CONGRATULATIONS to Johnny Bourke of Lackagh Springs Stud.

At the weekend he cheered home the Richard Fahey-trained Marine Wave (Harry Angel) as the four-year-old was repaid for her consistency by winning the Listed Flying Fillies’ Stakes at Pontefract. She is the fourth individual stakes winner of 2024 for her owner, Sheikh Rashid Dalmook Al Maktoum.

Previously, the filly was placed three times in listed company, and this was her third win, all over five and six furlongs. Marine Wave was bred by Rabbah Bloodstock, but they sold her dam Ambiguous, a daughter of Kheleyf (Green Desert), at Goffs in November 2021, to Bourke and Kelly Equine, for just €8,000. Not covered that year, she had enjoyed mixed luck as a broodmare, but the gamble has paid off for Bourke.

The first produce out of Ambiguous for Bourke, in the name of the Little Carmine Partnership, was a colt by Kuroshio (Exceed And Excel), and he sold as a foal last year at Goffs for €12,000 to Luke Coen’s Q-Cross Stables. The colt will be offered for sale this coming week at Doncaster from Clonbur House at the Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale. Bourke reports that Ambiguous has a ‘cracking colt’ by Minzaal (Mehmas) heading to the foal sales this autumn, and the mare is in foal to Mehmas (Acclamation).

Ambiguous sold as a yearling to Rabbah Bloodstock for £68,000, but she never raced. She is a daughter of another unraced mare, Easy To Imagine (Cozzene), and few at the Doncaster November Sale in 2002 could have predicted the success she would enjoy after being knocked down to a cash purchaser for 5,200gns.

When Alpha Delphinia (Captain Gerrard) was announced as the winner of the Group 1 Coolmore Nunthorpe Stakes by a whisker, he became the second son of Easy To Imagine to win a Group 1 sprint in Europe. Seven years earlier, his half-brother Tangerine Trees (Mind Games) triumphed in the Group 1 Qatar Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp.

Tangerine Trees was still winning races at the age of 11, amassing well over £300,000 in a career that saw him win on 15 occasions. His biggest victory in England came in the Group 3 Palace House Stakes at Newmarket, a race in which he was also placed. Alpha Delphinia’s biggest success was the eighth of his career, though he outperformed his sibling in terms of earnings, winning almost £390,000.

Stakes performers

The fifth and sixth runners and winners for Easy To Imagine were also stakes performers. A daughter, Kurious (Kuroshio), gained two of her three successes in blacktype races, the Group 3 Coral Charge Sprint Stakes and the Listed Scurry Stakes, both at Sandown, and she then sold for 900,000gns. Another daughter, Fairy Falcon (Sepoy), was a 190,000gns yearling and was listed-placed at three.

Being multiple winners is a feature of all but one of the raced progeny of Easy To Imagine, and both of her other winners were such, the 8,000gns yearling buy Masai Moon (Lujain) winning eight races and almost 10 times his purchase price, while the 3,000gns yearling purchase Galatian (Traditionally) won five races. Easy To Imagine was bred in the USA by Gainsborough Farm and is a half-sister to five winners, the best of which was five-time winner and Grade 3-placed Base Commander (Officer).

They are all out of Zarani Sidi Anna (Danzig) who was trained by Sir Michael Stoute for Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum and who won four times in England and the USA. She never managed to land a stakes win, though she was third in the Group 1 Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot (a length behind the winner) and occupied the same position in the Grade 1 Milady Handicap at Hollywood Park.

Dancing Shoes

Zarani Sidi Anna is a three-parts sister to Dancing Shoes (Danehill), and that mare’s winning progeny include the Grade 2 La Canada Stakes at Santa Anita winner Striking Dancer (Smart Strike), and the smart Raymond Tusk (High Chaparral) who landed the Group 2 Gran Premio del Jockey Club.

From the first crop of her Dark Angel (Acclamation) sire, Marine Wave became Harry Angel’s seventh blacktype winner this year, following on from the success of his four-year-old son, Arkansaw Kid, who a day earlier was an easy winner of the Listed Regal Roller Stakes at Caulfield. His other 2024 winners include Group 3 scorers A Lilac Rolla and Esquire. Harry Angel has 14 stakes winner in all, and his Group 1 winner Tom Kitten, successful in the Spring Champion Stakes at Randwick, has just made a winning return to the track.

Online ‘purchase’ is a stakes winner

THOUGH listed as a sale to Crystal Bloodstock on ThoroughBid for £1,000, the Kildaragh Stud-bred Englemere (Goken) started her juvenile career in the colours of the farm’s Antoinette Kavanagh, trained by George Boughey, and she improved on a runner-up finish on her debut to win her next two starts.

By the time she lined up for the Group 2 Queen Mary Stakes at Royal Ascot, Englemere had changed ownership, and at the weekend she won for the first time in the silks of George Waud, taking her tally of victories to three in the Listed St Hugh’s Stakes at Newbury. She is the second stakes winner for her dam and is a fine update to the pedigree of Lot 611 in Book 2 of the Goffs Orby Sale, a colt by Acclamation (Royal Applause) from Clare Manning’s Boherguy Stud. That colt, Englemere’s half-brother, sold last year to Scarlett Mullion for €40,000.

Englemere is a daughter of the French stakes-winning juvenile Ascot Family, and she won four times. Her five winners also include the Group 2 Prix Robert Papin winner Family One (Dubai Destination) and he was second in the Group 1 Prix Morny to Dabirsim. His half-sister Modern Family (Excellent Art) was stakes-placed in Italy, and his unraced sibling Lady Family (Sinndar) bred the listed winner and group-placed Lassaut (Almanzor).

This is a female line that one immediately associates with Peter and Antoinette Kavanagh, and many branches of it have been hugely successful in recent decades. Only the first two dams fit on the catalogue page for the Orby Sale, and there are four Group 1 winners under the second dam, the two-year-old winner Family At War (Explodent).

Family At War

Ascot Family is one of a pair of stakes winners among the nine successful progeny of Family At War on the track. One of her unsuccessful runners, Ascot Family’s full-sister Land Army (Desert Style), bred the champion sprinter Lethal Force (Dark Angel). He won the Group 1 Diamond Jubilee Stakes and Group 1 July Cup, and is also a Group 1 sire of Golden Horde.

However, it is Ascot Family’s half-sister Flanders (Common Grounds) who has had the most impact on the pedigree. She was a listed winner, was headed in the last stride in the Group 2 King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot in 1999 (now a Group 1), and her best offspring was the Group 1 Haydock Sprint Cup winner G Force (Tamayuz), also a champion sprinter.

Descending from Flanders are two winners of the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches-French 1000 Guineas, the 2013 winner Flotilla (Mizzen Mast), and the 2022 heroine Mangoustine (Dark Angel). Flotilla also won the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies’ Turf.