HAVING disappointed somewhat on her racecourse debut in December, finishing fifth in a maiden hurdle at Navan, the five-year-old Echoing Silence made amends when Henry de Bromhead sent her to Down Royal to contest and win a 12-runner mares’ bumper for Kenny Alexander.

The ease of her victory would suggest that there is more to come from this daughter of Doyen (Sadler’s Wells), and she has made a first payback for her tasty sale price last year.

Bred by the late George Rothwell and his sister Hilda, Echoing Silence made headlines a year ago, on the eve of the Gold Cup at Cheltenham. Then she topped the Tattersalls Cheltenham Festival Sale at the venue, selling for a staggering £410,000, providing an astonishing result for Correna Bowe and her boss Sam Curling, as she had cost just €28,000 at the previous year’s Tattersalls Ireland July Sale.

It was Peter Molony of Rathmore Stud who struck the decisive and winning bid for the impressive four-length point-to-point winner at Ballycahane last March. The filly was the talk of the sale ring, was known to Molony, and in the immediate aftermath of her purchase, was being mentioned as the ‘next Honeysuckle’.

Pedigree boost

In addition to being a debut winner between the flags, the filly got a major pedigree boost when her half-brother Deafening Silence (Alkaadhem) won the Grade 2 Winter Novices’ Hurdle at Sandown, reigniting a branch of a solid family. He and Echoing Silence are the two winners for their bumper-winning dam Taipers (Taipan) – she did this as a seven-year-old – but they also have a sibling who was successful in a point-to-point too.

Clearly an eye-catching mare, Echoing Silence drew lots of compliments from Molony at the sale. He said: “She’s just absolutely stunning. I’d been told about her a few months before and she’s just absolutely stunning. I actually attempted to sell her brother, who won a Grade 2, in Doncaster a couple of years ago. He went through the ring and we didn’t get a bid for him. She’ll be going to Henry.”

At the time Molony did not name her owner, but the signs were always there that Echoing Silence would sport the Alexander colours.

Echoing Silence was sold by Bowe, in partnership with her father JJ, and the now dual Cheltenham Festival-winning trainer Curling. JJ broke her in, and she then joined Curling at Skehanagh. After the sale, Curling said: “She’s a lovely filly and has everything – size, pedigree and she’s lovely looking. I’d say she’s very good.” Bowe, a niece of Colin, added: “This is my first time bringing a horse to a sale like this and it’s absolutely amazing. My dad and I picked her out and he broke her, Sam has done the rest and has been amazing. Phillip Enright’s been doing the schooling but she’s just been so simple and so easy.”

Mary Connors

Echoing Silence’s dam is one of three winners from another mare who took her time to register a win, she being Mary Connors (Mandalus). Her sole success came at the age of eight in a point-to-point, and the best known of her winning offspring was Crash (Milan). He won a point-to-point before adding a bumper, a hurdle race and a single chase. The recently retired Michael Hourigan trained him for Gigginstown, and the gelding put up a career-best performance when second in a Grade 2 novice chase at Naas.

Ironically, that Naas race was won by Saxophone (Supreme Leader) when it was a Grade 3, and was one of three races at that level that he numbered among his five career successes.

Saxophone and Crash are both grandsons of Judy Cullen (Wrekin Rambler), a listed-placed hurdler who won seven times in all. Also appearing on the pedigree page is The Last Samurai (Flemensfirth), and while he won eight races, none was a blacktype, but he did finish runner-up in the Grand National at Aintree.

HAVING turned 19 in January, Sea The Stars is about to embark on his 16th season at Gilltown Stud, this time commanding a career-high fee of €250,000. He went to the covering shed in 2010 at a cost of €85,000, and holds a rare honour of never having had his fee lowered – and with good reason. Here is a horse who delivers year after year.

What a start he has made to 2025, and his four-year-old son Map Of Stars took his tally of wins to four at Saint-Cloud when he captured the Group 3 Prix Exbury at Saint-Cloud. This race, the first group contest of the flat season in France, is an early indicator of likely Arc candidates later in the year, and is a prep race for the Prix Ganay, the first Group 1 race of the season, scheduled for April 27th at ParisLongchamp.

With just a single defeat in five starts, Wathnan Racing’s Map Of Stars has been carefully handled by trainer Francis Graffard, and should the colt continue to develop and improve he would be a major stallion prospect.

Bred by Al Asayl Bloodstock, Map Of Stars is one of 82 group winners, in addition to a further 53 stakes winners, sired by the brilliant Sea The Stars, and his dam was herself a talented runner.

She was Bateel (Dubawi), a listed winner when trained by David Simcock, but she went to join Graffard in France, and he saddled her to win four pattern races, her best win coming over Journey in the Group 1 Prix Vermeille. She was second also at Group 1 level, to Hydrangea in the British Champions Fillies and Mare Stakes. Map Of Stars and last year’s two-year-old winner Tajlina (Kingman) are two of her first three foals, and her juvenile this year is The Odyssey (Frankel).

Vermeille success

That Vermeille success took this female family, already full to the gills with stakes winners, to a new level, and perhaps Map Of Stars can give it a further boost. Bateel and her French listed-winning half-sister Basemah (Lemon Drop Kid) are among five successful runners from Attractive Crown (Chief’s Crown).

Trained by Kevin Prendergast, she rounded off her racing career in Ireland when running second to Alborada in the Group 2 (now a Group 1) Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh. She later won again in the USA.

In fact, while this is a high-class flat family, it is also well capable of producing top-class winners under National Hunt rules. Attractive Crown is a half-sister to Lumiere (Northjet) whose son Geill Sli (Charente River) won the Grade 1 Champion Bumper at Punchestown two decades ago.

Among the winners out of Map Of Stars’ fourth dam Arosa (Silver Shark), the Group 3 Prix Messidor winner, are the full-siblings Arokar (Akarad) and La Tirana.

Arokar was a leading French two-year-old, won the Group 2 Prix Greffulhe and was second in the Group 1 Prix Lupin. A listed winner and group-placed, La Tirana is best-known as the dam of the dual Grade 1 hurdle winner and Triumph Hurdle runner-up Walkon (Take Risks). A grandson of La Tirana, Court Canibal (Montjeu) won the Group 3 Prix Exbury, the race won last week by Map Of Stars.

Yet another full-sister to Arokar, Such Is Life (Akarad) is the grandam of Quel Destin (Muhtathir), and he, like Walkon, won the Grade 1 Coral Finale Juvenile Hurdle at Chepstow, doing so more recently than his family relation.