BLOODSTOCK agent Guy Petit made a couple of significant purchases at the 2018 Arqana Autumn Sale, headed by the €180,000 Cat Tiger. Then a Grade 3 winner over jumps, the four-year-old son of Diamond Boy was purchased for new owner David Maxwell to race from Paul Nicholls’ yard.

Before he moved, he was set to race at Auteuil just days later, and Maxwell partnered him to victory in the Grade 3 Prix Morgex Chase, winning some £60,000 in the process. After his move to England he went on to become a multiple winner over hurdles and fences and was twice placed in the Foxhunters’ at Aintree with Maxwell in the plate.

Petit was acting for Venetia Williams at the same sale when he paid €80,000 for Enzo D’Airy, and the son of Anzillero went on to become a three-time winning chaser. Also heading to Williams from that sale was the €70,000 purchase Royale Pagaille, a hurdle winning son of Blue Bresil (Smadoun). Well it transpires that he is now the best of the three, and last weekend he won the Grade 1 Betfair Chase, a race in which he was previously runner-up to A Plus Tard, and this was his fifth chase victory.

Great fondness

Royale Pagaille has a great fondness for Haydock and four of the nine-year-old’s five wins over fences have come there. They include two editions of the Grade 2 Peter Marsh Chase, while his other placed efforts include being runner-up to Bravemansgame in the Grade 1 King George VI Chase at Kempton.

Bred by Philippe Mace, Royale Pagaille has a rock solid National Hunt pedigree. His sire Blue Bresil stands at Rathbarry Stud’s Glenview, home since 2020. He has covered more than 500 mares there in the past two seasons, up from the more than 400 mares he serviced in his first two seasons in Ireland. Could we be talking about a potential champion sire in a few seasons’ time? The odds must be good.

After all, Blue Bresil’s first crop included the Grade 1 Ryanair December Hurdle winner Mick Jazz, and Cheltenham Festival winner Le Prezien. It was a few crops later that Royale Pagaille emerged, followed in 2015 by a crop than contained Grade 1 Arkle Chase winner Blue Lord and the multiple French Grade 1 winner L’Autonmie.

The talented Good Land was born in 2016, while the crop of now six-year-olds contains the unbeaten Constitution Hill and Grade 1 novice hurdle winner Inthepocket.

Being a son of a talented sire is one half of the equation, but Royale Pagaille can boast of having an equally impressive dam line. His Villez (Lyphard’s Wish) dam Royal Cazoumaille can claim a listed hurdle win among her three victories, while three of her four winners at stud have won at least one graded National Hunt race.

Not only that, but Royale Pagaille’s younger half-sister Royale Margaux won a Grade 1 hurdle race in Italy, at Merano, last year. She is a seven-time winner, but that is some way behind the 11 victories compiled by her sibling Royale Astarania (Astarabad), though his best achievement was winning the Grade 2 Prix Murat Chase at Auteuil.

Royale Cazoumaille’s own-sister Inoxe Royale (Villez) won a listed chase, while their unplaced sister Royale Lombok (Villez) bred the Grade 1 four-year-old hurdle winner Roll On Has (Policy Maker).

Listed wins that are worth their weight in gold

TWO listed races at Fontainebleau in late November would not normally be the subject of review, but their relevance for Doom and Lady Boba goes way beyond the modest winners’ purse.

James Wigan owns and bred Doom, a three-year-old daughter of Dubawi (Dubai Millennium), and the first winner out of the Dansili (Danehill) mare Dank. Much was expected of Dank, given her achievements as a racemare, and the fact that her first foal, a filly by Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) sold for 4,000,000gns as a yearling, topping Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Sale. Named Gloam, she never raced.

Dank won seven races in Ireland, England and the USA, but she reserved her best for her stateside runs, winning the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf at Santa Anita, and the Grade 1 Beverly D Stakes at Arlington. Her best effort closer to home saw her land the Group 2 Kilboy Estate Stakes at the Curragh, while another notable run saw her placed in the Group 1 Dubai Duty Free Stakes at Meydan.

Producing a filly foal

Adding to the poignancy of Doom’s win in the Listed Prix Ceres is the fact that Dank died during the summer, while carrying to Lope De Vega (Shamardal). She had returned to the Ballylinch stallion after producing a filly foal by him in January.

Best efforts

James Wigan retained Dank’s second foal, Dusk (Galileo), and she placed on three of her seven starts, once going down by a neck, despite the best efforts of Ryan Moore.

Now at West Blagdon, Dusk’s second offspring, a colt by Kingman (Invincible Spirit) was due to go under the hammer at Tattersalls yesterday.

Dank is a daughter of Masskana (Darshaan), an Aga Khan-bred who raced once for her breeder at two, and changed ownership, though she remained by Alain de Royer-Dupre. Patience eventually paid off and she won three times at the ages of four and five, but what a revelation she proved to be at stud.

Three of her six winners won at Group 1 level, and another, Wallace (Royal Academy), was a stakes winner.

The first of Dank’s Group 1 winners was Sulk (Selkirk), the champion juvenile filly in France after she annexed the Prix Marcel Boussac. Five years later and along came Eagle Mountain (Rock Of Gibraltar), and this classic-placed, pattern-winning juvenile gained his biggest success in the Group 1 Hong Kong Cup.

Ralph Beckett found the perfect vehicle to get Lady Boba her blacktype, and her second success of 2023 came in the Listed Grand Prix de Fontainebleau. The daughter of Lope De Vega (Shamardal) sold for 160,000gns as a yearling, and was bred by Fortescue Bloodstock. She is one of four winners, the first four foals, from Moi Meme (Teofilo), a listed winner in France who was then purchased by Old Mill Stud for €440,000 at Arqana.

In fact, the first six foals out of Moi Meme are by Lope De Vega, but this year her seventh produce is a daughter of Night of Thunder (Shamardal). In the spring she was covered again by Lope De Vega, and no wonder. All of her winners by the Ballylinch Stud sire have earned blacktype, Lady Boba being one, and the others are stakes winner and group-placed King Of Conquest, US stakes winner King Vega, and Capital Structure who is graded stakes-placed in the USA.

There will surely be more to come, as Paddy Twomey has the two-year-old out of Moi Meme, the 375,000gns yearling Elana Osario (Lope De Vega), and in October Blandford Bloodstock paid 360,000gns for Moi Meme’s yearling colt by the same sire.