GETTING blacktype of any kind is hard to achieve, but some female lines do it with such regularity and to such a high level that you might wonder why we all cannot breed winners easily.

When success comes to a family, and it is properly cultivated, then it is amazing how a pedigree can throw up good winners all the time. Take the case of Jetara (Walk In The Park), who added a listed mares’ novice hurdle success at Punchestown on Tuesday to her victory just over a year ago in a listed bumper at Navan. She has now won twice under both codes, and now that she has got the winning feeling over obstacles, she could go on to better things for her owner/breeder Gerry McGrath.

At the November Sale in Tattersalls Ireland in 2020, Dash Grange Stud’s Jayne McGivern paid €85,000 for the bumper winner Jelan (Milan), in foal to Getaway (Monsun). The mare’s foal that year, a filly by Walk In The Park (Montjeu) now named Park The Jet, was snapped up earlier in the sale by the renowned judge Michael Tallon for €25,000. The foal Jelan was carrying later realised £43,000 as a newly turned yearling to Swanbridge Bloodstock.

Intriguingly, Park The Jet did not race and was covered last year as a two-year-old, producing a colt in February by Crystal Ocean (Sea The Stars), and she was then covered by Blue Bresil (Smadoun). Park The Jet is owned by Frank Motherway and his son-in-law Conor Cashman, breeding in the names of Yellowford and Drumlin.

Jelan has a yearling gelding and a filly foal, both by Nathaniel (Galileo), while this year McGivern sent the mare to her own stallion, Golden Horn (Cape Cross) to be covered.

McGivern and others will be delighted now with the growing reputation for Jelan’s first foal, the five-year-old Jetara. Gerry McGrath has had so much success with this family. Jelan is an own-sister to the Grade 1 Champion Hurdle winner Jezki (Milan) and Grade 2 winner and Grade 1-placed Jenari (Milan), and a half-sister to Grade 1 winners Jered (Presenting) and Jetson (Oscar), and the Grade 2 winner and Grade 1-placed Jett (Flemensfirth).

Jezki was for many seasons a standing dish in the top Grade 1 hurdle races, and in April 2015 he enjoyed his final two successes at the level, starting with the Doom Bar Aintree Hurdle at Aintree and ending with a defeat of Hurricane Fly in the Ladbrokes World Series Hurdle at Punchestown. This brought to eight the number of Grade 1 wins he amassed, including the Champion Hurdle and Champion Novice Hurdle at Punchestown, the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham, the Royal Bond Novice Hurdle and Hatton’s Grace Hurdle at Fairyhouse, and the Future Champions Novice Hurdle at Leopardstown.

His final race record reads 16 wins and nine places and earnings of almost £1 million. He carried the colours of J.P. McManus after Gerry McGrath sold him on, and was trained, like Jetara, by Jessica Harrington. She also handled the career of his half-brother Jetson, owned by McGrath, and he captured the Grade 1 Ladbrokes World Series Hurdle at Punchestown. .

Jezki and Jetson are among six winners out of La Noire (Phardante), five of which won blacktype races, with three being Grade 1 winners, Jered landing the Champion Novice Hurdle at the Punchestown Festival. As if all of this was not enough, an unplaced sibling to all of these stars, Miss Squiff (Saddlers’ Hall), bred the Grade 3 chase winner and Grade 1-placed Jetz (Flemensfirth).

All of this success has not suddenly appeared. La Noire did not manage to win, but six of her siblings did, and a pair of them won at Grade 1 level. Strong Run (Strong Gale) won the BMW Chase at Punchestown, and this was also the venue for the biggest race win enjoyed by his younger sibling, Leading Run (Supreme Leader), as he captured the Grade 1 Champion Bumper there, one of his four bumper victories.

Walk In The Park (Montjeu) is simply the hottest sire in National Hunt circles, dominating on the track and in the sale ring. His five-year-olds, the crop which has given us Jetara, also includes the Grade 2 hurdle winner Ilovethenightlife, Grade 2 chase winner Silent Approach, Grade 3-winning hurdler Croke Park, listed hurdle winners Arctic Fly and Our Bab, and listed bumper winners Aurora Vega and Larchmont Lass.

SILENT Approach is one that got away, and the Grade 2 mares’ novice chase winner at Cork will later have a bright future among the broodmare band at Kilbarry Lodge Stud, the place of her birth.

Purchased by Sue Magnier for €90,000 at the Tattersalls Ireland Derby Sale two years ago, and from the same crop as Jetara who also features on this page, Silent Approach is bred in the purple. A daughter of Walk In The Park (Montjeu), she was bred by Con O’Keeffe out of the unraced Bob’s Return (Bob Back) mare Kilbarry Demon.

Having made two starts for Mrs Magnier and Linda Shanahan in England, beaten on both occasions, she was resold in January this year for £26,000, and returned to be trained by her breeder. She failed to win over hurdles for her new connections, but ran consistently and finished third at long odds in a listed hurdle race at Killarney.

Sent chasing last month, she won on her debut and showed that was no fluke when winning the Grade 2 at Cork, in spite of being the unconsidered outsider.

This is a family that has success in every generation. One of five winners for her dam, Silent Approach is joined on that list by the Grade 3 Naas chase winner Journey With Me (Mahler) and the eight-time winner Yorkist (Urban Ocean) who was runner-up in a listed chase. Kilbarry Demon has a few noteworthy siblings, chief among them being Racing Demon, All The Roses and Kilbarry Medoc.

Racing Demon (Old Vic) never quite was good enough to win a Grade 1, finishing second in the Royal & SunAlliance Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham, beaten less than a length, while over fences he was third in the King George VI Chase. Nonethess, Henrietta Knight saddled him to win the Grade 2 Peterborough Chase twice.

All The Roses had one unsuccessful outing in a point-to-point, but at stud she has more that rectified that blot on her copybook, breeding the Grade A Leinster National winner Abolitionist (Flemensfirth) and the Grade 2 hurdle and Grade 3 chase winner Askanna (Old Vic). The latter has since given the family an enormous boost as she is the dam of the Grade 1 Golden Cygnet Novice Hurdle winner Minella Cocooner (Flemensfirth).

Not to be totally outshone, Kilbarry Demon’s unraced full-sister Kilbarry Gen (Bob’s Return) bred the 2022 Grade 3 Irish hurdle winner Kilbarry Chloe (Mahler).

The two best horses in the family appear in the next two generations. Hurdle and point-to-point winner Merry Lesa (Dalesa), is the third dam of Silent Approach, but more importantly her son is Merry Gale (Strong Gale), a multiple Grade 1 chase winner and a great favourite of racegoers in the nineties.

Go back to the fourth dam Rozeen (Merry Rose), and she is the third dam of the Grade 1 Champion Hurdle winner Brave Inca (Good Thyne).