THE main yearling catalogues are now available, and Guy and Serena O’Callaghan will not tire of looking at the pedigree page for Lot 183 in Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Sale.

Consigned under their Grangemore Stud, this daughter of Dark Angel (Acclamation) already has an important update to her pedigree, as her four-year-old own-brother Charyn (Dark Angel) has just added the Group 1 Prix Jacques Le Marois to his summer win at Royal Ascot in the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes.

Guy and Serena recently were recipients of a Connolly’s Red Mills/The Irish Field Breeder of the Month award for Charyn.

What is the upcoming lot in Newmarket worth? If someone ventured that she could and should being a million, it would be hard to argue otherwise.

Last year, at the same sale, Sumbe paid 850,000gns for another full-sister to Charyn, now named Shinara. Their interest in that now juvenile filly was understandable, as they race Charyn. He was a more modest 250,000gns yearling, then in Book 2, and his latest victory, his sixth, places him as the fourth highest earner by his Yeomanstown Stud sire.

Charyn has accumulated winnings of €1,693,412, and the only sons of Dark Angel to win more have been Mad Cool (in Japan), Khaadem (twice successful in the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes), and four-time Group 1 winner Battaash. Quite an elite group to belong to, and Charyn could even go on and head that table in time.

The Nurlan Bizakov-owned, Roger Varian-trained Charyn laid down an early claim this year for glory when he won the Group 2 Sandown Mile in style in April. He had opened his season with a ready success in the Listed Doncaster Mile in March, but Audience proved too good for him in the Group 1 Lockinge Stakes at Newbury. Charyn turned that result around when he ran out a convincing winner of the opening race at this year’s Royal Ascot meeting, the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes.

His run of success this year has been welcome, as they are the four-year-old colt’s first victories since his juvenile season, one in which he opened and closed with wins. Charyn ended that year winning the Group 2 Criterium de Maisons-Laffitte. Though he went through 2023 winless, he put up some creditable efforts in defeat.

Fine addition

Charyn followed up his fourth-place finish behind Paddington in the Group 1 Irish 2000 Guineas with a placed effort to the same horse, and the Group 1 2000 Guineas winner Chaldean, at Royal Ascot in the Group 1 St James’s Palace Stakes, and later he was again third behind Paddington, this time with Facteur Cheval separating them, in the Group 1 Sussex Stakes at Goodwood.

A place at stud is now guaranteed for Charyn, and he would be a fine addition to the Sumbe stallion ranks.

Bought for 100,000gns by Grangemore Stud seven years ago, the stakes-placed Futoon (Kodiac) is the dam of Charyn. She has now had three offspring by Dark Angel sold at auction. Her first was a colt named Wings Of War who realised £140,000 and went on to win the Group 2 Mill Reef Stakes at two. He was back in the winners’ enclosure in Hong Kong this year.

Charyn sold for nearly twice that amount and is now a dual Group 1 winner, while last year was the best result in the ring for a produce of Futoon. All the while, waiting patiently in the wings, is a colt foal by, you guessed it, Dark Angel.

Incredibly, given what has happened since, Futoon once traded for just 3,000gns. That was as a two-year-old, and the following year she won twice and was runner-up in a couple of listed races.

Family loyalty

Guy has been loyal to his father and brother, as Dark Angel stands at Yeomanstown Stud. The 19-year-old’s 14th crop are this year’s juveniles, and that group includes a baker’s dozen winners.

Charyn, Mad Cool and Khaadem have all won at Group 1 level this year, and are among 17 Group or Grade 1 winners for their sire. While some eyebrows were raised when Dark Angel went to stud at three, his subsequent achievements have more than justified the decision. This year breeders paid €60,000 for a Dark Angel covering.

Futoon is the best of four winners from five runners out of Vermillion (Mujadil), a dual winner at two and a full-sister to Galeota (Mujadil). The latter gelding rounded out his juvenile season with a win in the Group 2 Mill Reef Stakes at Newbury, and though he ended up winning eight times in all, among them four listed races, this was his biggest success.

That said, his career-best performance came at three when Galeota was runner-up, beaten just a head, in the Group 1 Golden Jubilee Stakes. That was in 2005 when the Royal Ascot meeting was staged at York, and he found just Cape Of Good Hope too good on the day.

There is no shortage of stakes and pattern winners in the female line, though Charyn is the best runner in four generations. His third dam Refined (Statoblest) raced just five times, winning twice at two. Her eight runners had six winners among them, and joining Galeota as a stakes winner was Loulwa (Montjeu). That 370,000gns yearling won a listed race and afterwards bred a stakes winner at stud.

Stakes winners

Loulwa was one of three daughters of Refined to breed stakes winners. The unraced Fine If (Iffraaj) was responsible for the US stakes winner Illegal Smile (Camacho), but this was bettered by another sibling, Lady Livius (Titus Livius). A three-time winner, Lady Livius is the dam of two Group 3 winners, Burnt Sugar (Lope De Vega) whose six successes were headed by the Sirenia Stakes, and Brown Sugar (Tamayuz), the Molecomb Stakes hero.

Two more of Refined’s daughters are worth a mention, and both were winners. Savannah Poppy (Statue Of Liberty) is the grandam of a pair of smart performers, though they did not win at a higher level than listed status. They were Logo Hunter (Brazen Beau) and Darkanna (Dark Angel). The former won a few listed sprint races in Ireland, after being picked up for just 5,000gns at two, and he was Group 2-placed in Dubai. Darkanna was a listed juvenile winner and pattern-placed.

Adoring (One Cool Cat), also out of Refined, won one of her three starts, and her son Imperioso (Mastercraftsman) was second in a Grade 1 hurdle race at Merano in Italy. More notably, Adoring’s granddaughter Oscula (Galileo Gold), was a ‘rags to riches’ tale. Sold for 4,000gns as a yearling, she won three Group 3 races, placed in the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac, and in 2022 she was traded on for a cool €1 million at Arqana.