“SHE’S a lovely, big filly. She was a standout physically and she did that really nicely. She’s by Justify out of Immortal Verse, so she’s got an incredible pedigree. I’d like to think, looking at the size of her, that she’ll continue to progress throughout the season. She’s a filly Aidan liked and I’m very happy with what she’s done.”

It would be hard to find a better endorsement of a winner from Ryan Moore than this, and the subject of his compliments is Statuette, winner of the near six-furlong Irish Stallion Farms EBF Fillies Maiden at Navan on Saturday. This is the fourth year in succession that the winner has come from Ballydoyle.

Readers of this column hardly need a detailed review of her pedigree, so a synopsis will likely suffice. Perhaps the most significant fact is that she is a second winner for her Ashford Stud sire, the Triple Crown winner Justify (Scat Daddy), and this came less than a week after Tahoma opened the stallion’s winning account with a two-length win on his debut at Santa Anita.

What is there to say about Justify? First thing to note is that he did not run himself at two, and in his sole season to race he was undefeated in six starts. This allows Coolmore to advertise the fact that he is the only unbeaten Triple Crown winner, ever! Justify is the best son of Scat Daddy (Johannesburg), now not only a sensational stallion but also an emerging sire of sires – No Nay Never, Caravaggio, Sioux Nation, El Kabeir and Mendelssohn being examples.

Horse of the Year

The best winner to date, with more to come, from the Grade 3-placed miler Stage Music (Ghostzapper), Justify won all his races by a cumulative 23 lengths, and earned a fraction under $3.8 million, winning from seven furlongs to a mile and a half, and on all surfaces.

Rated Horse of the Year and champion three-year-old, all his stakes runs were in Grade 1 races, starting with the Santa Anita Derby before he beat Good Magic and Audible in the Kentucky Derby, afterwards adding the Preakness and Belmont Stakes.

A couple of descriptive quotes from The Blood-Horse said of him that “it would entail a lengthy search to find a better representative of the thoroughbred breed. Justify exudes power in action; he brings the entire package - speed, stride and stamina,” while Steve Haskin in the same publication said he was “a towering, muscular, Adonis of a horse.”

Justify commanded $150,000 for his first two seasons at stud, and his yearling sales showed that this was value. However, breeders who used him this season at $100,000 may have had the best deal of all if the start he has made at stud continues.

Immortal Verse

What of Statuette? Bred by Merriebelle Stables and Coolmore’s Orpendale, Chelston and Wynatt, Statuette is the fifth foal and fourth winner for Immortal Verse, and these include last year’s champion Tenebrism. She is by Scat Daddy’s son Caravaggio.

A daughter of Pivotal (Polar Falcon), Immortal Verse sold for a sale-topping 4,700,000gns in 2013 to BBA Ireland. She won the Group 1 Coronation Stakes and Group 1 Prix Jacques Le Marois.

Immortal Verse is a full-sister to Go Lovely Rose (Pivotal), the winning dam of the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes runner-up Roseman (Kingman), and Baradar (Muhaarar) who was a Group 1-placed juvenile. Daughter of the stakes winner Side Of Paradise (Sadler’s Wells), Immortal Verse is a granddaughter of Mill Princess (Mill Reef) whose 11 winners were headed by Last Tycoon (Try My Best). He won eight of his 13 starts, including the Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes, William Hill Sprint Cup and Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile and was later a champion sire.

Tenebrism’s fourth dam Irish Lass II (Sayajirao), a stakes winner in France, produced the Group 1 Irish Derby winner Irish Ball (Baldric II), and is grandam of three classic-winning siblings, Assert (Be My Guest), Eurobird (Ela-Mana-Mou) and Bikala (Kalamoun). Other Group/Grade 1 winners who can claim descent from Irish Lass II are French Guineas winners Tie Black (Machiavellian) and Valentine Waltz (Be My Guest), the US Matron Stakes winner Sense Of Style (Thunder Gulch), and the Group 1 winning siblings The United States, Hydrangea and Hermosa, all by Galileo (Sadler’s Wells).