THE Grey Gatsby stands at Haras du Petit Tellier and this year his fee has been set at €8,000. Trained for most of his career by Kevin Ryan, he raced for five seasons, but was at his best at three and four.

It is easy to forget now that he was rated the best three-year-old in Europe at three, winning the Group 1 Prix du Jockey Club-French Derby and the Irish Champion Stakes, beating Australia and Trading Leather at Leopardstown. He didn’t win again after the age of three, and this would certainly have affected his desirability as stallion. Thankfully he got a chance in France.

Six of his 23 juvenile first-crop runners last year won, and included a listed winner in Germany, Mylady. She is unbeaten in two starts and trainer Markus Klug will be hoping she can progress to group class this year. A look at the profile of the runners to date for The Grey Gatsby would indicate that they will be better at three, and so 2022 could be an exciting year for him.

It has certainly started well, and the first listed race of the European racing year was won by his three-year-old daughter Indian Wish. This was her second success of the year, both over a mile and both at Cagnes-Sur-Mer. She was also runner-up on her two-year-old debut in October.

Given away

Indian Wish is the best of five winners from her dam Indian Cat, a daughter of One Cool Cat (Storm Cat). She was rather ignominiously sold, or given away, last December at Arqana for just €4,000 to Agence Equus. She is in foal to Hot Streak (Iffraaj), the sire of Ado McGuinness’ Group 1 Prix de l’Abbaye winner A Case Of You.

At the time of her sale. Indian Cat’s first three foals had all run and won, her first being the stake-placed, six-time winner Incampo (Campanologist). Her next two offspring had also run and been placed. Now the statistics show that all of those five are winners, and are headed by the Listed Prix de la Californie heroine of last Sunday. Indian Wish has two full-sisters following on.

This is quite a family for breeding winners. Indian Cat was one of a pair of stakes winners from Mary Linda (Grand Lodge), and she had 10 winning offspring from 11 foals.

Her dam, Mary’s Dance (Groom Dancer), ‘only’ had four winners, but they were all of her foals. Mary’s Dance was herself one of nine winners from Marike (Nasram II), another in a line of winning dams.

Prolific winner

Marike’s best son on the racecourse was Marildo (Romildo). He was a prolific winner, successful 18 times on the flat in the 1990s, and also winning once over jumps. His biggest win came as a seven-year-old when he beat a high-class field to capture the 1994 Group 1 Prix Ganay. Runner-up that day was the Group 1 Oaks winner Intrepidity, while Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe heroine Urban Sea was third, Group 1 St Leger winner Bob’s Return was fourth, the previous year’s Ganay winner Vert Amande finished fifth and dual Group 1 Juddmonte International winner Ezzoud was sixth.

The best daughter of Marike’s on the track was the stakes-placed Marie Noelle (Brigadier Gerard), but that was in the days when fourth in a group or graded race got you blacktype.

Her limited ability as a racemare did not stop her breeding a better runner, and her daughter Mary Linoa (L’Emigrant) was one of the best juveniles of 1988, winning the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac.