THE six-year-old southern hemisphere gelding Voyage Bubble (Deep Field) back in January built on his second-place run behind Golden Sixty in the Group 1 Hong Kong Mile last December, and garnered his first pattern stakes win in the Group 1 Sha Tin Stewards’ Cup.

Now he has doubled his tally of Group 1 wins, and went one better than he did a year ago, winning this year’s Group 1 Hong Kong Mile from the Japanese Group 1 winner Soul Rush. In between those victories at the top table, Voyage Bubble was beaten a neck by Romantic Warrior in the Group 1 Hong Kong Gold Cup, ran third in the Group 1 Champions Mile, been down the field in Group 1 contests in Dubai and Japan, but he returned to winning ways in his start before last Sunday.

This was Voyage Bubble’s eighth win in 22 starts, and he had previously garnered stakes wins in the Hong Kong Derby and the Hong Kong Classic Mile. His career earnings now stand north of £7 million, and he is one of 36 stakes winners for the Group 2 winner Deep Field (Northern Meteor) who is a particular favourite sire with Hong Kong owners. There he is also responsible for the Group 1 Hong Kong Sprint winner Sky Field, and three times he has been champion sire there. Some 21 of Deep Field’s stakes winners have won at group level.

A smart sprinter, Deep Field commenced his abbreviated stud career at Newgate Stud in New South Wales after a racing career that was comprised of just eight starts. He won his first five, which included a listed race at Randwick and the Group 2 Linlithgow Stakes at Flemington. He was placed twice, both times in pattern races and notably when third in the Group 1 Black Caviar Lightening Stakes, denied second place when a neck behind Braven Beau.

Deep Field

As a full-brother to Group 1 winner Shooting To Win (Northern Meteor), Deep Field warranted a chance at stud. He took that chance well, became well-known for his big books of mares and crops of offspring, but a declining fertility rate led to Newgate deciding to retire him from stud duties at the age of just 13.

Deep Field’s four Group 1 winners are Voyage Bubble and Sky Field in Hong Kong, Al Muthana in South Africa and Portland Sky in Australia, while his place on the stallion roster at Newgate has been taken by his Group 2-winning son Cosmic Force. He has made a promising start at stud, with five stakes-placed runners from his first two crops. Portland Sky is at Widden Stud and his first crop are yearlings.

Voyage Bubble is one of seven foals, all winners, from the Rahy (Blushing Groom) mare Raheights. As a broodmare sire, Rahy is also responsible for such as Giant’s Causeway, Alpha Centauri, Declaration Of War and many more. Raheights won four times at the ages of four and five. Her first foal was the stakes-placed Brettan (Commands), and she bred another stakes winner in Diddums (Snitzel), a Randwick Group 3 winner and now herself a winner-producer at stud.

Bannock

Raheights’ dam Laoub (Red Ransom) won over nine furlongs in the UAE and she too bred seven winners, albeit from 10 foals. A listed winner at Eagle Farm in Australia, Moulin Lady (Reset) was the first of two stakes winners for Laoub, and the second was Bannock (Bertolini), a smart juvenile in 2011 in England where he won the Listed Rockingham Stakes at York and was runner-up in the Group 2 Richmond Stakes to Harbour Watch. Bannock ran 11 times at two and 14 times the following year, so no prizes for guessing who trained him! At three he was runner-up in three listed races, beaten less than a length twice and chasing home Gordon Lord Byron once.

Laoub was bought as a yearling at Keeneland by John Ferguson for Godolphin at a cost of €360,000. She raced in the UAE and the USA, and gained her sole victory with Frankie Dettori aboard when she won the 2001 UAE Oaks on dirt. The race did not carry any blacktype. After being sent to Australia as a broodmare, Laoub returned to Europe and at the age of 12 she was culled by Godolphin for €5,500 at Goffs, bought by Ballybin Stud’s Peter Kelly. Two years later, thanks to the emergence of Bannock, Kelly sold Laoub’s daughter Pioneer Alexander (Rip Van Winkle) as a foal for 140,000gns.

Voyage Bubble’s first three dams have between them bred 24 winners. Raheights and Laoub are responsible for seven each, but the gold medal goes to his third dam Lisieux (Steady Growth). She won four times in the USA and travelled across the border to Canada to earn some blacktype at Woodbine. At stud, Lisieux had 10 winning offspring, one of which was never challenged for the honour of being the best of them.

First Lady Stakes

Never Retreat (Smart Strike) sold as a yearling for $410,000 in 2006. At the age of six she posted the most important of her 11 career wins when she beat the Aidan O’Brien-trained Together to win the Grade 1 First Lady Stakes on the turf at Keeneland. She won the race in a stakes-record time. Never Retreat was bred in Kentucky by Gerry O’Meara and Stanley Inman.

She went into the race having claimed a half-length victory in the Grade 2 Canadian Stakes at Woodbine. In what was a stellar year for her in 2011, Never Retreat also won the Grade 2 Dance Smartly at Woodbine, the Grade 2 Jenny Wiley Stakes at Keeneland, and Grade 3 Honey Fox Stakes at Gulfstream Park. In her racing career she banked more than $1.25 million.

Lisieux was one of two stakes performers out of the winning Gay Sonnet (Sailor), but the other was a name that still resonates with people. Sweetest Chant numbered a pair of Grade 2 wins among her dozen career victories, and her daughter Danzig’s Beauty (Danzig) came close to going one better when she was runner-up in the Grade 1 Acorn Stakes. She did win a Grade 2, and her best winner gained his biggest success at Grade 2 level. However, he was to go on and become a champion sire.

Distorted Humor

Danzig Beauty’s legacy to the world of breeding is to have produced Distorted Humor (Forty Niner). In October 2021 it was announced that he would be missing from the following spring’s stallion ranks at WinStar Farm.

A champion freshman sire and a champion general sire, Distorted Humor was key to helping WinStar scale new heights as a breeding operation. He sired a plethora of big-name horses in a spectacular career at stud, including Grade 1 winners Drosselmeyer, Funny Cide, Commentator, Any Given Saturday, Flower Alley, and many others.

“We all owe Distorted Humor a debt of gratitude for all he has done for WinStar Farm, my family, and the many breeders who supported him from his humble beginnings,” said Elliott Walden, WinStar’s president at the time.

Additionally, Distorted Humor has become one of the leading and most influential broodmare sires in recent memory, represented by such as major money winners Arrogate and Golden Sixty, Life Is Good, Practical Joke and Constitution.