The mating game

So often when we talk about the breeding of a top-class racehorse, the stallion receives the plaudits for that success and the contribution of the broodmare who provides half of the genes, carries the foal for almost a year and cares for it for the first six months of its life is glossed over.

We take a look at some queens of the paddocks and their blue-blooded offspring that will be exciting us with their racing exploits in the next few years.

Reflections on the passing of Prince Khalid Abdullah and David Thompson emphasised the incredible legacies that both men leave through the aristocratic broodmare bands they established at Juddmonte Farm and Cheveley Park Stud respectively.

Owner-breeders once dominated the sport but are in a dwindling minority in this era, however the success of both these bloodstock titans along with that of Meon Valley Stud for example illustrates that with the purchase of excellent foundation mares and the careful and understanding management of a broodmare band that families can be nurtured for generations and produce success year after year.

Prince Khalid Abdulla

Kerali – Juddmonte Farms

The purchase of Sookera by Khalid Abdullah from Robert Sangster’s broodmare band proved to be one of the most inspired and shrewd purchases in a lengthy line of successful acquistions. Winner of the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes, the daughter of Roberto came from a distinguished American pedigree and has created a dynasty for Juddmonte that has shaped the farm and continues to have a presence in their stallion ranks through Bated Breath. 

Sookera’s first foal for Juddmonte was the High Line mare Kerali who did not match her dam’s exertions on the track but became an extremely influential broodmare. Her first foal Dissemble by Ahonoora was sold to Brazil where she became the dam of Leroidesanimaux by Candy Stripes who went on to win two Grade 1 races in North America and sired the Kentucky Derby and Dubai World Cup winner Animal Kingdom, who stands in Japan. 

Kerali is also the dam of Listed winner Arrive by Kahayasi who produced the Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes winner Promising Lead by Danehill and the multiple Group 1 placed Group 3 winner Visit to Oasis Dream. Visit is the dam of Grade 2 placed Western Reserve. 

Arrive is also the dam of Revered by Oasis Dream, the dam of Group 3 Autumn Stakes winner Commemorative. Her unraced Kahyasi daughter Kalima is the dam of Group 3 winner and exciting young National Hunt sire Jet Away by Cape Cross. 

The mating of Niniski with Kerali in 1989 produced Skiable, dam of Coventry Stakes winner Three Valleys by Diesis and dam of Nimble Thimble by Mizzen Mast the Grade 1 Malibue Stakes winner who stands at Juddmonte’s Kentucky farm. 

Trained by Roger Charlton, Nimble Thimble won a maiden at three but has definitely passed on her family genes to her own offspring. Her four-year-old Frankel filly Quadrilateral won the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes in 2019 for Charlton and she is also the dam of Listed third Boardman by Kingman. 

She has a three-year-old Frankel filly named Quilted who is in training with Roger Charlton, a two-year-old Kingman colt named Thesis, slipped to Expert Eye and was covered by Frankel last year. Kerali’s first mating with the Aga Khan’s 1988 Derby and Irish Derby hero Kahyasi produced the blue hen Hasili. 

Trained in France by Henri-Alex Pantall, she was a Listed winner at two and Listed placed over 7f and 1m as a three-year-old but it was her broodmare career that proved extraordinary. 

She is one of just two mares in the history of racing to produce five individual Group/Grade 1 winners and four of them are full siblings; Banks Hill, Intercontinental, Champs Elysees and Cacique all by Danehill who is also the sire of her Group 2 winner and Group 1 placed son Dansili, a top class sire and a brilliant broodmare sire. 

Sent to Green Desert, Hasili produced the Group 1 winning filly Heat Haze while her mating with Storm Cat resulted in the Group 1 Prix Saint Alary second and Grade 3 winner Deluxe. 

Hasili died three years ago at the age of 27 having enjoyed an idyllic retirement at Juddmonte’s Banstead Manor Stud after the birth of her final foal, Responsible, in 2011. 

Her daughters and granddaughters have an important place in Juddmonte’s broodmare band however Banks Hill is the only one of her daughters to have bred a Group 1 winner so far. 

