FEW farms can claim the levels of success in so many aspects of our business as Tally-Ho Stud.

This year it will be home to seven stallions, ranging from the most established of them all, Kodiac, to his son Good Guess, the newcomer to the team. Another who can claim to be well-established is Mehmas, even though his first crop has just turned six.

That first crop sired by Mehmas contained four Group/Grade 1 winners, two of whom are now at stud themselves, Minzaal and Supremacy. A third son at stud is Persian Force, who also stands at Tally-Ho, and he comes from Mehmas’ third crop. The second crop by Mehmas includes Group 2 winner Lusail who starts his stud career this year in France, and Caturra whose first foals are now due. There is no shortage of demand for the sire or his offspring.

The new year has already given Mehmas his first stakes winner, Taj Alriyadh – or Taj Dragon as he is known in Hong Kong – who gained the most important of his eight career wins in the Group 3 Chinese Club Challenge Cup at Sha Tin. Winner of his first three starts at two in England when in the care of Karl Burke, he looked to have his limitations exposed when down the field in a listed race at Ripon.

Gelded and sent to Hong Kong, he took a little time to win, but now has become more consistent, and already has earned some £850,000 there. His victory took Mehmas’ tally to 26 stakes winners in his first four crops, and in the coming years we are going to see growing numbers of better-bred sons and daughters hitting the track.

Taj Dragon’s dam Next Trial was purchased from Godolphin having just turned three, and cost 35,000gns. At the time the main claim to fame for the unraced daughter of Hard Spun (Danzig) was that she was a half-sister to multiple UAE and Turkish group winner Shuruq (Elusive Quality). She had won a Group 2 in Dubai, as well as the Group 3 UAE Oaks. In the following years, the immediate family exploded into life.

Space Blues

Shuruq is the dam of the Grade 3 winner Antoinette (Hard Spun), a daughter of Next Trial’s sire, and she was second in the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks and third in the Grade 1 CCA Oaks. Soon after Next Trial was sold, her half-brother by Dubawi (Dubai Millennium) was born. He is none other than Space Blues, and his first crop of foals last year averaged €52,500 for some 29 sold.

Hugely consistent over four seasons, Space Blues beat Hello Youmzain to win the Group 1 Prix Maurice de Gheest at four, but better was to come at five when he added the Group 1 Prix de la Foret and the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile. He is the best of five winning offspring of the Group 2 Challenge Stakes winner Miss Lucifer (Noverre), and that mare has a yearling own-sister to the Kildangan Stud stallion on the ground.

Back for a moment to Next Trial. For her first two years at stud she visited Kodiac (Invincible Spirit). He first foal was never named, while the second sold for 100,000gns and won a fair chunk of that in prize money with four wins. Last October Federico Barberini paid 260,000gns for Next Trial’s yearling by Hello Youmzain (Kodiac), and down in Mullingar there is a yearling full-sister to Taj Dragon.