BLODDSTOCK agent Bert Kerr spent €23,000 at the Goffs Sportsman’s Sale in 2021 on a Kildaragh Stud-bred colt by Tamayuz (Nayef), out of the winning Val Royal (Royal Academy) mare Mad Existence.

At the time the colt was a half-brother to four winners, including the stakes-placed Secret Existence (Sakhee’s Secret), eight-time French and Moroccan winner Morigny (Royal Applause), and the four-time winning filly Twenty Times (Dream Ahead). The latter sold as a yearling for €100,000, but she was not the most expensive yearling sold from Mad Existence. That honour fell to The Seventh Day (Siyouni), and he cost owner Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum 300,000gns. Sadly he died at three without ever seeing a racecourse.

Now Mad Existence is the dam of six winners. Last year her son Selfish Brian (Shalaa) won at the age of three, and now he is joined by his year-younger half-brother Macallan, the Kerr yearling purchase. Sent to be trained in the Czech Republic, he made a promising debut there, followed up by running second in Hungary, and now he is a winner on his third outing, this time at Pisa in Italy.

This now means that Mad Existence has a perfect breeding record, as all of her six runners are winners, and the only other possible runner was the unfortunate The Seventh Day. The number could well grow as Linden Lodge Bloodstock paid 50,000gns at the yearling sales last year for the two-year-old Ribchester (Iffraaj) colt out of Mad Existence, and waiting in the wings is a yearling colt by Highland Reel (Galileo).

It is worth noting that Peter Kavanagh sent Mad Existence back to be covered by Ribchester last year. The mare is from an Aga Khan female line that has, through myriad branches, excelled at producing winners at the highest levels on both the flat and over jumps. Mad Existence is from a branch that has largely made its name on the flat.

A daughter of the multiple French stakes winner Hanzala (Akarad), Mad Existence has seven successful siblings, and one of these was the three-year-old winner Halawa (Dancing Brave). She bred a pair of stakes winners, and is grandam of the Group 1 Irish St Leger winner and English National Stud sire Flag Of Honour (Galileo), and the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes runner-up Air Chief Marshal (Danehill Dancer).

Hanzala was a half-sister to the Group 1 Derby Italiano winner Houmayoun (Shernazar), and to Haratiyna (Top Ville). The latter mare won, bred a number of winners, and is grandam of Sizing John (Midnight Legend), the Cheltenham Gold Cup winner and successful in three other Grade 1 chases and in a Grade 1 novices’ hurdle.