The 23-year-old is the dam of Romantica, winner of the Group 1 Prix Jean Romanet and second in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf. Banks Hill was not covered last year and her most recent foal is a three-year-old Galileo full brother to Romantica named Caprioli. 

Now 13 years of age, Romantica has a three-year-old Dubawi filly named Brunnera and a year younger full brother to her named Castle Bolton. She has a yearling full sister to that pair and was covered by Kingman in 2020. Naturally the dynasties founded by Juddmonte’s two most famous matriarchs – Hasili and Toussaud, dam of four individual Grade 1 winners including Empire Maker – were combined. 

Banks Hill and Hasili were sent to the US to be covered by Empire Maker, with Banks Hill producing Trojan Queen to the triple Grade 1 winner. Trojan Queen didn’t live up to her lofty genes on the track but as a broodmare she is the dam of Royal Ascot Group 2 winner Sangarius from Kingman’s first crop and the Group 3 third Emergent by Oasis Dream. 

She has a two-year-old Showcasing filly named Ezine and a yearling full brother to Sangarius and returned to Kingman in 2020. Hasili produced Very Good News to Empire Maker and the unraced 13-year-old is the dam of Juddmonte’s Irish St Leger third Weekender, a seven-year-old son of Frankel. 

Very Good News has since produced two full brothers to Weekender, the three-year-old Media Stream who is trained by Andre Fabre and made a winning debut over 1m at Chantilly in November and the two-year-old Polemon. 

She foaled a Kingman filly in 2020 and returned to Frankel. Heat Haze, Hasili’s daughter by Green Desert, has been the most successful of her offspring at stud producing the Group 1 Metropolitan Handicap winner and Melbourne Cup third Mirage Dancer to Frankel, the Grade 1 Maker’s Mile third Forge and Listed second Radiator to Dubawi. 

She has a yearling Frankel filly and the 22-year-old was covered by Juddmonte’s Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Expert Eye last year, as was her daughter Radiator, who also has a Frankel yearling filly. 

Intercontinental, winner of the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf and third in the 1,000 Guineas, is the dam of five winners so far and has a three-year-old Sea The Stars filly named Not In Doubt in training with Andre Fabre. 

She has an Australia yearling colt and was covered by Ulysses in 2020. Her Smart Strike daughter Continental Drift has a three-year-old Kingman colt named Masen who was third for Juddmonte and Ger Lyons in the Group 3 Tyros Stakes last August. 

Continental Drift has a two-year-old full-sister to Masen, a yearling filly by Showcasing and returned to Kingman in 2020. Hasili’s final foal, Responsible, has made a good start on taking up her mother’s mantel with the ten-year-old Oasis Dream mare producing Obligate as her first foal. 

The five-year-old by Frankel won the Group 2 Prix Sandringham and was third in the Group 1 Prix Rothschild and Dubawi was chosen as her first mate last year. Responsible’s second foal is also by Frankel, the dual winner Indigo Lake. She has a three-year-old full sister to them named Receipt, a two-year-old filly by Siyouni called Pledged, a Frankel yearling colt and is expecting another Frankel foal this spring.

Polish Romance – Cheveley Park 

David Thompson

Stud Cheveley Park Stud has an enviable record of homebred Group 1 winners but every now and then farms need to reinvigorate the herd with new blood and with the purchase of Danzig filly Polish Romance from Skara Glen Farm, the Thompsons certainly did that. It may not have seemed during Polish Romance’s racing career that she was going to leave her mark on the Cheveley Park broodmare band. One win in nine starts wasn’t the most impressive of records but through her 20-year-old Cadeaux Genereux daughter Irresistible she has most certainly created a legacy. Irresistible was the best runner out of Polish Romance, winning the Listed Kilvington Stakes and finishing second in the Group 3 Brownstown Stakes. At stud she has outshone her dam even more brightly, particularly when mated with Cheveley Park’s remarkable stallion Pivotal. She has the Listed Carnarvon Stakes winner Remarkable and the Group 3 Abernant Stakes second Watchable by the Group 1 winner. Her first daughter with Pivotal is Infallible, foaled in 2005, and although only raced six times in her career she won the Group 3 Nell Gwyn Stakes at three and was placed in the Falmouth Stakes and Sun Chariot Stakes, both Group 1 contests. Infallible has contributed to her sire’s brilliant record as a broodmare sire producing the Group 1 Falmouth Stakes winner and three times Group 1 placed filly Veracious to Frankel. Sent to Sea The Stars. Infallible foaled the Group 2 Summer Mile Stakes winner and triple Group/Grade 1 placed Mutakayyef who was sold as a yearling by Cheveley Park Stud to Shadwell for 220,000gns. Her covering by Dubawi produced the Group 3 Prix de Flore and Listed Garnet Stakes winner Intimation. She has six winners from seven runners and has an unraced three-year-old Frankel colt named Irreproachable. She has a yearling full brother to Mutakeyyef and was covered by Frankel in 2020. 

