BRED by John Noonan at his Cregg Stud, the seven-year-old Ambitious Fellow (Fame And Glory) first made a ringside appearance in June 2019 at the Derby Sale. That day he sold to trainer peter Fahey for €30,000.

After he won a bumper at Fairyhouse on his third start at five, Ambitious Fellow was sent back for sale, where bidding stopped a £22,000, and he returned to Fahey’s care.

At the recent Galway Festival he won his fourth race over the smaller obstacles, this one being the Listed Mervue Hurdle in the hands of the now side-lined Sam Ewing, and boosted his career earnings to just short of €150,000.

This win was a welcome pedigree boost for a successful female line, as Ambitious Fellow becomes the second blacktype winner out of the winning hurdler, Native Beauty (King’s Theatre). He joins his full-sister Theatre Glory (Fame And Glory), and she is a listed hurdle winner at Cheltenham and Warwick, and she was placed in the Grade 3 Select Hurdle at Sandown.

At this year’s Goffs Arkle Sale, Winning Ways Racing paid €65,000 for Ambitious Fellow’s three-year-old half-sister by Getaway (Monsun).

While producing two blacktype winners is a notable achievement, it is worth saying that Native Beauty is also the dam of the point-to-point winner Illuminated Beauty (Flemensfirth), and of Theatre Native (Getaway) who was a fine fourth in a listed bumper on her only outing this year on a racecourse. She had fallen on her sole start between the flags. The mare’s only other runner has been Minella Beauty (Shirocco), who was placed in a bumper, over hurdles and in a point-to-point, but he sadly died at the age of five.

Henderson

Native Beauty was trained, like her daughter Theatre Glory, by Nicky Henderson, and she raced just six times, winning over hurdles and being placed in a bumper. A full-sister to the winning hurdler and multiple-winning point-to-pointer Carlicue (King’s Theatre), they are out of Woodville Star (Phardante). After winning a point-to-point, she transferred to the track and won six times, equally divided between hurdle and chase successes.

Woodville Star gained valuable blacktype when beaten less than two lengths by Dun Belle in a Grade 3 chase at Limerick, and then she managed to get in the frame behind Noyen and Bobbyjo in the Grade 1 Heineken Gold Cup at Punchestown a quarter of a century ago. Woodville Star is the only racecourse winner from eight foals produced by the unraced Templenoe Forth (Menelek), though her half-sister Shannon Lough (Deep Run) is grandam of the Grade 2 winner and Grade 1 runner-up Jessber’s Dream (Milan), and of Oscar Rock (Oscar), a listed chase winner who was Grade 1-placed in the Challow Novices’ Hurdle.

The immediate family got a super boost this year when a grandson of Woodville Star’s half-sister Bucks Cregg (Buckskin) won a Grade 1 hurdle. The horse was Champ Kiely (Ocovango), and he took the honours in the Lawlor’s of Naas Slaney Novice Hurdle, and later placed at that level in Cheltenham and Punchestown.

Distinguished

This is a female line that the Noonan family has a long and distinguished association with. Templenoe Forth is a half-sister to the listed hurdle winner Glassilaun (Prince Hansel) who was runner-up in both the Grade 1 Supreme Novices Hurdle and Grade 1 Sweeps Hurdle.

However, it is her full-sister Hourly Rate (Menelek) and half-sister Hi’ Upham (Deep Run) who have made this female line outstanding.

Hourly Rate won a few times and is dam of Grade 2 Leopardstown Chase and Cheltenham Festival winner Time For A Run (Deep Run) and the Grade 3 winning hurdler Aunt Aggie (Be My Native), while her descendants include the graded winners Adarma (Topanoora) and Any Second Now (Oscar).

Hi’ Upham shades her in the success stakes as she is responsible for the outstanding multiple Grade 1 winner Native Upmanship (Be My Native), and she is grandam of the Grade 1 Powers Gold Cup winner Gilgamboa (Westerner). In addition, she is the third dam of this year’s Grade 3 Randox Grand National winner Corach Rambler (Jeremy).

What a loss Fame And Glory (Montjeu), a five-time Group 1 and classic winner, has been. He went to stud in 2013, died in 2017, but Ambitious Fellow is his 26th blacktype winner from those five crops.