WHEN you have to fill four pages every week with breeding news, there is often a need to keep coming back to the same sires and same breeders, simply because they are the most successful. I make no apologies therefore when that happens.

A case in point is Havana Grey, Whitsbury Manor’s son of Havana Gold (Teofilo), who has made the most splendid start to his second career at stud. That he should do so is no real surprise, given that the speedster had Sioux Nation among those he beat when crowning his career with victory in the Group 1 Derrinstown Stud Flying Five at the Curragh as a three-year-old. He also won the Group 2 Sapphire Stakes at the same track earlier in the year.

As a two-year-old Havana Grey won half of his eight starts, accounting for Invincible Army in the Group 3 Molecomb Stakes, while at the highest level he chased home Unfortunately in the Group 1 Prix Morny.

Outstanding

Last year was an outstanding one for Havana Grey when his first crop gave up 43 individual winners, five of them stakes winners, while a host of others were group and stakes-placed. His three juvenile group winners were Eddie’s Boy (Prix Eclipse), Lady Hollywood (Prix d’Arenberg) and Rumstar (Cornwallis Stakes). Now this year Havana Grey has increased his tally of stakes winners to seven from that first crop, Yakushima winning a listed race in Japan, and Mammas Girl shining this week at Newmarket.

Amo Racing has one glaring omission on their curriculum vitae, that of a Group 1 winner. Now they have a number of possibilities, especially after this week’s racing, and one of them is Mammas Girl. On just her second outing, Mammas Girl showed a clean pair of heels to Fairy Cross and Secret Angel to win the Group 3 Lanwades Stud Nell Gwyn Stakes in decisive fashion. She has already justified, many times over, her yearling purchase price.

Bred by Robert Cornelius, Mammas Girl was consigned to the Goffs UK Premier Sale by WH Bloodstock, and sold for £35,000, a little more than the average that year for yearlings by her sire. She was selected by the Peter and Ross Doyle team and, not surprisingly, joined Richard Hannon to be trained. What makes her price seem like value, assuming she was physically correct, is that she was a half-sister to nine winners at the time of her sale.

Impeccable record

Well, the almost impeccable record of her dam Mamma Morton (Elnadim) has been further enhanced. Mammas Girl, her first group winner, is the twelfth offspring of Mamma Morton, all have run, and all bar one (who was placed) have been winners. Very few mares ever achieve such a level of success, and the story may not yet be finished. Mamma Morton’s, hopefully lucky, 13th foal is a yearling colt by Dandy Man (Mozart).

Could Mammas Girl go on to become a classic winner? Well, she has already eclipsed the achievement of her half-brother Master Of War (Compton Place) by becoming a group winner. He was no slouch though, winning the Listed Rose Bowl Stakes at Newbury as a two-year-old, and finishing second in the Group 2 Mill Reef Stakes and Group 2 Richmond Stakes that same season.

Mamma Morton has had one other blacktype horse, Life In Colour (Showcasing), a winner last year for owner Wendy O’Leary, and cleverly placed by trainer Willie McCreery to gain a most valuable piece of blacktype, especially for a filly, by running third in the Listed Waterford Testimonial Stakes at the Curragh on her last start.

Some achievement

Breeding 11 winners is some achievement, but Mamma Morton, who herself was only placed a few times, was simply matching the record of her own dam, the classic-placed Gharam (Green Dancer). That juvenile winner failed to land a stakes win, though she was placed in both the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches-French 1000 Guineas, and the Group 2 Ribblesdale Stakes. She had more foals than her daughter, but 11 winners was again something to be proud about.

One thing that Gharam failed to do was to produce a stakes winner. Her son Shaya (Nashwan) was group-placed, as was her daughter Elshamms (Zafonic), the latter going on to breed a pair of stakes winners. In fact, six daughters of Gharam bred a blacktype winner. Asaleeb (Alhaarth) had a Group 2 winner in South Africa, while Naazeq (Nashwan) is the dam of the US stakes winner Tamweel (Gulch), and she was second in the Grade 1 Spinster Stakes.

There was a recent boost to this family too, and that came courtesy of Naazeq’s winning daughter Sharapova (Elusive Quality). She is dam of the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes third Lottie Dod (Invincible Spirit), and grandam of the Group 3 winner Flotus (Starspangledbanner), runner-up in the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes and placed last year in both the Group 1 Commonwealth Cup and Flying Five Stakes.