HAWAI Game won the opening race at Naas on Thursday and he could well become a poster boy in the months to come for his sire, Kilbarry Lodge Stud’s Diamond Boy. The 15-year-old son of Mansonnien (Tip Moss) has just completed his fourth season at stud, and those first four years have seen him cover more than 580 mares, his biggest books in Ireland being his first two.

He had small books previously in France but he did well with his runners there. That said, his best performer to date has been Grand Sancy. He beat Sceau Royal in the Grade 2 Kingwell Hurdle at Wincanton shortly after finishing a half-length runner-up to Elixir De Nutz in the Grade 1 Tolworth Novices’ Hurdle, and he is a Grade 1-placed, listed winner over fences for the Paul Nicholls team. He is due to run at Ascot today.

Another son Cat Tiger was a dual Grade 3 winner over fences at Auteuil before also joining the Nicholls stable and since then he has won three times over hurdles, added another chase win and was placed in the Foxhunters’ at Aintree in April. Otchoa Rouge and Foudre Delta are two more listed hurdle and chase winners in France.

Monsieur Lecoq is a triple Grade 3-placed, three-time hurdle winner in Britain who was runner-up in the Imperial Cup, and has gone on to win over fences.

Don’t Hesitate won a Grade 3 flat race for AQPS horses before becoming a winning hurdler for the Willie Mullins stable, while other blacktype performers include Diamond Turf for Gordon Elliott, last month’s chase winner for Henry de Bromhead, Epson Du Houx, and Noel Meade’s Garde 2-placed hurdler and chaser Valdieu.

Diamond Boy, a 14-furlong listed winner of the Prix Scaramouche at Saint-Cloud, always had considerable potential as a sire of high-class hurdlers and chasers, and not just because of his male line. He is by Mansonnien, the sire of his full-brothers Golden Silver and Or Ou Argent, as well as Taranis, J’y Vole, Mansony, Millenium Royal, and many others of note.

Diamond Boy and his two best siblings are out of the Glint Of Gold (Mill Reef) mare Gold Or Silver. Or Ou Argent got his top-level win in Italy, over hurdles at Rome, but Golden Silver was a member of the Willie Mullins stable and completed a Grade 1 treble in the Arkle Perpetual Challenge Cup Novice Chase, Paddy Power Dial-A-Bet Chase and the Champion Chase, the latter at Punchestown. He died after a runaway odds-on victory in the Grade 2 Hilly Way Chase at Cork, aged just nine.

What of Diamond Boy’s latest winner, Hawai Game? The JP McManus-owned, Willie Mullins-trained four-year-old was purchased for his owner for €90,000 at Arqana last year, and this was his first start since. He was sold having won his only start over 15 furlongs at a track I confess to never having heard about, Senonnes-Pouance.

Easy Game

Apart from having made a winning debut, another attraction was the fact that Hawai Game’s half-brother Easy Game (Barastraight) was a seven-time winner from the Mullins stables, and that year he had won the Grade 2 Champion Chase at Gowran Park and finished second a Grade 1 at Leopardstown. This year he was beaten a length by his stable companion Royal Rendezvous in the Galway Plate.

Hawai Game is the fourth produce and second winner for his dam, the dual winner Rule Of The Game (Lavirco). Her dam Jouable (Garde Royale) and grandam Nordica III (Orvilliers) were also winners, and both have been prolific winner producers.

Jouable bred seven winners, headed by the Grade 2 Prix Congress Chase hero Echiquier Royal (Martaline), while the best of Nordica III’s eight winning offspring was the listed chase winner Blanville (Pot D’Or).