WITH some nudging no doubt from Joe Foley, Steve Parkin of Clipper Logistics fame, has been a good supporter of the now Irish Champions Festival weekend.

He had great joy on Saturday as he roared home Flight Plan (Night Of Thunder) in the Group 2 Dullingham Park Stakes at Leopardstown, a race he sponsors. That delight was more than exceeded 24 hours later when his homebred Fallen Angel put herself at the top of the juvenile fillies’ ranking in Europe after taking the honours in the Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes.

Fallen Angel was the first juvenile winner for Too Darn Hot (Dubawi), and she has now won three of her four starts, also collecting the Group 3 Sweet Solera Stakes and finishing runner-up in the Listed Star Stakes. Homebred by Parkin at his Branton Court Stud, Fallen Angel is one of four winners among the first four foals for Agnes Stewart (Lawman), and that €23,000 Goffs yearling purchase by Eddie Lynam carried the Clipper Logistics silks to victory in the Group 2 May Hill Stakes at two, and a runner-up placing in the Group 1 Fillies’ Mile at Newmarket.

Another of Agnes Stewart’s winners is the group and multiple listed-placed Divine Jewel (Frankel). Agnes Stewart and her listed-winning half-sister Sorrel (Dansili) have rejuvenated a branch of a smart family. Fallen Angel’s fourth dam, Summer Fashion (Moorestyle), was responsible for a trio of good performers. Her son Definite Article (Indian Ridge) won the Group 1 National Stakes at two and was runner-up in the Group 1 Irish Derby, while other victories included the then Group 2 Tattersalls Gold Cup.

Definite Article was followed a few years later by the Group 2 Dante Stakes winner Salford Express (Be My Guest), and five years after that along came Salford City (Desert Sun). He won the Group 3 Greenham Stakes for David Elsworth and afterwards was a Grade 2 winner and Grade 1 placed over hurdles, and he even went on to win three times over fences.

Juvenile champion

Too Darn Hot was the 2018 European juvenile champion, winner of four races that year by almost 16 lengths. His headline wins included defeat of Phoenix Of Spain (now himself into double figures with winners this year in his first crop) in the Group 2 Champagne Stakes, and Advertise (another who is off the mark with six winners among his first runners in 2023) in the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes.

At the time of writing, Too Darn Hot has clocked up 14 individual winners, and his stakes winners also include the Group 2 winner Darnation and Group 3 scorer Carolina Reaper, while his son, named Son, has been stakes-placed.

Raced by the Lloyd Webbers, as a three-year-old Too Darn Hot was runner-up to Telecaster in the Group 2 Dante Stakes, to Phoenix Of Spain in the Group 1 Irish 2000 Guineas and placed behind Circus Maximus in the Group 1 St James’s Palace Stakes, before trouncing Space Blues by three lengths in the Group 1 Prix Jean Prat over seven furlongs. He rounded off his career with defeat of Circus Maximus in the Group 1 Sussex Stakes.

Flight Plan

It is a certainty that Joe Foley will have a visit to Box 790 in the Solario Paddock on his agenda at next month’s Book 1 Sale in Newmarket.

That will be the temporary home to a Showcasing (Oasis Dream) colt out of the Italian-winning mare, Romp (Pivotal). Having enjoyed success with that mare’s daughter Hot Affair (Ivawood), which Joe purchased for 40,000gns as a yearling, the Ballyhane Stud owner was back in 2021 to purchase Romp’s Night Of Thunder (Dubawi) son, named Flight Plan, for 150,000gns.

Now a three-year-old, Flight Plan has won his purchase price back in earnings, and after a number of placed efforts at group and listed level, he won the Group 2 Dullingham Park Stakes at Leopardstown. Showing his belief in Flight Plan, and in Romp, last year Foley was back in action when he spent 55,000gns on the now two-year-old Harry Angel (Dark Angel) half-sister to the weekend’s pattern winner.

Solid

This has been a solid, winner-producing family in recent years. Romp is one of five winners out of the group-placed Italian winner Short Affair (Singspiel), and one of her siblings was the German Group 2 winner Rodaballo (Lope De Vega). Short Affair was one of the best of nine successful runners from L’Affaire Monique (Machiavellian). Further back, the family picture is full of quality.

L’Affaire Monique’s Group 2 winning sibling, Whitewater Affair (Machiavellian), was runner-up in the Group 1 Yorkshire Oaks and, at stud, is the dam of two Japanese Group 1 winners, the most notable of which was Victoire Pisa (Neo Universe). A classic winner, the champion of his generation at three, he also won the Group 1 Dubai World Cup.

Little Rock (Warning), a half-brother to L’Affaire Monique, won the Group 2 Princess of Wales’s Stakes and was Group 1-placed in Italy, while another of their siblings was Short Skirt (Diktat), and she won the Group 3 Musidora Stakes was second in the Group 1 Yorkshire Oaks, and placed at Epsom in the Group 1 Oaks.

Short Skirt’s grandson Rebel’s Romance (Dubawi) won the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf and a pair of Group 1 races in Germany.

Champion filly

That’s not the end of it either. Another of L’Affaire Monique’s full-sisters was the stakes-placed Rich Affair (Machiavellian). She was bought to go to Japan where she bred a minor stakes-placed runner, but her granddaughter Robe Tissage (War Emblem) was the champion juvenile filly more than a decade ago after winning the Group 1 Hanshin Juvenile Fillies Stakes.

Elsewhere on these pages, you will find a reference to the first stakes winner for Yeomanstown Stud’s Invincible Army (Invincible Spirit). That was Kitty Rose, and she won the Listed Ballylinch Stud-sponsored Ingabelle Stakes. Kitty Rose is out of a granddaughter of White House (Pursuit Of Love), another half-sister to L’Affaire Monique.