THE five-day Willie Mullins Punchestown Festival ended with a total of 39 races run, not including the charity race which traditionally brings the curtain down.

Numerically, Ireland was the clear winner in the breeding stakes, their 25 successes easily beating the French dozen, with a single success each for horses bred in Britain and Germany. However, when it came to the top end of the programme, the 14 Grade 1 or Grade A races contested, the French outnumbered the home team with eight wins to our five, the remaining win being credited to the German-foaled Gaelic Warrior.

A number of stallions sired more than one winner during the festival, with Walk In The Park (Montjeu) taking the honours with four winners, Grade 1 scorer Facile Vega being joined on the roster by Bloomfield Bijou, Monbeg Park and Walk Away Harry. Doctor Dino (Muhtathir) comes in for special mention, siring both Grade 1 winner State Man and the Grace B winner Dinoblue.

Authorized (Montjeu) was responsible for Grade 1 winner Echoes In Rain and Angelo Dundee, while the deceased Stowaway (Slip Anchor) left the meeting as the sire of Grade A winner Kilcruit and Grade B winner Seddon. Four other sires sired a pair of winners, and they were Masked Marvel (Montjeu), Presenting (Mtoto), Yeats (Sadler’s Wells) and Flemensfirth (Alleged).

Back to best

Facile Vega was back to his very best at Punchestown, scene a year earlier of a Grade 1 bumper win, to win the KPMG Champion Novice Hurdle by more than seven lengths from Il Etait Temps, his stable companion. Owned and bred by the Hammer and Trowel Syndicate (Ger O’Brien and Sean Deane), Facile Vega is the second foal, runner and winner for Quevega (Robin Des Champs). We know this family very well by now.

Suffice to say that Quevega won the Grade 1 Ladbroke World Series Tipperkevin Hurdle at Punchestown on four occasions and the Grade 2 David Nicholson Mares’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival a record six times. Her first foal Princess Vega (Beat Hollow) also raced for the Hammer and Trowel Syndicate and made a winning bumper debut at Tramore.

Feronily related to Watson Lake and Garamycin

THE Thomas O’Brien-bred Feronily is a six-year-old son of Getaway (Monsun), and what a display he put in to win the Grade 1 Dooley Insurance Group Champion Novice Chase, chased home by three Willie Mullins-trained runners.

Emmet Mullins and owner Paul Byrne have once again been rewarded for thinking outside the box, as Feronily was having just his second start over fences, finishing second in a Grade 3 at Cork previously.

Debut winner

A point-to-point winner on his debut, after which he was sold for £45,000 at the Tattersalls Cheltenham November Sale last year, he was placed on both his outings in bumpers, running third at this year’s Dublin Racing Festival behind A Dream To Share and Fact To File. Beaten into fourth on his hurdling bow at Kelso, he won a maiden at Limerick towards the end of March, and now is a Grade 1 winning chaser. His future is very bright indeed.

Feronily is the 22nd blacktype winner for Getaway, and the second out of an Old Vic (Sadler’s Wells) mare, joining Grade 2 novice hurdle winner Rock My Way.

Sold as a foal for €21,000 to Liss House, and resold for €34,000 at the Goffs Land Rover Sale to Michael Shefflin and Paul Holden, Feronily in one of three successful offspring of the placed point-to-pointer Vickeeto. She is also dam of the winning hurdler Ava Rose (Shirocco) and the winning pointer Top Of The List (Shirocco).

Vickeeto’s half-brother Watson Lake (Be My Native) won the Grade 1 Drinmore Novice Chase at Fairyhouse, while another couple of Grade 1 winners pop up under Feronily’s fourth dam, Cacador’s Darling (Cacador).

They are Garamycin (Pitpan), winner of the Power Gold Cup at Fairyhouse and the Punchestown Chase, and Pettifour (Supreme Leader), and his biggest success was in the Grade 1 Sefton Novices’ Hurdle at Aintree.

