I BUMPED into leading National Hunt breeder Louis Vambeck during last month’s ITM stallion trail. He was inspecting stallions at Micheal Orlandi’s Starfield Stud.

The Co Westmeath breeder will have derived much pleasure I am sure on Tuesday from the victory of Lady Adare, a daughter of Glenview Stud’s Sholokhov (Sadler’s Wells), at Taunton.

This was the six-year-old’s third win over hurdles, and she is now unbeaten in four lifetime starts. She is in good hands, her trainer Harry Fry having a very smart record of gaining blacktype for fillies and mares, one of the best being the Grade 1 winner Bitofapuzzle.

A Group 1 winning two-year-old who was runner-up in the Group 1 Irish Derby and Group 1 Eclipse Stakes at three, Sholokhov sired the Group 1 German Oaks winner Night Magic among his dozen stakes winners on the flat, but it is as a National Hunt stallion that he is best known and recognised today. Just mentioning that he is responsible for Don Cossack, Shishkin and Bob Olinger is a case of enough said.

Should Lady Adare go on and gain blacktype – she must be long odds-on to do so – it would be well deserved. Louis Vambeck has been patient with this family and Lady Adare is one of seven daughters En Vedette, a daughter of Astarabad (Alleged), has produced from eight foals to date. Her only colt, a now two-year-old son of Flemensfirth (Alleged), sold for €72,000 as a foal.

En Vedette was acquired as a four-year-old through Guy Petit for €15,000, a bargain when you consider that her sole win the previous year was in the Listed Prix Finot Hurdle at Auteuil. Her first two offspring, The Milan Girl (Milan) and Sabrina (Yeats), both won bumpers, and so too did Lady Adare, her third foal.

Lady Adare sold for €15,000 as a foal to Gerry Hogan at Fairyhouse, resold as a three-year-old at Goffs for €30,000, and after winning a bumper for Micky Hammond she was picked out by Harry Fry and Kevin Ross at the Tattersalls Cheltenham Sale in March 2021 and cost the team £82,000. En Vedette’s three winners are her only runners to date, but there is no shortage of younger stock to represent her in the years ahead, including a yearling filly by Walk In The Park (Montjeu).

En Vedette is a full-sister to six-time Belgian jumps winning mare Bretaye, who was placed in a listed chase there, and they are half-sisters to another couple of winners.