UNBEATEN now in three starts this year, Program Trading took a major step up in class for his most success, as it came in his first attempt at stakes class. It was no ordinary stakes race either, but rather the Grade 1 Saratoga Derby Invitational Stakes.

Running in the colours of Klaravich Stables, the three-year-old rig is a son of Lope De Vega (Shamardal), Ballylinch Stud’s outstanding international sire. With this victory he brought the stallion’s haul of winners at the highest level to 19, and he is a member of his sire’s ninth crop. Those Group/Grade 1 wins have also been recorded in Australia, France, the UAE, Ireland, Britain, and Canada.

Bred and sold by the Cumani’s Fittocks Stud in partnership, Program Trading is just the latest in a long list of top-class winners that have been sourced over many years by the Irish-born bloodstock agent, Mike Ryan. He spent 250,000gns to purchase Program Trading as a yearling in Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale.

A daughter of the two-year-old winner Dreamlike (Oasis Dream), Program Trading is that mare’s second winner. Among the other offspring of Dreamlike is the unraced Topaz Dream (Dark Angel), a real bargain buy now as she sold last year, as a three-year-old, to BBA Ireland for only 13,000gns. Alabama Anna (Starspanglebanner) is a juvenile half-sister to Program Trading, while Dreamlike has since produced a yearling filly by Pinatubo (Shamardal) and a colt foal by Too Darn Hot (Dubawi).

Fittocks Stud purchased Dreamlike’s dam, So Silk (Rainbow Quest), as an unraced four-year-old for 480,000gns, and that was 15 years ago. She has gone on to breed five winners for them. The best has been Silk Sari (Dalakhani), successful in the Group 2 Park Hill Stakes and runner-up in the Group 1 British Champions Fillies and Mares Stakes. While she has not yet enjoyed comparable success as a winner producer, Silk Sari did have a daughter by Dubawi (Dubai Millennium) who sold for 1,300,000gns as a yearling, but never raced.

So Silk is a daughter of Gossamer (Sadler’s Wells), and that own-sister to Barathea bred seven successful offspring, the best of which was the Group 1 Racing Post Trophy winner Ibn Khaldun (Dubai Destination). So Silk’s unraced half-sister Veil Of Silence has also played her role in keeping this family to the forefront, as last year her son Mischief Magic (Exceed And Excel) won the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint.

Barathea

Gossamer’s full-brother Barathea (Sadler’s Wells) won the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile three decades ago, and their dam Brocade (Habitat) won the Group 1 Prix de la Foret. Brocade not only bred a pair of Group/Grade 1 winners, but her Grade 3 winning daughter Free At Last (Shirley Heights) was placed a few times at Grade 1 level in the USA, and her daughter Coretta (Caerleon) was a multiple Grade 2 winner and runner-up in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf.

Another daughter of Brocade worth mentioning is the stakes-placed Bombazine (Generous). Five of her sons and daughters were stakes winners, and Berlin Berlin (Dubai Destination) came closest to being a Group 1 hero, having to settle for second placed in the Grosser Preis von Berlin.

It most certainly won’t be long before Lope De Vega brings up winner number 20 at the highest level, and this year alone he is responsible for 12 stakes winners, while his three-year-old son Mondego, who finished down the field behind Program Trading, was third in the Grade 1 Belmont Derby, and El Drama was runner-up in March in the Group 1 Jebel Hatta.