WE all know how successful Jim Bolger has been as a trainer, but he has a record as a breeder that is equally impressive. He is also a man who believes in what he is doing, even if it does not conform to what many in the industry might think is the norm, or in fashion. This also extends to the exploits of runners for members of his family.

Take the case of Clever And Cool, the three-year-old daughter of Vocalised (Vindication) who recently added the Group 3 Fairy Bridge Stakes at Tipperary to a previous win in the Listed Platinum Stakes at Cork. This was the fourth win for the filly, and her successes have come over distances from five furlongs to a mile. She was bred by Jim’s late brother Paddy, and races in the colours of his wife Marguerite and is in partnership with Jim’s wife Jackie.

The filly has not been spared, and her pattern win came on what was her eleventh run of the year, and her 16th start in all. On average she has run once a fortnight this year, and she appears to be thriving with racing. She has already raced more than her dam, Sunset Beauty (Whipper), and all but two of that mare’s 13 outings were at the ages of four and five. She won four and was placed on a similar number of occasions.

Clever And Cool is the sixth stakes winner for Vocalised, and all of them have raced for Jim Bolger. Heading that list is Verbal Dexterity. A runaway winner of his maiden at the Curragh, he finished second next time out to Beckford in the Group 2 Railway Stakes when dropped back to six furlongs. Upped again to seven for the Group 1 National Stakes, six years ago this weekend, he had Beckford three and a half-lengths in arrears.

Vocalised

Clever And Cool is the third Group 3 winner for Vocalised. His daughter Steip Amach was the first to win at that level, and in fact both her successes, at the ages of two and four, were in Group 3 races at Leopardstown. She was twice placed in Group 1 races after she was sold and joined David Smaga in France, running third in both the Prix Rothschild and the Prix Jean Romanet. Steip Amach has a yearling colt by Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj) for sale in Book 1 of the upcoming Tattersalls October Yearling Sale.

Vocalised’s daughter Cimeara won the Group 3 Stanerra Stakes and a listed race before selling for a sale-topping €500,000 to Sun Bloodstock at the 2018 Goffs Champions Sale at Leopardstown. She went on to be trained at four by Joseph O’Brien, won another listed race and was placed in the Stanerra Stakes, and she has her first produce, a yearling colt by No Nay Never (Scat Daddy), also for sale in Book 1 at Newmarket next month.

Five of the six stakes winners by Vocalised have been fillies. Sometimesadiamond was also group-placed and sold as a three-year-old at the 2018 Goffs UK Goodwood Sale for the interesting sum of £222,000 to Dermot Farrington.

The Listed Salsabil Stakes winner Vociferous Marina was fourth in the Musidora Stakes and, sold for €135,000 to Tally-Ho Stud. She too has a yearling in Book 1 at Newmarket next month, a daughter by Kodiac (Danehill).

Crossed well

Vocalised crosses well with daughters of Galileo (Sadler’s Wells), and this has also produced Comhra, who was less than two lengths behind Tahiyra in this year’s Group 1 Tattersalls Irish 1000 Guineas when finishing third.

While he has about 70 winners with his first 10 crops of racing age, it is clear that Vocalised is well capable of getting a good horse, but he has mostly been used by Bolger alone at Redmondstown Stud, run by Paddy and Margeurite’s son, and Jim’s nephew, Ken.

Jim’s belief in the horse has, like many times before and with other sires, been fully justified. Bolger gave the horse a chance at stud, and few other farms would have done so.

From an exceptional female line, Vocalised sold as a yearling for $560,000, and made his debut in a maiden at Leopardstown at two, a well-beaten fourth behind none other than Sea The Stars. Vocalised returned to the track a few weeks later to record his first win. At three, he ran up a sequence of wins, in the Listed Loughbrown Stakes at the Curragh, the Group 3 Greenham Stakes at Newbury when he beat Cityscape a length, and the Group 3 Tetrarch Stakes, again at the Curragh. However, he did not win or place again.

Swordlestown

A look at the female side of Clever And Cool’s pedigree brought many memories flooding back for me, as the filly’s third dam Riverwave (Riverman) was owned by Jim Mamakos, and he and others owned Swordlestown Stud during a period when my late father ran the farm. She compiled an honest record as a broodmare, with eight winners from a dozen runners, though none were of stakes class.

Her daughter Gaisce (Bluebird), not bred at Swordlestown, did not race, and she had the amazing record of having 12 foals, two runners and two winners. Both her winners, the aforementioned Sunset Beauty and Sun On The Run, were by Whipper (Miesque’s Son), and the latter was a stakes winner, his four wins highlighted by a victory in the Listed Navigation Stakes at Cork.

A long way to go to Conclude his career

REMEMBER this name – Conclude. He recorded his fourth and most important success to date when winning the Grade 2 Del Mar Derby, and he is an emerging force on the west coast of America.

Incredibly, the Brereton Jones-bred three-year-old, from the first crop of Collected (City Zip), was unsold as a yearling at Keeneland for $140,000. This was in spite of his being the son of a Grade 1 winner, and his four older siblings had sold at the same venue for $2.9 million, $1 million, $900,000 and $800,000. Jones remains as a part-owner of Conclude.

The less said about the more expensive of that quartet the better, though he placed three times, but the $900,000 purchase, Believe In Royalty (Tapit) did manage a minor stakes win among his three victories, and he was runner-up in the Grade 3 Oklahoma Derby. His first US crop are two-year-olds. This week, Believe You Can’s yearling filly by Nyquist (Uncle Mo) will sell soon after the sale gets underway on Monday, being Hip 31.

Airdie Stud’s Brereton Jones bred and raced the dam of all the horses mentioned earlier, and she was Believe You Can. A daughter of Airdrie’s Proud Citizen (Gone West), she won eight of her 14 starts, most importantly capturing the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks, while her placed efforts saw her finish third in the Grade 1 Mother Goose Stakes. That classic win was a milestone as the jockey, Rosie Napravnik, became the first female rider to win the Kentucky Oaks, having come within a whisker of doing so a year earlier. It was also the rider’s first Grade 1 success.

El Fasto

In the same year that Believe You Can visited the Grade 1 Pacific Classic Stakes winner Collected at Airdrie Stud, so too did her dam, the unraced El Fasto (El Prado). Her now three-year-old, Sister Cloudy, became El Fasto’s tenth winning offspring when she opened her account this year.

Collected recently passed the 50-winner mark with runners from his first two crops. He has just completed his fifth season at stud, though his fee has almost halved to $10,000. In his racing career, Collected is a Grade 1 winning earner of almost $3 million. He won on his debut and was graded stakes-placed at two.

His eight career wins in 15 starts included five graded stakes wins, and he defeated the mighty Arrogate when winning the Pacific Classic. Collected beat Accelerate by 14 lengths in a tour-de-force performance in the Grade 3 Precisionist Stakes, and was a gallant runner-up to Gun Runner in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Classic, defeating the three-year-old champion West Coast, and Arrogate for the second consecutive time.