GLENEAGLES (Galileo) sired his fourth stakes winner of 2024 when Brilliant took the feature on the opening day of the turf season in Ireland, capturing the Group 3 Lodge Park Stud Irish EBF Park Express Stakes.

This was just a second victory in 10 starts for Brilliant, but she was placed a number of times at stakes level last year and certainly took her racing well. Bred by Jossestown Farm, she was sold as a yearling for 650,000gns, her breeders having purchased her Hard Spun (Danzig) dam Plying for just €21,000 as an eight-year-old mare. At the time she was carrying a filly, Hooked On You (Starspangledbanner), and that offspring paid for the mare when she was sold as a newly-turned yearling.

Meanwhile, the foal on the ground when Jossestown bought Plying turned into a superstar. Alcohol Free (No Nay Never), a €40,000 foal buy, developed into a Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes winner at two, but that was just the start. She went on to add the Group 1 Coronation Stakes, July Cup and Sussex Stakes, and in 2022 she was sold at the December Sale for a remarkable 5,400,000gns.

By then her half-brother Alexander Kames (Camelot) had also become a stakes winner in France.

The Alcohol Free sale came a year after Plying herself was resold for €825,000 to BBA Ireland on behalf of Yulong Investments, carrying a now two-year-old daughter of Lope De Vega (Shamardal). The same purchasers last December invested further in the family when paying 400,000gns for Plying’s daughter Hooked On You. Brilliant’s pattern win will have brought joy to their faces.

Brilliant is only the third three-year-old to win the Park Express Stakes in the past decade, and it looks as if she will be part of the Ballydoyle raiding party for the Group 1 1000 Guineas at Newmarket.

With nine group winners in 2023, four stakes winners already in 2024, it will not be long before Gleneagles builds on his tally to date of a pair of Group/Grade 1 winners, Highland Chief and Loving Dream.

This was also the second year in succession that he has sired the Park Express Stakes winner, his daughter Insinuendo winning last year. A tally of 11 Group 2 winners by Gleneagles include four who were knocking at the door of a Group 1 victory, notably Melo Melo and Royal Scotsman who were runner-up respectively in the Prix Vermeille and Dewhurst Stakes. In spite of this, his fee remains at €17,500.

Different countries

Gleneagles is responsible for stakes winners in at least nine different racing jurisdictions, and his daughters are proving popular as broodmare prospects. Gleneagles was a Group 1-star at two when he won the Goffs Vincent O’Brien National Stakes, but he was disqualified and placed third and passing the post in front in the Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere. He became a dual Group 1 classic-winning miler and Group 1 St James’s Palace Stakes scorer at three. He has an outstanding pedigree.

Gleneagles is a son of the Group 2 Cherry Hinton Stakes winner and blue hen broodmare You’resothrilling (Storm Cat). His full-sisters Marvellous (Irish 1000 Guineas), Happily (Moyglare Stud Stakes) and Joan Of Arc (Prix de Diane) all won at the highest level, a trio of full-siblings, Toy, Coolmore and Taj Mahal, are Group 1-placed pattern winners, whereas Vatican City was runner-up in the Group 1 Irish 2000 Guineas.

You’resothrilling is a full-sister to the great Giant’s Causeway (Storm Cat), champion three-year-old, multiple Group 1-star and multiple US champion sire.

Dark Angel among the French winners

GOT To Love A Grey hadn’t been seen since she ran fifth of 26 runners in the Group 2 Queen Mary Stakes last year at Royal Ascot. By then she had won both her starts, including the Listed Marygate Stakes at York. The Karl Burke-trained filly carries the colours of Middleham Park Racing.

On Monday, some 270 days after she last appeared in public, she popped up in France to give a British-based trainer a second winner in consecutive years in the Listed Prix Ronde de Nuit at Chantilly. This speedster could be a filly to follow, given that she has won on both good and heavy ground.

Bred by the Regatta Partnership, Got To Love A Grey is one of 102 stakes winners for Dark Angel (Acclamation) who stands at Gay O’Callaghan’s Yeomanstown Stud. One of four winners from her Layman (Sunday Silence) dam Regatta, she is that mare’s first offspring to earn blacktype. Both of Regatta’s victories, at two and three, were in listed races, at Longchamp and Nantes, and she was the best of a pair of winners for her dam, Red Star (Lure).

Red Star is a daughter of Robertet (Roberto). She won the Group 2 Grand Prix de Deauville and placed in the Group 1 Prix Royal Oak. In spite of this, and breeding a stakes winner, Robertet was sold in 2000 for 58,000gns carrying a filly by Danehill (Danzig), She turned out to be Punctilious, bred by Bjorn Nielsen, and her six victories included such as the Group 1 Yorkshire Oaks, Group 2 Ribblesdale Stakes and the Group 3 Musidora Stakes. She was placed in both the Group 1 Irish and English Oaks.

Haya Zark

The five-year-old Haya Zark (Zarak) gave owner-breeder Odette Fou back-to-back wins in the Group 3 Prix Exbury at Saint-Cloud on Saturday. This was a fifth career win for the full horse, who last October raced for the first time at Group 1 level, being well beaten in both the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and the Prix Royal-Oak.

Haya Zark is the first stakes winner of 2024 for Zarak (Dubawi) who last year posted outstanding statistics for the percentage of group winners he had to runners, a number bettered only by his own sire, Deep Impact and Frankel. Zarak has a stellar book of mares this year at Haras de Bonneval where his fee is €60,000.

The first winner for his unplaced dam Haya City (Elusive City), Haya Zark’s grandam Haya Samma (Pivotal) bred the Group 1-placed Haya Landa (Lando). His third dam was an own-sister to Subotica (Pampabird). Half of that colt’s six successes were at Group 1 level, namely in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Prix Ganay and Grand Prix de Paris. He was runner-up in the Group 1 Prix du Jockey Club-French Derby.

With three crops having raced, his fourth being this year’s juveniles, Zarak has already sired a bakers’ dozen of pattern winners. It will not be long before the Group 1 Grosser Preis von Baden winner Zagrey is joined by another top-flight winner.

Highclere

Highclere Thoroughbreds spent 60,000gns on Cachet as a yearling, she went on to become a classic winner, and last December she sold to Japan for 2,200,000gns. The filly was bred by John Bourke’s Hyde Park Stud.

Bourke did not breed Chic Colombine, but he did catalogue the now three-year-old daughter of Seahenge (Scat Daddy) at the breeze-up sale in Osarus last April, but she did not appear in the ring. A €10,000 yearling purchase at the same venue, she nonetheless appeared on the racecourse last year, owned by Highclere and trained, as Cachet was, by George Boughey.

At two last year she won four of her seven starts, including a valuable fillies’ race at Goodwood, and at the weekend she boosted her value considerably when winning the Prix La Camargo at Saint-Cloud on her seasonal bow. Her sire, a former inmate of Ballydoyle, stands at Haras De La Haie Neuve for a fee of €4,000. His oldest crop are now four, he has sired a Group 1 winner in Argentina, and Chic Colombine is one of a pair of European stakes winners he has sire.

Winner of the Group 2 Champagne Stakes at two and placed in the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes, Seahenge is a half-brother to Max Player (Honor Code), one of the best American three-year-olds in 2020, when he was placed in the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes and Grade 1 Travers Stakes. He gained his Grade 1 success at the age of four.

Chic Colombine is the best winner from her winning dam Little Hippo (Halling), while her grandam, also a winner, was a full-sister to Bianca Nera (Salse). That filly won the Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes, and her descendants include four-time Group 1 winner Postponed (Dubawi).