It may not have seemed during Polish Romance’s racing career that she was going to leave her mark on the Cheveley Park broodmare band. One win in nine starts wasn’t the most impressive of records but through her 20-year-old Cadeaux Genereux daughter Irresistible she has most certainly created a legacy. 

Irresistible was the best runner out of Polish Romance, winning the Listed Kilvington Stakes and finishing second in the Group 3 Brownstown Stakes. At stud she has outshone her dam even more brightly, particularly when mated with Cheveley Park’s remarkable stallion Pivotal. 

She has the Listed Carnarvon Stakes winner Remarkable and the Group 3 Abernant Stakes second Watchable by the Group 1 winner. Her first daughter with Pivotal is Infallible, foaled in 2005, and although only raced six times in her career she won the Group 3 Nell Gwyn Stakes at three and was placed in the Falmouth Stakes and Sun Chariot Stakes, both Group 1 contests. 

Infallible has contributed to her sire’s brilliant record as a broodmare sire producing the Group 1 Falmouth Stakes winner and three times Group 1 placed filly Veracious to Frankel. Sent to Sea The Stars. Infallible foaled the Group 2 Summer Mile Stakes winner and triple Group/Grade 1 placed Mutakayyef who was sold as a yearling by Cheveley Park Stud to Shadwell for 220,000gns. 

Her covering by Dubawi produced the Group 3 Prix de Flore and Listed Garnet Stakes winner Intimation. She has six winners from seven runners and has an unraced three-year-old Frankel colt named Irreproachable. She has a yearling full brother to Mutakeyyef and was covered by Frankel in 2020. 

Intimation, her nine-year-old daughter by Dubawi, has a two-year-old Frankel colt named Nuanced and produced a colt to Ulysses in 2020. She was covered by Golden Horn last year. 

In 2006 Irresistible produced Penchant to Pivotal’s son Kyllachy, and although unraced she was covered by Cheveley’s Dutch Art to produce the Group 1 Prix Maurice de Gheest winner Garswood. 

Having begun his stallion career in the place of his birth alongside, his sire, broodmare sire and grandsire, he is embarking on his second season at Haras de la Huderie. Bought by Coolmore, Penchant has been mated exclusively with Galileo for a number of years and has produced the Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes fourth Zagitova for her them.. She has a three-year-old filly named Frill and a yearling colt. 

Eternally

The third successive Pivotal filly out of Irresistible was Thrill, foaled in 2007 and she is the dam of three winners – Effusive by Starspangledbanner, Hollander, a Dutch Art gelding and Business Circles who won three times in Italy. 

Effusive has three foals of racing age, all by Lethal Force who formerly stood at Cheveley Park and now is at Haras de Grandcamp. Sold in foal to Unfortunately, who Cheveley stands in partnership with Linda and Reddy Coffey at their Springfield House Stud in Tipperary, she produced a colt to him and was covered by Raven’s Pass last year. 

Thrill was sold by Cheveley Park to Mount Richard Stud at the Tattersalls December 2020 Mare sale but has a two-year-old Bated Breath filly and a yearling Dutch Art colt still to run for her breeders. Irresistible’s fourth daughter for Cheveley Park Stud is the seven-year-old Acclamation mare Believable. 

