WHEN the now five-year-old mare Reach was sold for 260,000gns as a foal, hopes would have been high for her. She was purchased for Godolphin, but never saw a racecourse, and she was then sold as a three-year-old for only 1,500gns to David Easterby, son of Mick.

Reach made a belated start to her racing career at four, won once and was in the first four on all of her four starts last year. This year she has gone from strength to strength, won three more races, and she boosted her earnings by more than £50,000 last weekend at York with her victory in a heritage handicap. Her winnings now stand at £83,000.

Just before Reach was sold, her dam Ameliorate (Galileo) was also moved on, this time for €5,000 at Goffs. Reach is her first living produce, and the latter was described in the Goffs catalogue as not having raced due to injury. Could Reach now go on and earn some blacktype?

Ameliorate is a full-sister to the French stakes winner Iltemas (Galileo) and a half-sister to the US Grade 2 winner Guilty Twelve (Giant’s Causeway). Both of those mares are now producing winners. They are all daughters of Arkadina (Danehill) and she is a group-placed sibling to Again (Danehill Dancer) and Aris (Danroad). The latter was placed in a listed race but she is the dam of the young first-season sire and Group 1 Prix de la Foret winner Aclaim (Acclamation).

Coincidentally, if you go to the Looking Back column in this week’s paper, you will find a reference to Again. Fifteen years ago she won the Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes, added the Group 1 Irish 1000 Guineas to her tally of wins the next season, and she is dam of the Group 1 runner-up Delphinia (Galileo).

Again is a daughter of the unraced Cumbres (Kahyasi), and the best of that mare’s siblings was Montjeu (Sadler’s Wells), a European champion at three and four, and a champion sire.