IT is that time of the year when National Hunt winners are starting to take centre stage, and while flat racing has become a year-round pursuit, with big international races throughout the winter, the main focus in this column will be switching in the weeks ahead to jump racing.

The Grade 3 Barberstown Castle Chase at Naas was the feature of their eight-race card on Sunday, and it saw the much-anticipated return of Marine Nationale. Five went to post, a trio had chances, and they filled the first three places, but not in the way the betting market suggested. Carrying the very familiar colours of Cheveley Park Stud, better known for their flat winners but having had a number of high-class National Hunt stars in recent seasons, they have now landed their first important win of the 2024-25 season, with victory going to Quilixios (Maxios).

This victory, his third in six starts over fences, is his first in a blacktype race over the larger obstacles, but he is a dual Grade 1 winner over hurdles, taking the Tattersalls Ireland Spring Juvenile Hurdle at Leopardstown for Gordon Elliott, and a month later adding the Triumph Hurdle at Cheltenham after he moved to Henry de Bromhead.

Goffs staged an online sale in August 2022 which saw Quilita (Lomitas), the dam of Quilixios, sell for €205,000 to Simon Davies of DahlBury. She was in foal to the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Waldgeist (Galileo), and had a colt, now a yearling.

Quilita was group-placed in Germany, and after her purchase Davies said: “Quilita appealed to us as a quality mare with a proven ability to breed Grade 1 performers, and as such she fits what we are trying to achieve here at DahlBury. We are continually investing in our broodmare band to support our stallions, Bangkok, Planteur and Walzertakt.”

Quilixios is one of six winners, the first six foals, out of Quilita, and the eagle-eyed among you might have noticed that Joe Hernon’s Castletown Stud is consigning the winning four-year-old Queen Cathrin (Exceed And Excel) to the sales next weekend at Goffs. She is one of the first mares in foal to Grange Stud’s Hurricane Lane (Frankel) to be offered for sale, and she will appeal to flat and National Hunt breeders. She is Lot 1292 in the catalogue.

The Busy Fool

Bred by Robert Hodgins, the unexposed six-year-old The Busy Fool (Doyen) is a horse to stay onside with, and he was only running for the sixth time when he won the Listed Brown Lad Handicap Hurdle at Naas.

Sold to Denis Cleary as a foal at the Goffs December National Hunt Sale for €20,000, The Busy Fool only made his racecourse debut 13 months ago, and caused a bit of an upset when he won going away from The Enabler who started favourite. He was out again three weeks later in a maiden hurdle, finishing second, and then he was in the frame in similar contests at Punchestown and Naas.

As last season drew to a close, Philip Rothwell saddled him for a novice handicap hurdle at Tipperary, and he duly obliged.

Now The Busy Fool has produced a career-best performance, and it didn’t go unnoticed as he went up seven pounds for his win. He has also contributed to his family’s fine record. His dam, the unraced Like A Miller (Luso), is the dam of three winners on the racecourse and another in a point-to-point.

This makes her the third of The Busy Fool’s first four dams to breed a blacktype National Hunt winner. The odd one out, his third dam Lady Can (Cantab), bred the six-time chase winner Folly Road (Mister Lord), and he was runner-up in the Grade 3 Whitbread Gold Cup at Sandown, albeit beaten 30 lengths and starting at 100/1.

Like A Miller is a half-sister to the Cheltenham Grade 3 chase winner Maljimar (Un Desperado), his listed chase-winning full-brother Kymandjen (Un Desperado) who was second in the Thyestes Chase, and to Last Draw (Accordion) who was placed a few times in Grade 3 hurdle races in Ireland.

Interesting castoff

Winning a three-year-old bumper at Aintree was not on the bucket list when Rabbah Bloodstock planned the mating of the unraced Prosperine (Hat Trick) with Frankel (Galileo) in 2020. This was a third mating for the mare, and she is a daughter of the Japanese-born, Group 1 Tattersalls Gold Cup winner Shiva (Hector Protector). That mare was twice runner-up in the Group 1 Champion Stakes at Newmarket.

Prosperine’s first foal, Imperial Cult (Sea The Moon), was sold for a giveaway 1,000gns at a Tattersalls Online Sale in May, 2022, and while he is well exposed, he hit a winning vein this year at five, successful twice at Lingfield and later at Epsom.

He was followed by Desert Voice (Invincible Spirit), and she won two of her five starts last year for William Haggas, and then she sold for 50,000gns at the Tattersalls Online Sale in August for 50,000gns and is now in Australia.

Rabbah Bloodstock failed to sell Prosperine’s third produce, Cedar Creek (Frankel), as a yearling for 100,000gns, but they took a lot less when selling him unraced at yet another online sale conducted by Tattersalls, this one in May of 2024. He was soon gelded, was not disgraced on his debut in a junior bumper at Exeter, and now, less than three weeks later, he beat seven opponents at Aintree, trained by Rebecca Curtis.

Any lack of quality early success for Prosperine at stud, following her sale to Rabbah as a three-year-old for 210,000gns, has not lessened their ambition for the now nine-year-old mare. She has a two-year-old colt High Stock (Dubawi), a yearling own-brother to Cedar Creek by Frankel, and a filly foal by Sea The Stars (Cape Cross).

€3,300,000

This a great Niarchos family, and last year Prosperine’s stakes-winning half-sister That Which Is Not (Elusive Quality), sold to M.V. Magnier at Goffs for €3,300,000. She is the dam of the Group 1 Irish Derby second Piz Badile (Ulysses). Two other half-sisters are responsible for Group 2 Champagne Stakes and Group 2 Gimcrack Stakes winner Threat (Footstepsinthesand) and Group 2 Prix Hocquart winner L’Astronome (Frankel), and this is also the family of this summer’s Group 2 Ribblesdale Stakes heroine Port Fairy (Australia).

While this is a female line that is more likely to produce a horse to grace the winners’ enclosures at the Curragh, Newmarket, Ascot or Epsom, it is also capable of getting some to do likewise at the major jump racing venues. Can Cedar Creek reach the heights of the likes of the Grade 3 Greatwood Hurdle winner Elgin (Duke Of Marmalade) who appears in the third remove of the family, or two Grade 1 winners a further generation back?

The latter pair are Dodging Bullets (Dubawi), whose greatest triumph among 10 was in the Grade 1 Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham, while Lethal Weapon (Hawk Wing) was successful in a Grade 1 juvenile hurdle at Leopardstown.