NICKY Hartery is the chairman of Horse Racing Ireland, a hugely successful international businessman, and he has also enjoyed plenty of rewarding days as a thoroughbred breeder.

One of his earliest highlights in the latter role was Margot Did, a daughter of Exceed And Excel (Danehill) that he sold cheaply, but who went on to win the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes as a three-year-old, by some way a career-best performance. Her five victories also contained two other stakes wins, while as a juvenile she was runner-up in three good contests, the Group 2 Lowther Stakes and a couple of Group 3 races, including the Albany Stakes at Royal Ascot.

As good as she was as a racemare, and earned Hartery a Connolly’s Red Mills/The Irish Field Breeder of the Month trophy, Margot Did has gone on to become an outstanding broodmare. From visits to Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) she produced, with her first two foals, the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks winner Magic Attitude and Mission Impassible. The latter mare won the Group 2 Prix Sandringham and placed in the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac, while a trip to the USA resulted in a runner-up finish in the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Keeneland.

Magic Attitude is now at stud in Japan where her first offspring is a yearling colt by Epiphaneia (Symboli Kris S), while Mission Impassible is still waiting to get off the mark as a winner-producer.

Magic Attitude

Margot Did made her way to Japan after foaling Magic Attitude, and the colt she was carrying by Frankel (Galileo), Pietrasanta, was a minor winner of a couple of races. The less said about her next son the better. However, she has redeemed herself with her current three-year-old Justin Milano, a son of Kizuna (Deep Impact), and he has started his climb up the rankings with success in the Group 3 Kyodo News Hai at Tokyo.

This victory comes just three months after he made a winning debut at two, again at Tokyo, and a chat this week with a Japanese journalist suggests that Justin Milano is a name to watch out for in the coming months.

Sold for a mere 10,000gns as a breezer, Margot Did is the best of four winners from the Italian winner Special Dancer (Shareef Dancer). She comes from an old Aga Khan family, with Special Dancer’s seven winning siblings being headed by Group 3 Meld Stakes winner Cajarian (Shahrastani). That colt’s full-sister Caraiyma (Shahrastani) produced the Group 1 Prix de la Foret winner Caradak (Desert Style).

The fourth dam of Justin Milano is Callianire (Sir Gaylord), and she was foaled exactly half a century ago, She won once at two, but raced at a time when finishing fourth in the Group 1 Prix Saint-Alary (this week sadly now downgraded to Group 2) earned blacktype in a pedigree.

Callianire turned out to be a prolific winner-producer, with eight successful offspring, but the best of these showed a preference for National Hunt racing.

Versatile sort

Trained initially by John Oxx, and then by Jim Bolger for Michael Smurfit, he was Chirkpar (Shernazar), and what a versatile sort he turned out to be. He won three times on the flat, later was successful twice over jumps in the USA, but he won a pair of Grade 1 races at Leopardstown over jumps, the Irish Champion Hurdle and the Denny Gold Medal Chase. He nearly added a third Grade 1, this time at Cheltenham, but had to settle for second-best in the Triumph Hurdle.

While he was champion at three in Japan thanks to winning the Group 1 Tokyo Yushun (Derby), it proved to be the only top-flight victory for Kizuna, though he showed his worth outside his native country when he took the honours in the Group 2 Prix Niel some 11 years ago before finishing fourth to Treve, Orfevre and Intello in the Arc.

Kizuna raced until the age of five, and made an immediate impact at stud when his first-crop daughter Akai Ito won the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.

Kizuna’s second crop contained an even more talented runner in Songline, and her three Group 1 wins included two editions of the Yasuda Kinen. Both she and Akai Ito are out of mares by Symboli Kris S (Kris S). They head a list of 15 group winners got by Kizuna in his first five crops. He sired no group winner among his now four-year-olds, to date, while his three-year-olds also include the Group 3-winning filly, Queen’s Walk. For this year Kizuna will stand for the equivalent of €75,000 at Shadai Stallion Station.

Group 1 star now wins over hurdles

IT is not every day that we see a Group 1 flat winner sent jumping, but Noel Meade has done so with Helvic Dream, and the gelding has won at the third time of asking over hurdles at the age of seven.

A son of Power (Oasis Dream), Helvic Dream’s greatest moment racing was at the Curragh when he captured the Group 1 Tattersalls Gold Cup, and it was at the same venue that he also gained his only other pattern race win, in the Group 3 International Stakes.

The Tony O’Dwyer and Keith O’Brien-bred gelding has taken owners Caroline Hendron and Mairead Cahill to many places, and has also earned blacktype at tracks as varied as Killarney, Ayr in Scotland, and Roscommon.

Helvic Dream, who cost just €12,000 as a yearling, is the first foal out of the unraced Rachevie (Danehill Dancer), and he was followed a year later by a half-sister, Flirting Around (Camelot).

She was pinhooked by Glenvale Stud, who paid €30,000 for her as a foal and got €55,000 the next year. Flirting Around won at two in Ireland, was group-placed at three, and while she didn’t win at stakes level in the USA after that, she did run second in the Grade 1 E.P. Taylor Stakes. She sold last November for $150,000 at Keeneland,

Rachevie’s three-year-old Calyx Rose (Calyx) cost Rabbah Bloodstock €85,000 as a yearling, while the mare’s two-year-old sold in Japan as a foal for 60 million yen ($444,000). He is a colt by No Nay Never (Scat Daddy). Better was to come in 2023 when Rachevie’s colt foal by Epiphaneia (Symboli Kris S) realised a whopping $587,000 at public auction in Japan.

The emergence of Helvic Dream has certainly brought life back again to a branch of a family that had gone a little quiet. His dam Rachevie had three winning siblings, one of them by Helvic Dream’s sire Power, and their winning dam Challow Hills (Woodman) was a half-sister to the multiple Canadian stakes winner Teide (Mt Livermore). Further back and the family gets a lot more interesting.

Diminuendo

The winning Nijinsky (Northern Dancer) mare Cascassi is Helvic Dream’s third dam, and she won in England and France. Cascassi was born five years after her half-sister Diminuendo (Diesis), and this winner of the then Group 2 Fillies’ Mile went on at three to land a trio of Group 1 races, the Oaks at Epsom, its equivalent at the Curragh, and at York. She won eight of her 11 starts and was also placed in two other classics, second in the St Leger and third in the 1000 Guineas. Diminuendo is the dam of the classic-placed Group 3 winner Calando (Storm Cat).

Diminuendo’s full-sister Pricket (Diesis) only managed to face the starter on three occasions, and after she won the Listed Pretty Polly Stakes she almost achieved a feat her sister did, but had to settle for second-best instead in the Group 1 Oaks.

Although she didn’t hold a candle to her sisters when it came to racing ability, albeit she did win in the USA, Sister Sophie (Effervescing) did something that her siblings never managed, and that was to breed a Group 1 winner.

It happened in Italy, in the Premio Vittorio di Capua, and the British-trained Port Lucaya (Sharpo) had to travel for most of his blacktype as he won at listed, Group 2 and 3 levels in Germany.