A winner over 6f at two, her only season to race, for Sir Michael Stoute she has a three-year-old Pivotal daughter named Credible who won at 6f and was twice second at 5f last season for Richard Fahey and her owner-breeders. She has a two-year-old Siyouni filly, a yearling daughter by Kingman and went to Iffraaj in 2020. 

Polish Romance was mated with Pivotal himself before her sale by Cheveley Park Stud and the most significant result of that cross for the farm is Ardent, foaled in 2007. Like her dam, she did nothing of note as a racehorse, winning as a three-year-old but as a broodmare she has produced a daughter of more ability than she showed. 

Her eight-year-old Dutch Art daughter Eternally won the Listed October Stakes at Ascot for Cheveley Park and John Gosden and was also second in the Group 3 Queen’s Plate Oak Tree Stakes and third in the Group 3 Sceptre Stakes. 

Eternally’s first foal is a two-year-old colt by Intello who made 95,000gns as a yearling and she has a colt foal by Kodiac. Ardent has a three-year-old Dark Angel filly named Angel’s Kiss retained by Cheveley Park, and a yearling full sister to her.

POLISHED GEM (Caroline Norris)

POLISHED GEM – Moyglare Stud

POLISHED GEM – Moyglare Stud If ever a mare was named with unerring prescience it is Moyglare Stud’s daughter of Danehill, who has produced nine winners from ten runners, 

seven of them successful in black-type contests and two at the very highest level. Polished Gem is a granddaughter of Talking Picture, who was crowned America’s champion two-year-old filly of 1973 and purchased by the late Walter Haefner for his Moyglare Stud from Maxwell H Gluck. 

Sent to the Triple Crown hero Affirmed on a number of occasions, Talking Picture produced Group 2 winner Easy To Copy, Group 3 winner Low Key Affair, Listed winner Epicure’s Garden and Magical Cliché, who was Listed placed. Her best offspring by Affirmed was the result of her 1985 mating: Trusted Partner, who won the Irish 1000 Guineas for the familiar team of Moyglare Stud and trainer Dermot Weld. 

Trusted Partner herself became the dam of Group 1 winner Dress To Thrill, successful in the Matriarch Stakes at Belmont Park for Weld and Moyglare. 

Polished Gem is a full sister to Dress To Thrill and one of 11 winners foaled by Trusted Partner. While she failed to ascend to greatness on the track, success in a seven-furlong maiden at the end of her two-year-old season being the best she could achieve, she has outdone herself as a broodmare. 

Polished Gem has produced 10 foals, all of which have raced and won, with seven of them earning black type. They are headed by Moyglare’s Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes winner Free Eagle, a son of High Chaparral who stands at the Irish National Stud. 

The nine-year-old has two crops of racing age and is the sire of Khalifa Sat, winner of the Listed Cocked Hat Stakes and second in this year’s Derby. Her second Group 1 winner is Search For A Song, a four-year-old daughter of Galileo who won her second successive Irish St Leger in September this year, again in the famous black, white and red Moyglare silks and trained by Weld. 

Search For A Song has a year younger full sister named Amma Grace, who was second in the Group 2 Blandford Stakes at the Curragh on the same afternoon Search For A Song added a second Classic victory to her resume. 

They also have a two-year-old full brother named Kyprios, who is owned in partnership with Coolmore and made a winning debut in September for Aidan O’Brien. 

Polished Gem failed to get in foal to Galileo subsequently, with Kyprios her most recent foal, and she was covered by Sea The Stars in the spring. Her first foal, Sapphire won the Group 2 Ribblesdale Stakes and was second in the Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes for Moyglare, Weld and the much-missed Pat Smullen. 

By Medicean, the now 12-year-old is the dam of five foals with the best so far, her Kingman daughter Kiss For A Jewel. The four-year-old was a winner at three and third in the Group 2 Kilboy Estate Stakes at the Curragh this year. 

Sapphire has a three-year-old Galileo filly named Federica Sophia, a winner and second this season on her only two starts, a two-year-old full sister named Acqua di Gioia who is unraced, and a yearling Galileo filly. She was covered by Dubawi this year. 

Polished Gem is also the dam of Amber Romance, a 10-year-old daughter of Bahamian Bounty, who won and was placed from only three starts. Her four-year-old daughter Lightning Amber won as a two-year-old for Weld and Moyglare and again this season. 

She is the only winner so far from the first three foals out of Amber Rose, who was sold for 200,000gns in foal to Kingman at the Tattersalls December Mares Sale in 2018. She foaled a filly by him in America that was sold for $500,000 at the Fasig-Tipton Selected Yearling Showcase in September. She has a filly foal by Hardspun and was covered by Bolt d’Oro, a dual Grade 1-winning two-year-old, at Spendthrift Farm last spring.

Millennium Dash – Meon Valley

In just forty years of existence, Meon Valley Stud has become renowned as a nursery for champions and the Weinfeld family has nurtured these dynasties through the purchase of three foundation mares who proved to be outstanding. 

Millenium Dash is a granddaughter of one of the trio – the 1,000 Guineas, Coronation and Nell Gwyn Stakes winner One In A Million who proved to be aptly named. She is out of Milligram who like Kerali, discussed earlier, was born in 1984. 

By Mill Reef, Milligram was a top-class racehorse just like her sire and dam, winning the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes and emulated One In A Million with victory in the Coronation Stakes. 

She was also second in both the 1,000 Guineas and Irish 1,000 Guineas and the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac. Her offspring failed to live up to her exploits on the track but the talent only skipped a generation, especially through her Nashwan daughter Millennium Dash who won one race from just three starts, in 2000 appropriately. 

Millennium Dash’s first mate was the champion Montjeu and she produced a filly by him in 2002. Named Dash To The Top, she won the Listed Hoppings Stakes and was placed in the Yorkshire Oaks and Fillies’ Mile, both Group 1 contests. 

As a broodmare she has continued the legacy of One In A Million, foaling the 2019 Group 1 Oaks and Prix de Royallieu winner Anapurna, by Frankel so inbred 3x3 to Sadler’s Wells. 

Anapurna is her most recent offspring as she has failed to produce foals to Dansili, Fastnet Rock, Lope De Vega and Muhaarar since then. She returned to Frankel in 2020 and hopefully the mating will produce a foal in 2021. 

Lope De Vega was selected as the first stallion for Anapurna, who will visit Dubawi this year. Millennium Dash also foaled the Group 3 Tetrarch Stakes placed Dynasty by Danehill Dancer and her Dansili daughter Very Dashing was third in the Listed Hoppings Stakes, a race won by her mother. 

Very Dashing joined her dam in the Meon Valley broodmare band and has a two-year-old Lope De Vega filly and a yearling daughter by Iffraaj. She visited Nathaniel last year and is scheduled to be covered by Blue Point this spring. 

Millennium Dash’s second foal was the Diktat filly Dash To The Front and she won the Listed Warwickshire Oaks in the Weinfelds’ famous black and white spotted silks. 

Returning to Meon Valley Stud for a broodmare career, she too has produced a daughter triumphant at the highest level – the Group 1 Prix de l’Opera and Prix Jean Romanet winner Speedy Boarding by Shamardal. 

The nine-year-old has a three-year-old colt by Dubawi who made 500,000gns to Roger Varian at the Tattersalls October Book 1 Sale. Named Legend Of Dubai and owned by Sheikh Mohammed Obaid he has been placed on each of his three starts at two and holds entries in this year’s Derby at Epsom and Irish Derby. 

Speedy Boarding has a two-year-old Frankel filly and a Kingman yearling colt. She was rested from breeding last year and is pencilled in to return to Frankel this year. 

Dash To The Front’s first foal was Miss Dashwood by Arc winner Dylan Thomas, and the winner of four races at three and four she has produced the Group 2 Queen’s Vase and Group 3 Henry II Stakes winner Dashing Willoughby by Nathaniel. 

She has an unraced three-year-old Lope De Vega filly named Loving Dash and a two-year-old colt by Mukhadram who was sold to Barry Lynch and Heath House for 52,000gns at Tattersalls Book 1 last October. 

Her yearling is a colt by Ulysses and she was rested in 2020 ahead of a date with Blue Point this breeding season. Dash To The Front is the dam of six winners so far including the Grade 3 Poker Stakes third Value Proposition by Dansili. 

Her three-year-old Lope De Vega colt made 500,000gns to Shadwell as a yearling, named Moktasaab he is in training with Owen Burrows for Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum and was placed in both his starts at two. There is a possibility he could meet his relative Legend Of Dubai in the Derby for which he holds an entry. 

Dash To The Front has a two-year-old son by Iffraaj and a Dubawi yearling filly with Kingman next on her list. Millennium Dash foaled just one other filly, her third foal Meon Mix who is by Kayf Tara, the leading British-based National Hunt sire and a member of another Meon Valley dynasty – that of Reprocolor. 

Meon Mix was sold as a four-year-old to the Morrin brothers’ Pier House Stud and she is the dam of the ill-fated Group 3 and Listed-placed hurdler Holding Pattern by Teofilo. 

Her most recent foal is a four-year-old Ruler Of The World gelding and she was covered by Crystal Ocean last year. Millennium Dash’s last reported foal is the four-year-old Champs Elysees’ gelding Grand Avenue.  

YOU’RESOTHRILLING with Happily as a foal (Coolmore)

YOU’RESOTHRILLING – Coolmore Stud

You’resothrilling is one of the stars of Coolmore’s exquisitely-bred broodmare band. The Group 2 Cherry Hinton Stakes winner is a daughter of Storm Cat and the Grade 2 winner Mariah’s Storm, making her a full sister to the legendary Iron Horse, Giant’s Causeway.

She has been mated exclusively with Galileo since retiring to stud and a quick glance at the names of the resulting offspring makes it easy to see why she remains faithful. From seven runners to date, the cross has resulted in six Group 1 performers with three of them Group 1 winners. 

As well as Gleneagles, who won four Group 1 contests including both the English and Irish 2000 Guineas, You’resothrilling is the dam of Marvellous, successful in the Irish 1000 Guineas and the Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes, and Prix Marcel Boussac winner Happily.

She is also the dam of dual Group 2 Zipping Classic winner and Grade 1 Secretariat Stakes second The Taj Mahal, who began his stud career at Haras de la Haie Neuve in the spring. 

Her daughter Coolmore won the Group 3 C L and M F Weld Park Stakes at two and was third in the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks Invitational as a three-year-old. Her three-year-old of 2020, Vatican City, was second to Siskin in the Irish 2000 Guineas while his year younger full sister, bearing the auspicious moniker Joan Of Arc, was a very close second on her debut at Dundalk and looks capable of living up to her illustrious siblings’ achievements next season.

You’resothrilling has a yearling filly by Galileo and was rested in 2019 but returned to be covered by him last spring. Marvellous visited one of America’s best stallions, Claiborne Farm’s War Front, to produce her first three foals. The best of her two runners so far is the Listed Star Appeal Stakes winner Fort Myers but sadly her two-year-old War Front colt died. 

A change of direction was made for her 2019 covering, as she visited Quality Road at Lane’s End Farm in Kentucky. Sire of champions Able Tasman and Caledonia Road, he is one of the most exciting stallions in America and the yearling filly by him out of Marvellous made $1.5m at Fasig-Tipton’s Selected Yearlings Showcase in September, ironically to War Front’s owner Joseph Allen. She was amongst a stellar book of first mares served by the unbeaten Triple Crown champion Justify at Coolmore’s Ashford Farm in Kentucky. 

Her full sisters, Coolmore and Happily joined her in the Coolmore broodmare band with the former copying her dates. She has a two-year-old War Front colt named County Wicklow in training with Aidan O’Brien and a yearling full brother to him. 

Then she joined Marvellous in visiting Justify in his first season. They both travelled to Darley’s Dalham Hall Stud in Newmarket for the first time this spring to be covered by Dubawi. 

Happily went further on her travels with leading Japanese sire Lord Kanaloa selected as her first mate and she foaled a colt by the sire of Japanese superstar Almond Eye in March this year.

MY RENEE – Kilcarn Stud

The victory of Twilight Payment in this year’s Melbourne Cup represented a triumph for two different Irish breeding operations, neither a stranger to success on the world’s greatest stage. Twilight Payment’s breeder Jim Bolger has scaled the heights in that role and as a trainer, and as well as breeding the Melbourne Cup winner, he also 

Twilight Payment’s breeder Jim Bolger has scaled the heights in that role and as a trainer, and as well as breeding the Melbourne Cup winner, he also bred and trained his sire Teofilo, who was European champion two-year-old. Bolger purchased the Melbourne hero’s dam, Dream On Buddy from Jacqueline Norris’ Jockey Hall Stud at Tattersalls December Mare Sale in 2011 for 240,000gns. 

Just two weeks prior to that purchase, he had sold Dream On Buddy’s three-year-old half-sister Banimpire for €2.3m at the Goffs November Breeding Stock Sale, a shrewd piece of business. Dream On Buddy has a four-year-old New Approach filly, Bandiuc Eile, who was second in the Group 2 Debutante Stakes at the Curragh as a two-year-old and is in foal to Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes winner Profitable. 

Her two-year-old daughter, Our New Buddy is also by Bolger’s Group 1 Derby and Champion Stakes winner and is in training with Ralph Beckett, while she has a yearling colt by New Approach’s champion two-year-old son Dawn Approach. 

She returned to New Approach this year. While Bolger rightly earns the plaudits for breeding the winner of the race that stops a nation, the origins of Twilight Payment are along the banks of the Boyne in Co Meath and the venerable Kilcarn Stud. 

The renowned Miss Pat O’Kelly, breeder of luminaries such as Spirit of Tara, Salsabil and Marju, and this season’s Group 1 Phoenix Stakes winner Lucky Vega, also bred Dream On Buddy and her Group 2-winning and multiple Group 1-placed half-sister Banimpire. They are descendants of Detroit, the first mare to win the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and then breed an Arc winner, a feat that has only been matched by Urban Sea. 

Miss O’Kelly has nurtured a highly influential family stemming from Mayenne, Detroit’s daughter with Nureyev. The unraced Mayenne is the dam of My Renee, who was trained by Michael Grassick for the breeder and won the Listed Harvest Stakes and Listed Give Thanks Stakes. 

By Kris S, My Renee went to Juddmonte Farm’s Oasis Dream for her second covering. This was the mating that produced Dream On Buddy, the dam of Twilight Payment. My Renee’s third foal is Banimpire, who Bolger bought for €52,000 at the Goffs Orby Sale and trained to win the Group 2 Ribblesdale Stakes and be placed in the Group 1 Irish Oaks and Prix de l’Opera. 

Banimpire has a three-year-old filly by Gleneagles named Miss Mulligan who has won and been placed in three of her five starts this year for George Scott. Her two-year-old Galileo colt made €115,000 at Goffs Orby Sale last year and has been named Galileo’s Breeze. 

She also has a yearling full sister to him. This year she produced a colt to Churchill and a change of direction has been made for the Holy Roman Emperor mare; this year she was amongst the first mares to be covered by Group 1 Middle Park Stakes and July Cup winner Ten Sovereigns, a son of No Nay Never. In 2011, the year Banimpire was creating headlines, her dam foaled an Invincible Spirit filly who was retained by Miss O’Kelly and named My Spirit. Sent into training with William Haggas, My Spirit was second in the Listed Prix Joubert and third in the Listed Upavon Stakes. 

Her first foal, by Dark Angel, is the three-year-old gelding Dark Kris, who has been placed three times so far. Her second is a colt by Sea The Stars who sold for €500,000 to Godolphin at the 2019 Goffs Orby Sale. Now named Mystical Dawn he won a maiden on debut for Charlie Appleby in early October this year. 

My Spirit has a yearling filly by Australia and a colt full brother to Mystical Dawn and was sent to Night Of Thunder this year. My Renee has an unraced two-year-old full sister to Banimpire who was sold by Kilcarn Stud to Yulong Investments for €140,000 at Goffs Orby 2019 and is named My Holy Fox. She foaled a full brother to My Spirit this year, and at the age of 20 is not recorded as having been covered in 2020.