SOLD last December at Tattersalls for 38,000gns, Yodelling (Medaglia D’Oro) joined the broodmare band at Stetchworth and Middle Park Studs in Newmarket, owned by the Gredley family. She was carrying to Showcasing (Oasis Dream), his fee was £45,000, and she is due early next month.

Already with a bargain in their possession, how pleased the new owners must be to find that, on Thursday, Yodelling’s four-year-old son Western Writer (Shamdal) won the Listed HH The President’s Cup in Abu Dhabi. While it may not be the most important of races on the world stage, the gelding will still get valuable blacktype in future sales catalogues.

Better still, Western Writer could well be a gelding on the upgrade. This was his second win since joining Bhupat Seemar, the first also coming at Abu Dhabi last month.

Prior to that he was in the care of Charlie Appleby, racing in the blue silks of his owner/breeder Godolphin, and had won twice and been placed three times in six starts in England.

After his second win at Windsor last summer, Western Writer was sent to the Racing In Dubai September Sale, selling to Athbah Racing for 1,800,000 dirhams, or about €460,000. He is on his way to justifying that price.

McHale joy

Another who will be pleased with this development will be James McHale, as just over two years ago he spent 30,000gns on Yodelling’s winning daughter Chosen Star (Dubawi), that filly being culled from The Royal Studs. Given that each of Yodelling’s first three foals are winners, and her fourth, a three-year-old daughter Mountain Song (Sea The Stars), has twice been runner-up this year for Godolphin and Appleby, her only starts, there is so much to look forward to in this family.

You might well wonder why Yodelling, and her daughter Chosen Star, would have been sold. After all, this is an outstanding female line, Yodelling is a dual juvenile winning daughter of Medaglia D’Oro (El Prado), a leading sire and now broodmare sire, and plenty of family members have realised millions in the sale ring.

Yodelling is a daughter of Echoes In Eternity (Spinning World), and three of that mare’s four victories were gained in blacktype races, the most important being the Group 2 Park Hill Stakes and the Group 2 Sun Chariot Stakes. Three of her five winners, from just six runners, earned blacktype, the best being Whispering Gallery (Daylami), a listed winner in England who won a Group 3 at Meydan, and unusually went on to land a couple of successes over hurdles.

Well-named

Echoes In Eternity is a daughter of the well-named Magnificent Style (Silver Hawk). The Group 3 Musidora Stakes winner became an outstanding broodmare, her 11 winners containing no fewer than eight stakes winners among them. Three were Group 1 winners, Nathaniel (Galileo), a European champion and sire of Enable, Fillies’ Mile winner Playful Act (Sadler’s Wells) who is dam of three stakes winners, and the Irish Oaks winner Great Heavens (Galileo), dam of a group winner.

SIOUX Nation (Scat Daddy) has made the best possible start to 2023, and his three-year-old son Brave Emperor, bred by Caroline Hanly and Sean Ronan, won a listed race on the all-weather at Cagnes-Sur-Mer on Sunday.

He is one of four stakes winners from the first crop of the Coolmore sire, joining Group 3 winners Lakota Sioux, Sydneyarms Chelsea and the listed winner and Group 2-placed Matilda Picotte. These are in addition to eight others who have been group or listed placed, and they are all among 48 individual winners he has sired in that crop born in 2020.

Added to three wins at two in England, the Archie Watson-trained gelding Brave Emperor passed the £50,000 mark in earnings for Middleton Park Racing, a sweet return on his £19,000 yearling sale price in the Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale in 2021. Brave Emperor actually passed the post first on five of his six career outings, but was demoted on his penultimate run. His wins have come at five, six and seven furlongs at two, and now at a mile.

Brave Emperor is the first foal from Roman Gal (Holy Roman Emperor), and she was fourth in a maiden at Naas over six furlongs from half a dozen starts. After her racing career she sold for just €9,000, and she still has a two-year-old filly by Inns Of Court (Invincible Spirit), sold for €28,000 last year to Hamish Macauley, to run for her.

Family tradition

Producing a stakes winner means that Roman Gal is upholding a strong family tradition, following in the footsteps of her own first three dams.

Roman Gal’s five successful siblings are headed by Salouen (Canford Cliffs), a listed winner at two who was placed five times in Group 1 races, including in the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere and the Racing Post Trophy at two, and twice in the Coronation Cup at Epsom.

Their dam Gali Gal (Galileo) was among five winners from the Listed Lingfield Oaks Trial winner Asterita (Rainbow Quest), the others led by the US stakes winner and Grade 2 American Derby runner-up Californian (Zafonic).

Asterita and the Group 2 Italian winner Special Nash (Nashwan) head the list of eight winners from Northshiel (Northfields), and that group also includes Loxandra (Last Tycoon).

A minor winner in just four outings, Loxandra went on to breed five stakes winners, a pair of which performed well at the highest level. Keltos (Kendor) was the best older miler in Europe 21 years ago after winning the Group 1 Lockinge Stakes, while his listed-winning half-brother Krataios (Sabrehill) was placed in both the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Poulains-French 2000 Guineas and the Prix d’Ispahan.

Lookin at a possible Derby winner

A MAIDEN success in the Group 3 UAE 2000 Guineas is a stepping stone to a Derby challenge at Meydan for Calumet Farm’s Tall Boy, a three-year-old son of Lookin At Lucky (Smart Strike). He already looks a bargain buy, having cost Calumet only $40,000 as a foal at Keeneland.

Tall Boy joins the filly Pitufina (Midshipman), a four-time winner, as the two successful offspring to date of the unraced Scat Daddy (Johannesburg) mare Madame Mayra. That mare has five winning siblings, none of which earned any blacktype, so Tall Boy’s recent win has given a boost to the immediate family. This is a female line that one can best describe as solid.

Minor stakes winner

The third dam of Tall Boy, Peaks Mill (Stalwart), was a minor stakes winner in the USA, and two of her five winners were successful at Grade 3 level. In the next remove of the family, there is the sole Grade 1 winner in four generations, Peaks Mill’s half-sister Qualique (Hawaii) who won the Grade 1 Demoiselle Stakes at two.

Lookin At Lucky stands at Ashford Stud, and breeders this year can use the Grade 1 Preakness Stakes winner for $10,000, the lowest his fee has been since he went to stud in 2011. This is in spite of siring some 72 stakes winners, the earners of $63 million, and 18 Group 1 winners.

All but two of these 18 were from his South American crops, conceived during his time in Chile. The two ‘outliers’ are the 2019 Grade 1 Kentucky Derby winner Country House, and five-time Grade 1 winner and champion Accelerate, off the mark with his first runners in 2022.