HOW many Group or Grade 1 winners has Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) sired? Well, Savethelastdance’s victory in the Group 1 Juddmonte Irish Oaks on Saturday brought that tally to 98 on the flat, and a century if you include his pair of Grade 1 winners over jumps.

The runaway Listed Cheshire Oaks winner found one too good for her in the Group 1 Oaks at Epsom, and she turned what looked like a defeat into victory under a magical Ryan Moore ride to win the Curragh classic from the sponsor’s homebred Bluestocking, with another daughter of Galileo, Library, in third.

At the Fasig-Tipton November Sale in 2018, M.V. Magnier spent $3.5 million to secure Daddys Lil Darling for the Coolmore broodmare band.

The Grade 1 American Oaks winner won more than $1.35 million during her racing career, which comprised five victories, and she was runner-up on four occasions at the highest level, in the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks, Ashland Stakes, Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup and the Alcibiades Stakes.

Hardly surprising then that her first mating would be with the mighty Galileo, and Savethelastdance was the result. She went back to the sire for a second time, resulting in the two-year-old colt, Mr Hampstead (Galileo), and he brought $575,000 when sold last year to Robson Aguiar on behalf of Amo Racing. In training with Dominic Ffrench Davis, he has yet to race. This year Daddys Lil Darling foaled a filly by Into Mischief (Harlan’s Holiday), and was covered by Gun Runner (Candy Ride).

Daddys Lil Darling raced for Nancy Polk’s Normandy Farm in Kentucky, and she was sold just a few months after the owner-breeder’s death. Dating back to the late 18th century, Normandy Farm is the final resting place of the sire and dam of the legendary Man O’ War, Fair Play and Mahubah. Polk purchased the 250-acre holding in the 1990’s after the death of her husband.

During her time as the farm’s custodian, she also bred the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint winner Mongolian Saturday (Any Given Saturday), and was the racing owner and breeder of Daddys Lil Darling, both out of the stakes-winning mare Miss Hot Salsa (Houston), and what a bargain she was following her purchase by Polk for $100,000 as an eight-year-old.

Encouraged

Six years ago, Polk described how she became involved with horses. “I’d been coming down to Kentucky to go to the races with friends. When I talked to this one friend of mine, she said, ‘You should buy a horse farm.’ I told her she was crazy, but she encouraged me, and when I was down to go to the races one year, I said, ‘All right. We’ve got time today. Let’s go look at horse farms.’ Normandy was the first one I set foot on, and I just fell in love with it.

“I started with one horse, then two, then another here and there until I ended up with the 16 I have now. There’s so much history on the farm. It’s just a beautiful old farm and worth taking care of. That’s my aim, to be a caretaker for the next person and to hopefully leave it as good, or better, than when I found it.”

All three stakes winners produced by Miss Hot Salsa were bred when she was in the ownership of Polk. Her fourth winner, the stakes-placed Four Song Limit (In Excess), predated the mare’s purchase at Keeneland 20 years ago. Her third stakes winner is Victoryasecret (Victory Gallop).

Rare quality

When the time comes for Savethelastdance to enter the breeding shed, she will have the rare distinction of being the fifth mare in the first five generations of her female line to be a stakes winner. Miss Hot Salsa won a stakes race at Golden Gate, and it was at the same venue that her dam, Miss High Blade (Highland Blade), won a Grade 3 stakes race. That mare won nine times in the early 1990s, seven of them in stakes, and she was a popular mare on the west coast of America.

A couple of Miss High Blade’s stakes wins were at Hollywood Park, and she was following the example of her dam, and the fourth dam of Savethelastdance, Darling Miss Q (Alydar). Three of the six winners out of Darling Miss Q won blacktype races, but they were all very different. Miss High Blade was born a year after her full-brother Woody Boy Would (Highland Blade), and he earned his blacktype over jumps in the USA. Following her sale to Japan, Darling Miss Q foaled the multiple stakes winner Wild Bluster (Wild Again).

One to watch

out for stateside

REMEMBER the name, Startup Mentality.

Bred by Noel O’Callaghan’s Mountarmstrong Stud, this three-year-old daughter of Kingman (Invincible Spirit) made a belated start to her racing career when she was the only newcomer in a field of decent maidens at Monmouth Park at the weekend, but she sent racegoers home with the feeling that they had seen a stakes winner in the making.

Owned by Klaravich Stables and trained by Chad Brown, Startup Mentality was sold as a yearling in Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale two years ago for 300,000gns. This was less than the 475,000gns realised by her year-older own-sister Night Battle (Kingman), and she won three times as a three-year-old.

Last year Blandford Bloodstock paid 160,000gns for their now two-year-old half-sister by Lope De Vega (Shamardal), and buyers at this year’s Tattersalls October Sale will have an opportunity to acquire yet another filly, a daughter of Night Of Thunder (Dubawi).

These are the first four foals out of the unraced Fine Time (Dansili), and what a pedigree she possesses. A full-sister to three stakes winners, including a Group 1 heroine, she is also a half-sister to another Group 1 winner.

The latter is Falmouth Stakes winner Timepiece (Zamindar), and by now you will likely have recognised this as one of those outstanding Juddmonte families.

The best of Fine Time’s three stakes-winning full-siblings was Passage Of Time (Dansili). She won the Group 1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud at two, and though she never won again at this level, she was placed at that grade in England, France and the USA, namely in the Nassau Stakes, Prix Vermeille and the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf.

In addition to breeding Group 2 winner and National Stud stallion Time Test (Dubawi), Passage Of Time is dam of the Group 3 winner Tempus, a son of Kingman.

Quandary

Clepsydra (Sadler’s Wells) was one of seven winners out of the stakes winner Quandary (Blushing Groom), and she had two siblings who also bred Group 1 winners. Best of these on the racecourse was the Listed Oaks Trial winner Double Crossed (Caerleon), dam of Twice Over (Observatory).

Twice Over’s 12 wins included four at Group 1 level in England, two editions of the Champion Stakes, an appropriate success in the Juddmonte International, and victory in the Eclipse Stakes.

The other was dual winner Sacred Shield (Beat Hollow), and her three stakes winners are headed by Viadera (Bated Breath). That Killarney listed winner blossomed in the USA and her stakes victories there included the Grade 1 Matriarch Stakes at Del Mar.

Fine Time joined the broodmare bred at Mountarmstrong after her purchase through Stroud Coleman Bloodstock for 420,000gns, carrying her first foal. That offspring paid back the investment in one fell swoop, the purchase justified with the mare’s first two foals winning, and now the family is set for a further step up in class, hopefully in time for the yearling sales this autumn.