IN 1988 the Goffs Irish National Foal and Breeding Stock Sale was held from December 5th to the 9th. The top price was 200,000IRgns for the French Oaks winner Dunette, in foal to Lomond. This was five years after she set a European broodmare record price of 820,000gns at Newmarket.

The most expensive foal at the sale was Barronstown Stud’s daughter of Kings Lake and the high-class Tudor Melody mare Spirit In The Sky, the dam at the time of six winners. Joss Collins of the BBA gave 86,000gns for her.

At the time mares and foals were sold together, any mare with a foal at foot being offered as consecutive lots, and most lots were catalogued alphabetically under the vendor’s name. My late father Benny managed Swordlestown Stud then and they had a draft of mares and foals for sale on the opening day, including a young mare, Pasadena Lady (Captain James), and she was followed by her first produce, a filly foal by M Double M (Nodouble) who was bred by Jim Mamakos.

My father bought Pasadena Lady for 2,000IRgns, carrying a colt by Drumalis (Tumble Wind), while the mare’s foal, later named Sports Post Lady, realised 1,000IRgns. Who could have guessed that, from such humble beginnings, Pasadena Lady would enjoy great early success as a broodmare, and that her descendants would include such as dual Group 1 winner and successful sire Dutch Art (Medicean), and more recently another stakes winner for the sire sensation of 2022, Havana Grey?

Sports Post Lady was runner-up on her first three starts at two, won her maiden at Goodwood for trainer Jack Berry and ridden by Willie Carson, and eventually headed to stud with four wins and eight placings to her credit. I will return to her story shortly.

The colt that Pasadena Lady was carrying when my dad purchased her was Another Episode, and he was purchased privately by Jack Berry, as would the next two foals out of the mare bred by dad and my mother Sheila be. All three foals were to become stakes-winning two-year-olds who, between them, would win 39 races.

It was at York that Another Episode gained his sole stakes win, in the Listed Roses Stakes, and he finished second in the Group 3 Molecomb Stakes. He ended his racing days with 11 wins, the same number won by his year-younger full-sister Palacegate Episode (Drumalis). She won the Listed St Hugh’s Stakes at two, was placed many times at group level in Ireland and England, but she was a Group 3 winner in Italy, a multiple listed winner in Germany and she enjoyed subsequent success at stud.

Best winner

The best of the five winners out of Palacegate Episode was King Quantas (Danehill), a Group 3 winner in Norway, while her stakes-placed daughter Longing To Dance (Danehill Dancer) bred the Group 3 winner Be My Pal (Galileo). Better was to come for Palacegate Episode thanks to another daughter, Halland Park Lass (Spectrum).

When her son Dutch Art won the Group 1 Middle Park Stakes, Group 1 Prix Morny and the Group 2 Norfolk Stakes at two, Halland Park Lass was sent to the sales. Bought for 12,000gns a year earlier by Trickledown Stud, her value soared to 710,000gns, and she later added the Group 2 winner and Group 1 French 1000 Guineas runner-up Up (Galileo) to her list of winning progeny.

Meanwhile, my parents had another colt out of Pasadena Lady, and he was Palacegate Jack (Neshad). Though by a different stallion, who stood at Swordlestown, the story remained the same. Bought privately by Jack Berry, he was a stakes-winning two-year-old, but in his case he won three listed races as a juvenile, including the Listed Rockingham Stakes at York. At the end of his racing days he had been successful on 15 occasions.

Outside stallion

After missing a year, Pasadena Lady was put in foal to an outside stallion, Mac’s Imp (Imp Society), and the decision was taken to offer her for sale at Goffs. There she sold for 40,000IRgns, purchased by Ray Cullen. She went on to produce eight more foals, two minor winners trained by Jack Berry and Michael Halford, and five placed horses. This was in spite of the fact that she was upgraded in terms of the quality of stallions she visited!

Back now to Sports Post Lady. She had four winners at stud, the best of which was Our Little Secret (Rossini). This €1,500 foal sold to Jack Berry as a yearling for 2,200gns and, guess what? She won six races, was a listed winner, and sold to Whitsbury Manor Stud for 30,000gns. For them Our Little Secret bred the good sprinter Pearl Secret (Compton Place), successful in the Group 2 Temple Stakes and placed in the Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes.

Whitsbury Manor continue to reap the benefit of that original investment in Our Little Secret. They leased the mare’s daughter Secret Romance (Sakhee’s Secret) and she won at two. Now she is the dam of three winners, and this week her daughter Cuban Mistress (Havana Grey) gave her sire, who stands at the Harper’s farm, his second stakes winner. She won the Listed St Hugh’s Stakes at Newbury.

Havana Grey

Cuban Mistress joins Lady Hollywood as listed winners for Havana Grey, and they are among nine stakes performers for the Group 1 Derrinstown Stud Flying Five winner. The grey has 29 individual winners to date and it is just a waiting game now for his first group winner to emerge. All of these winners were conceived from £8,000 coverings, though that fee dropped to £6,500 in year two, and to £6,000 this year and last.

The good news is that Havana Grey has attracted full books of mares for all his years at stud, so there will be no fall-off in terms of representatives on the track in the years ahead. He averaged about 130 mares for each of his first three seasons.

By the way, don’t overlook Book 3 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale is you are looking for a precocious type. Lot 1482 is a daughter of Havana Grey, a full-sister to Cuban Mistress, and she could be one of the stars of that sale in a couple of months’ time.