Bumper hero a triumph for Gleeson family

A THIRD Irish-bred Grade 1 winner during the week was A Dream To Share, and how well named he has proven to be.

He added the Race and Stay at Punchestown Champion INH Flat Race to his victory at Cheltenham in the Weatherbys Champion Bumper, extending his unbeaten run to five.

Bred by Brian and Clare Gleeson’s Brucetown Farms Ltd., the five-year-old son of Muhaarar (Oasis Dream) was bred to race on the flat, being one of four winning offspring from the first four produce of Hikari (Galileo).

She was bred and raced by Brian Gleeson, and second time out won a mile and a half maiden at Wexford by 15 lengths, with Pat Smullen in the saddle.

Hikari’s first produce Hazm (Shamardal), sold for 220,000gns as a foal, 725,000gns as a yearling and won a bumper before adding three wins in Belgium.

A colt by Lope De Vega (Shamardal), Raise You, is a Group 3 winner in Ireland, a listed winner in England and earned £130,000. Hikari’s third foal, Lady G (Golden Horn) sold for €290,000 as a foal and she is a stakes-placed winner. A Dream To Share is number four.

A Dream To Share was conceived when Muhaarar was standing at Nunnery Stud for £30,000. This year, his second in France, he commands €7,500. The Group 1 winning sprinter is also a Group 1 sire on the flat, and now joins that exclusive club comprised of stallions who have also sired a Grade 1 winner under National Hunt rules.

Maureen Mullins still breeding Grade 1 winners at the Festival

FEW people have attended the Punchestown Festival as many times as Maureen Mullins, and she had the added pleasure this year of breeding a winner there.

Two years ago, Kilcruit had Sir Gerhard back in third when winning the Grade 1 bumper at the corresponding meeting, having been beaten half a length by him at Cheltenham in the Weatherbys Champion Bumper.

Kilcruit is a son of Stowaway (Slip Anchor), a sire who enjoyed tremendous success, guided all the way by Ronnie O’Neill. While Mrs Mullins has had this family for some half a century, and Kilcruit is the second Grade 1 Punchestown Festival winner from it, she didn’t breed the other, Scotsirish (Zaffaran), but the Mullins connection was maintained as he was trained by Willie!

The second Grade A winner of the week was Hereditary Rule, an eight-year-old son of Imperial Monarch (Galileo) bred by Olive Troy. The gelding was sold as a foal for €8,500 at Tattersalls Ireland, realised £19,000 at the Goffs UK Spring Store Sale at three, and was the subject of a private sale at the Tattersalls Cheltenham May Premier Sale the following year at £15,000.

The point-to-point winner has since won over hurdles and this win, in the HSS Hire Handicap Chase, was his fourth over fences.

Tullymurry Toff

He is just the fourth blacktype winner for his sire who won the Group 1 Grand Prix de Paris, and is one of a pair to emerge from the sire’s first crop. Hereditary Rule is the best of five winners from the unraced Supreme Leader (Bustino) mare Miss Ogan, and she was a half-sister to the Grade 3 hurdle winner Tullymurry Toff (King’s Ride).

He and the Grade 2 hurdle runner-up Kilcash Castle (Strong Gale) were sons of Cooleogan (Proverb), a point-to-point and bumper winner who went on to enjoy four victories over hurdles.

Cooleogan had two winning siblings of note, and they were own-brothers. Galeogan (Strong Gale) won a Grade 3 novices’ hurdle at Fairyhouse, but this paled in comparison to the achievements of Marlborough (Strong Gale). Runner-up in the Grade 1 King George VI Chase, his 10 wins over fences included the Grade 1 Tote Gold Trophy Chase at Sandown, the Grade 2 Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby, and the Listed National Hunt Handicap Chase at Cheltenham.

Go back one more remove in the family and you will find the half-brothers Minella Class (Oscar) and the Grade 2 winner and Grade 1 Albert Bartlett Spa Novices’ Hurdle second Deputy Dan (Westerner). Minella Class won the Grade 1 Tolworth Hurdle.