WILLIAM Haggas will be looking with added intent for a winning opportunity for the three-year-old filly Sea La Venus (Sea The Stars). Still a maiden after five starts, her fourth-place finish on her most recent outing in a Ripon handicap was the second time she started favourite, so she may well be capable of winning a small race.

Haggas trained the filly’s dam What A Home (Lope De Vega) to win a couple of times, and she was placed in a group race in England and a listed race in France.

Bred by Tullpark Limited, What A Home sold as a foal for €300,000, and the Tsui Family’s Sunderland Holding bought her as a yearling for 300,000gns. They bred and raced Sea La Venus, but they sold the second offspring of What A Home, and he may be the one that got away.

A full-brother to Sea La Venus, What A Home’s second produce was consigned to Book 1 of last year’s Goffs Orby Sale under The Castlebridge Consignment, and the gavel fell in favour of M.V. Magnier at €375,000.

Not usually known for purchasing stock by Sea The Stars (Cape Cross), having had unfettered access to his half-brother Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) throughout his life, this change in policy looks set to pay dividends.

The colt Magnier purchased is none other than the 2025 Group 1 Derby favourite The Lion In Winter, and he put down a marker when he won his second start at York, the Group 3 Acomb Stakes, adding to his maiden win at the Curragh, and connections will hope that he can be as successful, or more so, than recent winners of the Acomb, Chaldean and Phoenix Of Spain.

Very bright

After he made his winning debut, I wrote on these pages that “it is impossible to write about every juvenile winner that impresses, but there is no doubt that the future is very bright for the Aidan O’Brien-trained two-year-old colt, The Lion In Winter.”

It is intriguing that Ballydoyle is planning to aim the colt at The Goffs Million next rather than a group race. Suffice for now to provide a short review of the colt’s family.

He is stakes winner number 130 for Sea The Stars, the Gilltown Stud-based super-sire. The Lion In Winter is the only colt among three foals for his dam, who followed on this spring with a filly foal, again by Sea The Stars.

What A Home has one stakes-performing sibling, and that is Venus De Milo (Galileo) who was purchased for the Magnier/Tabor/Smith team by Demi O’Byrne for 220,000gns and went into training with Aidan O’Brien.

Venus De Milo won a couple of Group 3 races at Cork, and came close in three Group 1s. She was beaten half a length by Chiquita, later sold for €6 million, in the Irish Oaks, finished second to The Fugue in the Yorkshire Oaks, and at four was runner-up in the Pretty Polly Stakes and placed in the Nassau Stakes. Venus De Milo is the dam of the Australian Group 2 winner Cleveland (Camelot). But for a couple of lengths she could have been a Group 1 winner.

Inchmurrin

What A Home’s grandam Inchmurrin (Lomond) was runner-up in the Group 1 Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot, won a Group 2 at Newmarket, and bred three stakes winners.

Her son Inchinor (Ahonoora) was a multiple Group 3 winner, including the Greenham Stakes and Hungerford Stakes, and he too was knocking on the door of a Group 1 win, chasing home Zafonic in the Dewhurst Stakes and running third in the Sussex Stakes.

A number of Inchmurrin’s daughters have left their mark. Ingozi (Warning) was a listed winner and bred the Grade 1 E.P. Taylor Stakes winner Miss Keller (Montjeu). She is also the grandam of Harbour Law (Lawman), the 2016 Group 1 St Leger winner. To date, 10 stakes winners are listed under Ingozi on a sales catalogue page.

Another daughter of Inchmurrin was Inchyre (Shirley Heights). She won at three, bred a pair of stakes winners, and is the grandam of Poet’s Word (Poet’s Voice). A champion older horse in Europe, the Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes and Group 1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes winner is now a popular young sire at William and John Flood’s Boardsmill Stud.

Ice Max’s biggest win is a real Celebration

THE Group 2 Celebration Mile winner Ice Max, a son of Dark Angel (Acclamation), continued the fine year being enjoyed by his owner, Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum.

He began the year with a Group 2 Zabeel Mile success for San Donato, but that was bettered with three Group 1 triumphs, Rosallion in the Tattersalls Irish 2000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes, while Inisherin doubled the Sheikh’s Group 1 Royal Ascot haul in the Commonwealth Cup. Karl Burke has also saddled a number of stakes winners for the owner, Cuban Tiger, Caviar Heights, Elite Status, Royal Rhyme, Poet Master, and now Ice Max.

Dark Angel’s tally of stakes winners stands at 106, and this is proving to be one of his best ever years. The Yeomanstown 19-year-old has three Group 1 winners in 2024, Charyn, Mad Cool and Khaadem, three Group 2 winners, four Group 3 winners and another three stakes winners. Ice Max, his 105th blacktype winner, was joined a day later by Make Me King who won the Group 3 Prix Quincey in France.

Ice Max was bred by Gordon Roddick and sold as a foal to Yeomanstown Stud for 85,000gns. They resold him in Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Sale for 105,000gns, a small profit, to Karl and Kelly Burke. The three-year-old gelding’s five wins have now netted more than £130,000, and with a long racing career ahead of him, he should soon be a profitable investment for his owner. Ice Max is the first of his dam’s four winners to win a blacktype race, though his full-brother was Group 1-placed.

Steady Pace

A daughter of One Cool Cat (Storm Cat), Cool Kitten is the dam of Ice Max, and she was twice a winner, over seven furlongs and a mile, for Roddick. Her second offspring was Steady Pace (Dark Angel), and he won three times, and was a smart juvenile. He was a length behind Shalaa when second in the Group 2 July Stakes, and was third to the same horse when he tackled the Group 1 Middle Park Stakes. Shalaa was his nemesis at two, also beating him and Tasleet (in second) in the Group 2 Richmond Stakes at Goodwood.

Cool Kitten, who has a yearling colt by Ardad (Kodiac), is a half-sister to a smart juvenile of nearly a quarter of a century ago – and that was only 2000! Atlantis Prince (Tagula) was unbeaten in four starts at two, winning a listed race at Goodwood in September, and just over a fortnight later claiming the scalp of Turnberry Isle in the Group 2 Royal Lodge Stakes at Ascot. He was the best of nine winners from Zoom Lens (Caerleon).

Placed at two, Zoom Lens features in the family of a couple of other juveniles worth mentioning. She is grandam of the Group 2 Richmond Stakes winner Prolific (Compton Place), and third dam of this year’s ultra-smart Fairy Godmother (Night Of Thunder), and her two wins include Royal Ascot’s Group 3 Albany Stakes.