I MAKE no apologies for returning again to feature the Group 2 Beresford Stakes winner Hotazhell (Too Darn Hot), as this race is one of my favourite juvenile contests of the year. It doesn’t produce a winner who goes on to become a champion every year, but it has a record that is hard to beat for having quality winners.

Aidan O’Brien won the race in 1996 with Johan Cruyff, and when Luxembourg won in 2021, he was the Ballydoyle maestro’s 21st winner of the contest. Among the luminaries he has won the race with are St Nicholas Abbey, Saxon Warrior and Japan, to name a small handful, and in that same period only five times was the race won by a non-Ballydoyle runner.

John Oxx saddled three winners, and what a trio they were – Sea The Stars, Alamshar and Azamour.

Michael Halford won the race with Casamento, while Jessica Harrington did so with Curtain Call. Casamento went on to win the Group 1 Racing Post Trophy and then the colt was moved to England to be trained. Curtain Call was also taken from his trainer at the end of his juvenile season, sent to Luca Cumani, and one is only left to wonder what would have happened had he remained with Harrington.

Well, now Jessica Harrington can look forward with great hope to the future career of the most recent winner, now ranked among the very best juveniles in Ireland. Bred by Blue Diamond Stud Farm, Hotazhell realised 70,000gns as a yearling when sold to Linehan Bloodstock, and was a profitable 200,000gns sale this year at the Tattersalls Craven Breeze Up Sale, purchased by Silverton Hill Partnership. He runs in their colours.

Favourite for a Leopardstown maiden on his debut, in which he finished fourth, Hotazhell won at the second time of asking up at the Curragh, and built on that when readily landing the Group 3 Japan Racing Association Tyros Stakes at Leopardstown. He was comfortably held when second to Henri Matisse in the Group 2 Futurity at the Curragh, with Scorthy Champ a length back in third, and that pair occupied the first two places since in the Group 1 Goffs Vincent O’Brien National Stakes.

Sold cheaply

Hotazhell is one of four winners out of Azenzar (Danehill Dancer), and she was sold for export at last year’s December Sale for 16,000gns, in foal to Blackbeard (No Nay Never) whose stud fee was €25,000!

What a bargain that looks now. Azenzar was a winner and her unraced dam Dashing (Sadler’s Wells) is a half-sister to the outstanding racemare Alexander Goldrun (Gold Away) and the classic-placed sire Medecis (Machiavellian).

What a performer Alexander Goldrun was. Her racing career took her and connections around the world, and she won 10 races, among them two editions of the Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh, the Group 1 Nassau Stakes at Goodwood, the Group 1 Prix de l’Opera at Longchamp, and her most valuable win in the Group 1 Hong Kong Cup in Sha Tin. She was runner-up in five Group 1 contests and third in the same number of such races.

Victory for Hotazhell came after his sire Too Darn Hot (Dubawi) sired a pair of stakes winners in Australia, Broadsiding and Perspiration capturing the Group 1 Golden Rose and Listed Heritage Stakes respectively. Broadsiding enjoyed two Group 1 successes as a juvenile. After a sensational season with his first runners in 2023, with four European group-winning two-year-olds, Too Darn Hot is enjoying another successful year, siring 12blacktype winners so far, including Fallen Angel who became his first classic winner when she was victorious in the Group 1 Tattersalls Irish 1000 Guineas.

Ten Sovereigns

Another sire with his second crop runners is Ten Sovereigns (No Nay Never), and he has a real live chance of a Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile winner in the shape of the unbeaten Zulu Kingdom.

Bred by Ecurie Peregrine, the breeding arm of Elisabeth and André Fabre, Zulu Kingdom made a winning debut in France before selling privately to current owners, Madaket Stables and partners.

Shipped to Chad Brown in the United Stakes, the colt won the Grade 3 With Anticipation Stakes at Saratoga before getting a free berth at the Breeders’ Cup after taking the Grade 2 Pilgrim Stakes at Belmont. Zulu Kingdom is the best of six stakes winners, and Inquisitively is his only other pattern winner, taking last year’s Group 3 Cornwallis Stakes. Two of the half a dozen blacktype winners have been in Italy.

Last year, Zulu Kingdom’s half-brother Zulu Warrior won a listed race at Saint-Cloud, but the gelding failed to sell at €230,000 when offered at the Arc Sale in Paris. They are the only two winners to date for the Smart Strike (Mr Prospector) mare Zindiswa, and she is a full-sister to Group 3 winner and sire Zinzibari (Smart Strike). He was the sole pattern winner out of Zinziberine (Zieten), and she was especially smart as a juvenile, winning both the Group 2 Criterium Maisons-Laffitte and Group 3 Prix Eclipse. At stud she is the dam of three stakes winners.

Classic success

Two years ago, Txope (Siyouni) won the Group 2 German 1000 Guineas at Dusseldorf, carrying the colours of Antoine Griezmann, the French soccer international and World Cup winner.

After her classic success she sold for $1.2 million to BBA Ireland at the Arqana Summer Sale. She is the best runner to date for her stakes-placed dam Power Of The Moon (Acclamation), and she is a half-sister to the aforementioned Zinziberine.

This is one of those solid female lines that keeps on throwing up a good horse on the track, though you have to go back to Zulu Kingdom’s fourth dam to find a Group 1 winner. Amen (Alydar) was a five-time winner in America and graded stakes-placed, but she went to stud in Europe and the best of her eight winners, three of them blacktype, was the dual Group 1 Prix Royal Oak-French St Leger victor Amilynx (Linamix).

Last week I wrote in detail about Kameko (Kitten’s Joy), after New Century gave him a Grade 1 winner in his first crop of juveniles. I mentioned a second stakes performer for the sire, Wimbledon Hawkeye, who was twice group-placed, running second to The Lion In Winter in the Group 3 Acomb Stakes.

The Gredley family’s homebred, who credited Kameko with his first winner as a sire, has now become his second blacktype winner, and he did so in good style when taking the Group 2 Juddmonte Royal Lodge Stakes.

Derby talk

Connections are already talking about the Derby next year, but perhaps there is a Group 1 challenge still to be made at two. The 2017 Royal Lodge Stakes winner was Roaring Lion, a son of Kitten’s Joy (El Prado), and he was just beaten by Saxon Warrior in the Racing Post Trophy at the end of his first season racing.

In 2003, the Gredley’s, through their Stetchworth Park Stud, bought Whazzat (Daylami) for 30,000gns. The following year she won the Listed Chesham Stakes at Royal Ascot, and has gone on to produce 11 winners, one of them being Wimbledon Hawkeye’s dam Eva Maria (Sea The Stars). Having failed to sell Eva Maria, the filly went on to win three times, including a premier fillies handicap at Newmarket, and the weekend Group 2 winner is her first foal.

Eva Maria’s winning siblings are headed by James Garfield (Exceed And Excel), and he was a very smart two-year-old who won the Group 2 Mill Reef Stakes. The following year he added the Group 3 Greenham Stakes and his placed efforts included finishing second in the Group 1 Prix Maurice de Gheest.