WELL done to John O’Connor and his team at Ballylinch Stud in Co Kilkenny as they no doubt cheered on the four-year-old Circle Of Fire at the weekend.

The son of Almanzor (Wootton Bassett), making just his fourth start in Australia, won the Group 1 Sydney Cup at Randwick, a week after landing the Group 2 Chairman’s Quality Handicap at the same track. His dam, the Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) mare Fiery Sunset, was purchased in December 2022 by Ballylinch for 170,000gns from The Royal Studs.

At that time she was responsible for three winners from her first four foals, one of them being the Grade 3 San Francisco Mile Stakes winner Evening Sun (Muhaarar). Circle Of Fire, then a juvenile, had won on his second start, after being placed on his debut, and the Sir Michael Stoute-trained colt looked a promising sort. Four starts at three in the colours of Queen Elizabeth saw him placed in three listed races and finish fourth in the Queen’s Vase at Royal Ascot.

There has been another positive update to the pedigree as Fiery Sunset’s first foal, the two-year-old winner Flarepath (Exceed And Excel) bred a 2023 juvenile winner in France with her first foal, Team Building (Starspangledbanner). William Haggas trains the unraced three-year-old son of Fiery Sunset, Gilded Water (Fastnet Rock), there is a two-year-old filly by Time Test (Dubawi), and last year Ballylinch welcomed a filly by Land Force (No Nay Never).

Fiery Sunset foaled a colt by Lope De Vega (Shamardal) a few hours before the Group 1 win and she will likely visit him again.

Richard Hughes was in the saddle when Fiery Sunset, trained by Michael Bell, won in the royal silks at three over 12 furlongs. She is one of seven winners from eight who raced out of the winning Five Fields (Chester House). Upcountry (Oasis Dream) was the most successful of these when he became a listed winner in Macau.

Upper echelons

Circle Of Fire has brought this family, long associated with winners at the upper echelons of global racing, back to that position.

His third dam, the French Group 3 winner Diese (Diesis), had nine winning progeny, dual Grade 1 winner Senure (Nureyev) being the best of them. The Juddmonte-bred and raced colt won the United National Handicap and the Clement L Hirsch Memorial Turf Championship.

Senure’s winning half-sister Seatone (Mizzen Mast) gave this family another major boost when her daughter Prosperous Voyage (Zoffany), runner-up in the Group 1 Fillies’ Mile at two and the 1000 Guineas at three, won the Group 1 Falmouth Stakes. Last December she sold to Japan for 2,400,000gns.

Diese is a daughter of the speedy Monroe (Sir Ivor), a Group 3 winner and Group 1 Phoenix Stakes runner-up who had 18 foals, 17 runners and 14 winners. Half of the winners earned blacktype and four were stakes winners, headed by the European champion two-year-old Xaar (Zafonic). An own-sister to Malinowski (Sir Ivor), Monroe has gone on to establish quite a dynasty at stud, and among the many stars who descend from her are the Group/Grade 1 winners Cityscape (Selkirk), Logician (Frankel), Equilateral (Equiano), Whitebeam (Caravaggio), last year’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner Unquestionable (Wootton Bassett), Us champion mare Close Hatches (First Defence), Idiomatic (Curlin), and leading Irish colt Siskin (First Defence).

Circle Of Life is the second Group 1 winner for Almanzor, joining the Victoria Derby winner Manzoice. Nine of his 14 stakes winners to date have earned that accolade in the southern hemisphere.

Bargain buy

What a purchase Beaute Cachee was when she sold as a yearling in 2020 for just €1,500. Bred by Gregor Vischer, she is a daughter of Literato (Kendor) who has sired the occasional good runner, out of a once-raced daughter of Hurricane Run (Montjeu) and a granddaughter of the Italian listed winner Seraphine (Dashing Blade).

The third and fourth removes of her family were very successful for the Vischer family who had a long association with Robert Griffin at Loughbrown Stud.

Beaute Cashee’s arm of the family had failed to deliver quality performers for two decades, until now. A winner in France at two for Gael Barbedette, who bought the mare at the sales, Beaute Cachee was consistent over the two seasons she raced in France, and while she won just a minor contest at Le Mans and placed many times in 12 starts, she would not have looked likely to earn any blacktype.

A move to the USA changed all that. Frankie Dettori’s tally of almost 300 Group/Grade 1 wins globally did not include one at Keeneland, until the weekend. That gap is now filled after he was seen to best effect of the front-running Beaute Cachee in the Jenny Wiley Stakes, winning from Godolphin’s favourite English Rose. “It’s a big tick-off of the things I needed to do,” said Dettori.

Record-enhancing

Despite having the Italian in the saddle, the Monmouth Park stakes winner Beaute Cachee, who last year placed in the Grade 1 Matriarch Stakes, was sent to post at odds of 25/1. She races Sol Kumin’s Madaket Stables, Michael Dubb, and Louis Lazzinnaro, and was providing four-time Eclipse Award-winning trainer Chad Brown with a record-enhancing seventh win in the Jenny Wiley, and a third consecutive victory.

Literato winner of the Group 1 Champion Stakes at Newmarket 17 years ago and runner-up to Lawman in the Group 1 Prix du Jockey Club-French Derby, has only ever sired two pattern winners, and both are Grade 1 winners in the USA. His first to do was another daughter, Alterite, and she was a member of his first crop foaled in 2010.

Beaute Cachee’s third dam Sovereign Touch (Pennine Walk) bred seven winners, the aforementioned Seraphine among them. Another was the stakes-placed Maid Of Killeen (Darshaan) and this 650,000gns mare is dam of the 2,000,000gns filly Indian Ink, her value due to winning the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes at two and the following year’s Group 1 Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot.