THE opening meeting of the flat season at Naas saw an eight-race card, with eight different trainers in the winners’ enclosure. The day’s two feature races were won by geldings, both bred in England, and they were born five years apart.

Pat Garvey owns Sunchart who won the Listed Tote Irish EBF Devoy Stakes for the second year in succession, and both the owner and trainer have been very loyal and patient with this eight-year-old son of Teofilo (Galileo).

This was Sunchart’s 36th career start, his fourth win, and three of those victories have been gained in the last year, some four and a half years and more after he won a maiden at Tipperary by almost five lengths at two.

Mind you, Sunchart was always well thought of by connections, and at three he contested the Group 1 Irish Derby where he was beaten 13 lengths by Santiago, and was even sent to Doncaster for the Group 1 St Leger where he again finished eighth, as he had done at the Curragh, this time 10 lengths behind the winner, Galileo Chrome. He is a horse who has been placed seven times in group or listed races on the flat, and a five-race career over hurdles included a half-length defeat by the smart Gaucher in a Grade 3 novice at Tipperary.

Bred by Newsells Park Stud, Sunchart was sold as a foal for 6,500gns before turning into a very smart pinhook when Andy Slattery bought him as a yearling at the Goffs Orby Sale for €62,000. Adrian Costello’s Clenagh Castle Stud in Co Clare has quite a habit of producing smart pinhooks and this was just another example of one.

While Sunchart has just won four times, his career efforts have earned his owner some £150,000, and he has more or less paid for his racing. His good form in the past 12 months suggest he can add further to his tally of wins.

Sunchart is the best of six winners for his winning dam Hometime (Dubai Destination), a Darley-bred who sold at the end of her racing career for €200,000 at Goffs to Oliver St Lawrence. In the year of Sunchart’s birth she was offered for sale at Newmarket and retained at 50,000gns, but later found her way to Japan where two of her offspring are recent winners. It is notable that Hometime’s stock all seem to take time, and Sunchart is her only produce to win at two.

Eastern Joy

This is a female family that can rightly be called one of the best in the stud book. While credit is due to Hometime for her achievements at stud, she is not in the same league as her full-sister Eastern Joy. While she is the dam of a single Group 1 winner, Eastern Joy has become one of the most celebrated broodmares of the past decade or so. She is the dam of six stakes winners, and grandam of a Group 1 winner.

Let’s work backwards for a moment. The last-mentioned Group 1 winner won twice at that level, and he is Coroebus (Dubawi), victorious in both the Group 1 St James’s Palace Stakes and 2000 Guineas. Those efforts saw him rated as the joint champion three-year-old miler in Europe in 2022, but tragedy struck when he stumbled and fell in the Group 1 Prix du Moulin de Longchamp and was fatally injured.

He is the best winner out of First Victory (Teofilo), and she is bred on very similar lines to Sunchart, by the same sire and out of full-sisters. First Victory made just four starts, won twice as a juvenile, and her best result was winning the Group 3 Oh So Sharp Stakes at Newmarket. As I mentioned earlier, First Victory is one of six stakes winners from Eastern Snow, that mare’s first six foals. They also include dual Group 1 Dubai World Cup winner and dual French Group 1 winner Thunder Snow (Helmet), Group 2 winner and classic-placed Ihtimal (Shamardal), Group 3 UAE winner Eastern World (Dubawi), listed winner and Group 1 Sun Chariot Stakes runner-up Always Smile (Cape Cross), and the Listed UAE 1000 Guineas winner Winter Lightning (Shamardal).

Red Slippers

Eastern Joy is one of 11 winners from the Nureyev mare Red Slippers (Nureyev). She was raced by Robert Sangster and following her first win was bought by Sheikh Mohammed in 1991. A half-sister to the Irish Derby and Epsom Oaks winner Balanchine (Storm Bird), and an own-sister to Group 2 winner and Group 1 Epsom Derby third Romanov (Nureyev), Red Slippers went on to win the then Group 2 Sun Chariot Stakes in Sheikh Mohammed’s maroon colours.

At stud the best of Red Slippers’ winners was West Wind (Machiavellian) and she won the Group 1 Prix de Diane-French Oaks, was runner-up in the Group 1 Prix Vermeille and, on her only start in Ireland, ran third to Peeping Fawn and Speciosa in the Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes. The influence of Teofilo in this family is again demonstrated as West Wind’s son by that stallion, West Wind Blows, was a dual Group 3 winner in France, placed in the Group 1 Eclipse Stakes, and in Australia ran second in both the Group 1 Caulfield Cup and Group 1 Turnbull Stakes.

Teofilo has embarked on his eighteenth season at stud in Kildangan at €30,000. There are few sires who have been as consistently successful throughout his career, and Sunchart shares his status as a stakes winner on the flat with 117 others, some 68 of them being winners at group or graded level. Not long ago, Teofilo reached a landmark with his 200th stakes performer on the flat. His 25 Group 1 winners include five down under from his time shuttling.

Special mention

Ron McKnight was a distinguished member of the pressroom at Irish racecourses, and he was remembered by his peers at Naas when the historic Madrid Handicap carried his name and that of the Irish Racing Writers Association.

Given his preferred ground, the three-year-old East Hampton (Cracksman) won for the second time and in a fast time, and last year he won a 21-runner maiden at the Curragh. This is a horse to keep an eye on anytime he gets conditions in his favour.

Trainer David Marnane picked the gelding out as a yearling, giving 32,500gns for him. Bred by Manor Farm Stud in Rutland and John Rose, East Hampton is the second winner for his Aqlaam (Oasis Dream) dam Sitar, and that mare won twice for Manor Farm and Rose. Her other winner is the Naas winner’s own-brother Poweredbylove (Cracksman).

Three of the first four generations of this family have been successful in terms of producing winners, but with no stakes performers listed. The exception is East Hampton’s third dam Kangra Valley (Indian Ridge), and what an exception she was. Her eight winners included Group 1 winners Airwave (Air Express) and Jwala (Oasis Dream), triumphant in the Cheveley Park Stakes and Nunthorpe Stakes respectively.

If that was not enough, Kangra Valley is grandam of Dream Of Dreams (Dream Ahead) who won both the Group 1 Diamond Jubilee Stakes and Haydock Park Sprint, and is third dam of the full-siblings, Churchill (Galileo) and Clemmie. The latter won the Gorup 1 Cheveley Park Stakes, while Churchill won four top-level contests and is a Group 1 sire.