and leading sire Pioneerof The Nile, and grandsire of the most recent Triple Crown winner American Pharoah.

Empire Maker’s sire Unbridled was champion three-year-old and won the Kentucky Derby.

The dam of this year’s Kentucky Derby winner, Above Perfection, was no slouch during her racing days and she was ultra-consistent too. She was successful in seven of her 10 starts in three seasons racing, her four stakes wins headed by the Grade 3 Las Flores Handicap at Santa Anita. She came close to being a winner at the highest level, having to settle for second place, beaten a nose by Xtra Heat, in the Grade 1 Prioress Stakes in one of the most stirring finishes you will ever see. She was bought by Ryan and Dilger for $450,000 when ClassicStar held their dispersal at Fasig-Tipton in 2006 and has no inbreeding for five generations, something of a rarity these days.

Always Dreaming is her second Grade 1 winner, being preceded by the Dixie Union filly Hot Dixie Chick who was in utero when Ryan and Dilger bought her. A track-record holder at Churchill Downs where she ran five furlongs in 56.48 seconds, she won four of her seven starts including the Grade 1 Spinaway Stakes at Saratoga. She has now gone on to make her mark as a broodmare with her Curlin son Union Jackson being a smart sprinter in the USA and a stakes winner of five of his nine starts to date.

While the rest of the pedigree of Always Dreaming shows that there is a steady stream of stakes winners, it has taken a major step forward following the achievements of Above Perfection. She is now the dam of seven winners from seven offspring to race, and she herself is a half-sister to a minor stakes winner, Made To Perfection, by the little-known Bolger.

A notable footnote to the recent Derby victory by Always Dreaming is that co-breeder Gerry Dilger was involved in pinhooking last year’s winner of the race, Nyquist, buying him for $180,000 with Ted Campion and Pat Costello and selling him on for a neat profit at $400,000. Nyquist is this year’s mate for Above Perfection. What are the odds on her producing the 2021 Derby winner?