QUALITY overload is possibly the best way to describe the past weekend of racing. There were many familiar names gracing the various winner’s enclosures, quite a few of which have graced these pages on more than one occasion. I will try to include as many new faces as I can this week.

You will have not failed to notice that I reserve a special admiration for the O’Callaghan family’s Tally-Ho Stud establishment, as stallion makers, breeders, sales vendors, pinhookers and more. There is a book, and a large one at that, in their success story.

The victory of Scorthy Champ in the Group 1 Goffs Vincent O’Brien National Stakes is almost a perfect example of what Tony, Anne, Roger and Henry do best, and regularly.

Fidaaha, a daughter of New Approach (Galileo), was bred by Jim Bolger, and he capitalised on the US Grade 3 success of her full-sister Ceisteach (New Approach) when he sold the filly as a yearling at Goffs for €200,000. Angus Gold, for Shadwell Estate, purchased her to race in the colours of Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum. Fidaaha joined Dermot Weld, and connections were patient, but two starts as a three-year-old, when she got no closer than 14 lengths to a winner, resulted in a swift decision to offload her, back again at Goffs.

On this occasion her value plummeted to €15,000, and the name of Tally-Ho appeared on the buyers’ docket. Soon afterwards, having just turned four, Fidaaha reappeared from John McConnell’s yard, leased to a racing club, but two more disappointing efforts on the all-weather meant that the plug was pulled on any further racing attempts. It was off to the breeding shed, and a mating with Tally-Ho’s Mehmas (Acclamation), then standing his second season.

A filly ensued from that mating, purchased by Star Bloodstock for £29,000 at the Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale, and the following year, during the pandemic, the Arqana Breeze-Up Sale at Doncaster welcomed the filly back, and she realised a very healthy profit when selling for £120,000. David Redvers did the purchasing with Ghislain Bozo’s Meridian Bloodstock, in a private transaction, and the subsequently named Malavath (Mehmas) was sent to France.

Francis-Henri Graffard took on training duties with Malavath, racing for Everest Racing, one of the most astute owners in the world in Barbara Keller, and David Redvers. A Group 2 winner at Chantilly at two, and a Group 3 winner in her second season, Malavath was beaten half a length by Pizza Bianca in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, and at three chased home Kinross in the Group 1 Prix de la Foret. She was less than two lengths off Modern Games when fifth in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile.

New high

Connections then offered Malavath for sale, this time back at Arqana’s ring in Deauville, and she sold to Moyglare Stud for €3.2 million, then a new high for a horse sold by the sales company. She was consigned by Écurie des Monceaux. Fiona Craig was acting for Moyglare Stud when she signed the docket, revealing that the filly would head to the United States to be trained by Christophe Clément. Craig said at the time: “She’s a beautiful filly, and physically she has everything to be a good broodmare. She should bring speed, which we are looking for. She likes the US and has everything to win a Grade 1 over there. That’s the aim!”

Sadly, the aim did not materialise into a reality, and instead Malavath’s first year at stud involved a mating with the great Justify (Scat Daddy) this spring.

The early success for Malavath meant that her year-younger full-brother Knight (Mehmas) was going to prove popular in the sale ring, this time in Book 2 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale. So it proved, and Stroud Coleman’s bid of 210,000gns was enough to secure him. He ran twice at two, and won what turns out to have been a non-vintage renewal of the Group 3 Horris Hill Stakes. Gelded the following year, Knight was runner-up to Chindit in the Group 2 Celebration Mile, but has been disappointing since.

Stakes winner

We have yet to see Anybody But You (Cotai Glory), and that three-year-old filly was purchased by Ken Condon for €200,000 at the 2022 Goffs Orby Sale. Scorthy Glen is now the fourth offspring and third stakes winner for Fidaaha, and his victory over Henri Matisse was an improvement on his third-place finish to the Ballydoyle runner when the pair met in the Group 2 Futurity Stakes at the Curragh.

Mehmas came close to having a second Group 1 winner on the Curragh card, his daughter Believing finding only Bradsell too good in the Group 1 Bar One Racing Flying Five Stakes.

Scorthy Champ’s win came just two days after another of Mehmas’s juveniles, Aesterius, stepped up from winning the Group 3 Prix d’Arenberg at ParisLongchamp to capturing the Group 2 Flying Childers Stakes.

Bred by Sean Maguire, Aesterius might now be aimed at the Group 1 Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp on Arc weekend. In any case, his latest win will have put him on the radar of all commercial stallion masters, though Wathnan Racing’s principal may have ideas of their own in this regard.

Aesterius has been through the sales ring now on three occasions, realising 52,000gns as a foal, 60,000gns as a yearling, and then a sale-topping £380,000 for a colt, sold by Willie Browne’s Mocklershill at Goffs UK this spring.

“He’s by one of the best sires of two-year-olds around, a gorgeous horse, and from one of the doyens of the breeze up sales,” said Blandford Bloodstock’s Richard Brown after he bought the colt. “Willie was very high on him then, and he did a seriously good breeze yesterday. He looks forward-going.”

Fifth crop

Scorthy Champ and Aesterius are from the fifth crop sired by Mehmas, and from the crop that were sired when his fee jumped from €7,500 to €25,000. It doubled the next year, rose to €60,000 in 2023, and settled back at €50,000 this year. Those crops have yielded five Group 1 winners, and the other four all came from his first-born foals.

The quartet is made up of Minzaal (standing at Derrinstown Stud), Supremacy (Yeomanstown Stud), Going Global and Chez Pierre.

Though his first crop is only six, sons of Mehmas are proving popular with stallion masters, and also at stud are Persian Force (Tally-Ho), Lusail (Haras de Bouquetot) and Caturra (Overbury Stud). Mehmas won four of his eight starts, all as a juvenile, and got his top wins in the Group 2 July Stakes and Group 2 Richmond Stakes. He chased home Caravaggio in the Group 2 Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot, finished third to The Last Lion in the Group 1 Middle Park Stakes on his final start, and lost nothing in defeat when a four-and-a-half-length runner-up to Churchill in the Group 1 National Stakes at the Curragh, the seven-furlong trip looking just a bit beyond him.

With his two-year-olds and younger all coming from the best mares Mehmas has covered since retiring to stud, and his juveniles doing so well in 2024, it is reasonable to assume that we will see many more stars emerge in the near future.