EMOTIONS will surely have run high after Opera Singer’s victory in the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac Criterium des Pouliches, as the winner was bred by the late Evie Stockwell, mother-in-law of one of the filly’s owners, Sue Magnier.

The filly is by Ashford Stud’s Justify (Scat Daddy), and from the second Northern Hemisphere crop by that Triple Crown winner. The first crop includes a pair of 2023 Grade 1 winners in Arabian Lion and Aspen Grove. Opera Singer is also the third Group/Grade 1 winner for her dam, Liscanna (Sadler’s Wells), and all of her stars have achieved that feat in different countries.

Hit It A Bomb (War Front) won the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Keeneland a year before his full-sister Brave Anna (War Front) captured the Group 1 Connolly’s Red Mills Cheveley Park Stakes at Newmarket. Brave Anna was sold two years ago to Japan for $3 million. Now Opera Singer becomes the mare’s third top-level winner, and she is one of eight successful progeny for their Group 3-winning dam.

Albany Stakes

Mrs Stockwell owned Brave Anna when she won her Group 1, and the filly had previously landed the Group 3 Albany Stakes at Royal Ascot. Brave Anna is the first foal, and one of seven winners, bred by the Danehill Dancer (Danehill) mare Lahinch. She was purchased in the name of Mrs Stockwell at Goffs as a yearling in 2000 for IR£200,000.

Put in training with Aidan O’Brien, Lahinch was a smart runner at two and three, finishing second in the Group 2 Rockfel Stakes at Newmarket after landing a listed race at Tipperary as a juvenile. She opened her second season at Leopardstown with victory in the 1000 Guineas Trial Stakes.

Also one of seven winners for her unraced dam Dublah (Private Account), Lahinch was a half-sister to the US stakes-winning colt Perugino Bay (Perugino). Not surprisingly given her ownership and her stakes-winning performances, Lahinch was given every opportunity at stud, and four of her winning offspring are stakes performers.

They include The Bogberry (Hawk Wing), a Group 3 winner and runner-up in the Group 2 Prix d’Harcourt, and the Group 1 Oaks runner-up Ennistymon (Galileo).

Opera Singer’s dam Liscanna was trained by David Wachman and as a two-year-old broke her maiden in the valuable Birdcatcher Stakes at Naas. The following year she did even better, her only win that year coming in the Group 3 Ballyogan Stakes at Leopardstown.