HYDE Park Stud’s John Bourke knows value when he sees it, and last year he paid a mere €4,500 at the Goffs Autumn Yearling Sale for a yearling filly from the second crop of Sands Of Mali (Panis), bred and sold by Rathbride Farm.

With her yearling daughter making so little, and her second foal only winning in Serbia, No More Thrills (Dutch Art) was sold at Goffs shortly afterwards for just €4,000 to an Italian buyer. She was covered by Space Traveller (Bated Breath). A few days before No More Thrills was moved on, her filly foal by Dandy Man (Mozart) was purchased by Fernham Farm for €9,000. None of these amounts were significant, but can all be seen as bargains now.

The filly that Bourke bought is Ipanema Queen (Sands Of Mali), and her second win in four starts came in the Listed Mitsubishi Electric Irish EBF Curragh Stakes for two-year-olds, going one better than her runner-up finish in the Listed Marwell Stakes at Naas.

Owned by Stonestreet Stables and Amo Racing, she is the fifth stakes winner for her Ballyhane Stud sire, the other’s coming from his first crop. They include Group 1 Commonwealth Cup winner Time For Sandals, and another Royal Ascot winner in Ain’t Nobody in the Listed Windsor Castle Stakes.

Three winners

With the first foal out of No More Thrills not being named, her first three runners are now winners. Briery Boy (Soldier’s Call) has become a three-time winner abroad, while her three-year-old son Ancient State (Dandy Man) is another to win in 2025. All of these updates will be music to the ear of Kevin McAuliffe who will offer their Dandy Man half-sister for resale next week at Goffs UK.

No More Thrills was a 160,000gns yearling purchase who won twice over seven furlongs for Saeed Suhail before being picked up by Ballyhane Stud for €30,000 at the end of her second season racing. Obviously a very good-looking yearling, being one of the top four sold in 2016 by her sire, No More Thrills is a daughter of two-year-old winner The Thrill Is Gone (Bahamian Bounty) who placed a few times in listed races, notably second to Zebedee in the Listed Dragon Stakes at Sandown at two.

The Thrill Is Gone has been represented by four winners and two placed horses from seven runners, and has every chance to add to that in the future. She has an unraced two-year-old colt, Two Commanders (Mohaather), while her yearling filly by Lope Y Fernandez (Lope De Vega) comes up for sale in the Tattersalls Somerville Yearling Sale from music supremo Chris Wright’s Stratford Place.

Chris Wright

The Thrill Is Gone is out of Licence To Thrill (Wolfhound) who won twice over the minimum trip at three, and she was a homebred of Chris Wright.

Licence To Thrill has a perfect record at stud, all nine of her foals winning, with seven earning blacktype. The two that didn’t went on breed blacktype earners. A third of Licence To Thrill’s nine winners were stakes winners, two of whom were notable.

Muarrab (Oasis Dream), a 280,000gns Shadwell yearling buy, won £1.25 million with 14 victories, the best of which was in the valuable Group 1 Dubai Golden Shaheen on World Cup night. He was a great favourite of racegoers at Meydan. Muarrab was born a year before Bungle Inthejungle (Exceed And Excel) who raced for Wright after he failed to sell as a yearling. He was a smart juvenile, winning the Group 3 Molecomb and Cornwallis Stakes, and chasing Sir Prancealot home in the Group 2 Flying Childers Stakes.

Rathasker Stud’s Bungle Inthejungle has been having a good time of late, his son Jm Jungle winning the Group 2 King George Stakes at Goodwood, and crediting the sire with his sixth pattern winner and 13th stakes winner.

Bow Echo takes aim and hits his first target

FOR the second year in a row, George Boughey and Billy Loughname combined to win the mile St Michaels Hospice Maiden at Newbury with a two-year-old colt making his debut. Both winners carried the yellow and black-spotted silks of Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum.

Hopewell Rock won in 2024, added a second win next time out, and last Saturday was placed on his first start this year. Such was the manner of victory for this year’s winner, Bow Echo (Night Of Thunder), that it will be a shock if he does not go on to do much better. Despite running green, he was nearly five lengths clear of the runner-up who had already posted a promising run.

By the way, this Newbury maiden was won in 2023 by King’s Gambit, beaten a length and a half into third in the Listed Wolferton Stakes at Royal Ascot this year, and previously Group 2-placed a couple of times, on one occasion running third to Los Angeles and Illinois in the Great Voltigeur Stakes, beaten just two necks. Hopewell Rock was a 235,000gns yearling, while Bow Echo is owner-bred. In fact, he has as his third dam the Italian Group 1 winner Zomaradah (Deploy), owned and bred by the Sheikh, and later dam of the brilliant Dubawi (Dubai Millennium).

Bow Echo is one of three offspring of Aristocratic Lady (Invincible Spirit) who was bred and raced by Sheikh Mohammed Obaid. Trained by Simon and Ed Crisford, she placed on her second start at three. Staying in training she raced four more times, running up a sequence of three wins over six furlongs at four. Bow Echo is her second foal, is followed by a yearling son of Starspangledbanner (Choisir), and he was preceded by a filly, Royal Wedding (Lope De Vega). Aristocratic Lady died this year.

Regrets

I wonder if the Sheikh now regrets selling Royal Wedding, an unraced three-year-old, for 10,000gns at last month’s Tattersalls July Sale? Well done to Ickworth Stud’s Tom Blain for securing her, and what anticipation he must now have for Bow Echo’s future. This win at the weekend is not the only major update in the family this year.

Aristocratic Lady’s six winners are led by Royal Rhyme (Lope De Vega), a Group 3 winner who has twice placed in Group 1 races, the Champion Stakes last year and the Prix Ganay in April.

Royal Rhyme has been joined in 2025 as a stakes winner by Victoria Harbour (Frankel). She has made three starts this year, her first season to run, and after a placed debut and a win on her second start, she stepped up in class to win the Listed Height Of Fashion Stakes at Goodwood in May. She hasn’t raced since. Victoria Harbour is an own-sister to the Group 2-placed Zabeel Queen (Frankel).

All of these winners are out of Dubai Queen (Kingmambo), runner-up in the Listed Sandringham Handicap at Royal Ascot, and she was born six years after her dam foaled Dubawi. Successful in the Group 1 Oaks d’Italia, Zomaradah also won three Group/Grade 2 races, the Royal Whip at the Curragh, the Premio Lydia Tesio (after it was downgraded from Group 1) and the E.P. Taylor Stakes (a year before it was upgraded to Grade 1).