PUNCHESTOWN is next on the agenda for the French-bred Shuttle Diplomacy. The Tom Cooper-trained four-year-old followed up his debut bumper victory at Naas with a win in the Listed Kevin McManus Bookmaker Champion Flat Race at Limerick, both times in the hands of Patrick Mullins.

This was also a landmark first blacktype win for Haras de Montaigu’s Dschingis Secret (Soldier Hollow), and comes from a member of the stallion’s first crop. That first crop also includes the Group 3 Prix Minerve runner-up Dschingis Star, the stakes-placed Dschingis King who won the Derby de l’Ouest, and the listed-placed chaser Dschingis Love. Here is a young stallion worth keeping a close eye on.

Dschingis Secret was one of the best racehorses of his generation in Germany, and he also performed with distinction outside the country. Horse of the Year in 2017, he won the Group 1 Grosser Preis von Berlin from Hawkbill and the Group 2 Prix Foy beating Cloth Of Stars and Talismanic, and in Italy was successful in the Premio St Leger Italiano. In fact, six of his seven career triumphs were in group races. He placed in the Group 1 Deutsches Derby.

Bred at Haras des Loges with Irishman Ian Hanamy in Normandy, Shuttle Diplomacy was sold to Dr Bernard Stoffel’s The Blue Spirit for €12,000 as a two-year-old at the Arqana Summer Sale. He is one of just 36 foals in the first crop of his sire, who stood for his first three seasons at Haras de Saint Arnoult. This is the stallion’s third season at Montaigu.

Leading stayer

Shuttle Diplomacy is the third foal and first winner out of the My Risk (Take Risks) mare Rime De Boitron who showed nothing in three starts. Rime De Boitron had three winning siblings, notably her close relation Tac De Boistron (Take Risks). He was a leading stayer in France, winning the Group 1 Prix Royal Oak twice, while in England he was victorious in the Group 3 Sagaro Stakes at Ascot and the Listed Chester Cup.

Another noteworthy sibling of Rime De Boitron was De Boitron (Sassanian), and he was placed in Grade 2 chases at Cheltenham and Punchestown. Their half-sister La Vie De Boitron (Lavirco) bred the Kempton listed hurdle winner Burrows Edge (Martaline).

This is a family that mixes producing high-class flat and National Hunt winners in tandem.

The third dam of Shuttle Diplomacy was the stakes-placed Tikiti (Bon Mot III). Her best winner, among a total of nine, was the multiple listed hurdle winner Tikiti Dancer (Fabulous Dancer). She is best known as the dam of two well-regarded winners, one in France and the other in Britain.

Katiki (Cadoudal) won two Grade 1 hurdle races at Auteuil, while Edgardo Sol (Kapgarde) landed the Grade 3 Red Rum Chase at Aintree, was Grade 1-placed at Leopardstown, and at Cheltenham he was runner-up in the Grade 3 Vincent O’Brien County Hurdle.