TONY Bloom, the owner of Brighton Football Club, is also a very successful racehorse owner, and he enjoyed a Cheltenham victory this month with Poniros in the Grade 1 JCB Triumph Hurdle. Other Grade 1 National Hunt winners to carry his silks have been Energumene and Penhill, while on the flat he is best known for his association with the Group 1 winner Librisa Breeze.

Bloom’s first runner since he captured the Triumph Hurdle was at Kelso last weekend, and he kept his winning streak going. Is This For Real, a five-year-old son of Vendangeur (Galileo), is trained for Bloom by Fergal O’Brien, and was purchased as a winning pointer at last year’s Goffs UK Aintree Sale by Paddy Brennan for £80,000. The gelding returned to Aintree last December to contest a bumper, finishing fifth, but he won on Saturday in a flying finish, denying the Patrick Mullins-partnered, Harry Derham-trained favourite.

Is This For Real was bred by Anngrove Stud owner and Tattersalls auctioneer Alastair Pim, and sold by him as a yearling at Fairyhouse (where else?) for €11,000 to Tom Weston. It was another Tom, Ellis this time, who signed for him as a three-year-old store at the Goffs UK Spring Sale. Is This For Real made his only start for Georgina Ellis a winning one, landing a six-runner maiden point-to-point at Thorpe Lodge in Nottinghamshire.

This two-length win came just days before the auction at Aintree where, at £80,000, Is This For Real was just above the sale median of £75,000. He is the only runner to date for Kiera’s Princess, an unraced daughter of Sendawar (Priolo), and that mare was snapped up by Pim for just €6,000 having just turned three, with the intention of selling her on later in the year. However, she failed to take up her appointment at the Tattersalls Ireland August Sale, and went to stud instead.

This was back in 2016, and Pim had obviously felt that the growing influence of French-related pedigrees was important. The filly he bought was, and still is, a full-sister to Sang Dolois (Sendawar), and though he only won once, it was in a listed hurdle race at Auteuil. He was one of four winning progeny of Kiera Marie (Waajib), an unraced mare who during her life was sold on no fewer than five occasions at public auction.

Surprise win

Kiera Marie was born a year after her half-sister Sil Sila (Marju), trained by Bryan Smart, caused something of a surprise when she won the Group 1 Prix de Diane-French Oaks in the hands of Cash Asmussen, beating the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac winner Miss Tahiti and the Group 1 Irish 1000 Guineas heroine Matiya. At stud, Sol Sila bred a minor stakes winner in the USA, but one of her daughters is the grandam of Fennor Cross (Elzaam), a Grade 2 hurdle winner at Cheltenham and a Grade 3 winner at Aintree.

Adding a further international mix to the family is the fourth dam of Is This For Real, Powerscourt (Habitat). That mare won a couple of times in West Germany – we are talking about 1973 – and her five winners were also successful there before the country was unified in 1990.

The pick of the five is Pontal (Caracol), and his eight career wins were equally divided between the flat and over jumps. It was in the latter sphere that he won a listed race, over fences at Dusseldorf, and he was runner-up in similar contests at Baden-Baden.

This year sees a new phase in the life of the 22-year-old Vendangeur, as he has been retired from covering duties and will now see out his time in the care of Pim and the Anngrove Stud team. In 2017 he was a new arrival from France at Anngrove Stud, having gone to the breeding shed at a French National Stud, where he broke his knee but recovered to be able to continue as a stallion.

Vendangeur

Bred and raced by the Wildenstein family and trained by Elie Lellouche, Vendangeur was a high-class stayer who scored in a Group 2 event at Longchamp and was placed in three other blacktype races. In fact, he only ran at three when he was never out of the money in seven starts. His first win came on his third start, at Saint-Cloud, but he was soon racing in better company and was second in both the Listed Prix Pelleas at Chantilly and the Listed Prix de Reux at Deauville.

In the Group 3 Prix de Lutece at Longchamp he was second to Getaway, but his finest hour came in the Group 2 Prix Chaudenay over 15 furlongs at Longchamp’s Arc meeting, beating a smart field and with Getaway third.

Vendangeur made an almost immediate impact at stud when his second crop included Arzal, who led all the way to win the 2016 Grade 1 Manifesto Chase at Aintree by eight lengths, beating L’Ami Serge and the following year’s Cheltenham Gold Cup hero Sizing John. Sadly, Arzal never raced again and his death was a huge loss to connections.

Vendangeur’s first Irish-crop included the Grade 2 hurdle winner Loughglynn and the listed hurdle winner Pinot Rouge, while earlier French-bred daughters included graded-placed hurdlers Barra and Creation among their number.

A son of the multiple leading sire Galileo (Sadler’s Wells), Vendangeur comes from an outstanding female family. He could yet have another big race winner or more, and Is This For Real is an interesting prospect.