CATHAL Ennis bred the Grade 1 winner Identity Thief, and it was therefore a proven formula he was following when he sent his winning Flemensfirth (Alleged) mare Raise You Five to the leading British National Hunt stallion Kayf Tara (Sadler’s Wells).

Identity Thief won the Grade 1 Fighting Fifth Hurdle and the Grade 1 Stayers’ Hurdle at Aintree, and later went on to taste success at Grade 2 level over fences. While he is the only blacktype-winning performer by Kayf Tara out of a daughter of Flemensfirth, it is probably a near certainty that Wingmen will join him at some stage.

Wingmen was one of a pair of weekend winners bred by the Quill Farm, Co Westmeath breeder, and he will surely come on for his debut win over hurdles at Navan, gained at odds-on against 10 others, and in the familiar Bective Stud silks. The six-year-old has always looked like a chaser in the making, and is a good-looking individual. He got the Tattersalls Cheltenham 2023 sales season off to a flying start, selling at it for a sale record price of £250,000.

As it transpired, Wingmen was only having a few days away from home. An impressive 12-length winner of a maiden point-to-point six days earlier when ridden by Rob James for trainer Gordon Elliott and the Crocodile Pockets Syndicate, he returned to Cullentra House Stables.

He then won two of his three starts in bumpers, including at this year’s Punchestown Festival, and has now started this season in a similar vein.

When Wingmen was purchased, Eddie O’Leary said: “He is a very nice horse, and Gordon thinks a lot of him. He is a big raw horse; you won’t begin to see the best of him until next year.” In truth, it could be 2025 and beyond before he matures into the star runner that connections hope they have. The investment made by Bective Stud owners Noel and Valerie Moran looks, at this stage, as having been a sound one.

Timmy Hillman

Wingmen is a dual Tattersalls Ireland graduate. He was initially purchased as a foal at their November National Hunt Sale by Timmy Hillman for €47,000, who then consigned the gelding under his Castledillon Stud banner at the 2021 Derby Sale where he was bought by Mags O’Toole for €88,000. He is a first winner for his dam, who was a bargain purchase by Ennis for just €6,500, having won a pair of hurdle races and a chase. Many might have been put off the mare as her first four foals were all fillies, and the foal she was carrying also proved to be a filly, born in late June! Wingmen is her first son.

It is unlikely that Wingmen will be a sole winner for Raise You Five. His four-year-old half-sister A New Deck (Walk In The Park) was third on her most recent outing for Sam Curling, and should be winning soon. There are also a number of younger offspring in the wings, eye-catching among them being a two-year-old son of Getaway (Monsun) who was bought as a foal by Ian Ferguson. Is there a better judge of a horse than Ferguson?

Ennis reports that Raise You Ten is in foal again to Walk In The Park (Montjeu). If Wingmen goes on to earn blacktype, he will be the first to do so in the first three generations of his female family, though his grandam and third dam produced seven winners between them. It is a very different tale when you go to the fourth dam, and she was the Power Gold Cup winner Doone Valley (Devonian). That mare gained her biggest win a long time ago, 1965 to be precise.

After a fine racing career. Doone Valley had a successful time at stud, her six winners including the Grade 1 Christmas Hurdle winner Dramatist (David Jack). Through various daughters Doone Valley is grandam and ancestress of seven blacktype winners over jumps,

Down Memory Lane

The other Ennis-bred weekend winner was J.P. McManus’s Down Memory Lane (Walk In The Park), and he defeated his more fancied stablemate King Of Kingsfield to make a winning debut over fences. Like Wingmen, Down Memory Lane was making just his fifth start, being a point-to-point, bumper and maiden hurdle winner, and the only time he has tasted defeat was when he ran third, though beaten a long way, behind Caldwell Potter in the Grade 1 Future Champions Novice Hurdle at Leopardstown last Christmas.

While the six-year-old Down Memory Lane is from a female family in which some of its best runners have done well on the flat in Germany, France and Italy, there are plenty too who have made their names over jumps.

Down Memory Lane must have been giving all the right vibes at an early stage. Bought as a foal by Jimmy Murphy’s Redpender Stud for €37,000 and resold as a store for €75,000, both times at Fairyhouse, Jimmy was back to spend €56,000 for a full-sister to Down Memory Lane two years ago as a foal.

Cathal Ennis had an update too on Credo Star (Presenting), the dam of Down Memory Lane. “Credo Star is a homebred mare. She won the first ever race run left-handed in Wexford, trained by Peter Fahey, one of a pair of victories over hurdles. James Fenton has a three-year-old full-sister to Down Memory Lane, in foal to Jeu St Eloi (Saint Des Saints). The mare had an Order Of St George (Galileo) filly this year, now owned by Ballycurrin Stud, and she’s back in foal to Walk In The Park.”