BLOODSTOCK agent Adam Potts tweeted on Sunday that the Curragh should erect a statue to Big Gossey (Gutaifan) after the wonderful nine-year-old came with a late run to land the Listed Jebel Ali Racecourse & Stables Dash Stakes.

That might be a tall order, but what about a race named in his honour this year in which he could run, and cement his legendary status at the track?

On his 40th start at the Curragh last year, Big Gossey won his first listed race, the Gladness Stakes. In March just past, for his 50th start at headquarters, he repeated his win in the race.

On Sunday, Big Gossey took his tally of stakes wins to three, and his overall number of wins to 12, together with a total of 46 top-four finishes in a noble career that now stretches to 89 starts. His only non-Curragh wins were at Dundalk.

Big Gossey has never travelled outside Ireland, and never gone more than a short drive from Charles O’Brien’s Baronrath yard to compete. He went up on 22 occasions to Dundalk, has run 12 times at Naas, twice travelled to Fairyhouse, and made a single excursion to Leopardstown.

In addition to his listed successes, he was second twice and third in the Group 2 Weatherbys Ireland Greenlands Stakes at the Curragh, and twice runner-up in the Group 3 Renaissance Stakes there. He has banked more than €660,000 in winnings.

Unsold foal

On his only visit to the sales, Big Gossey was unsold at Goffs as a foal. From the first crop of Group 2 juvenile winner Gutaifan (Dark Angel), now at stud in Hungary, Big Gossey is one of only five stakes winners he has sired, though one of the others is Fev Rover.

A £20,000 yearling, she later sold for 695,000gns and went to the USA. She won the Grade 1 Beverly D Stakes there and the Grade 1 E P Taylor Stakes in Canada.

Big Gossey is the best of six winners from 11 foals produced by Toy Show (Danehill). A three-time winner, she was culled at Goffs as an eight-year-old, and it was there that Eugene Heary bought her for €14,000. Big Gossey was her last foal, and sadly her only filly didn’t go to stud.

HILITANY was the highest-priced yearling in the first crop of Ubettabelieveit (Kodiac), when sold for 70,000gns to Hamish Macauley.

He reappeared under the Tally-Ho Stud banner at last spring’s Goffs UK Breeze Up Sale, where he was purchased for £300,000 by Stroud Coleman Bloodstock. A smart runner, in February he provided his sire with his first stakes winner. Hilitany was among 13 juvenile winners from his sire’s first crop.

That initial crop now contains 19 winners, while the second crop has another six juvenile winners in 2026 posted already. Most importantly this group includes a first pattern winner for Ubettabelieveit. A £58,000 yearling purchase by Stroud Coleman, Tokaido was bred by Mickley Stud in partnership with Tim and Miranda Johnson from a mare that cost £9,000, also at Goffs UK. Dora’s Sister (Dark Angel) had just won over seven furlongs.

Dora’s Sister has enjoyed a successful time at stud, without ever setting the sales ring alight with her offspring. She has been consistent, gets sound offspring, and Tokaido is her tenth foal and runner, half of them winning. They include a full-sister to the horse under review. Tokaido is in the news because the Amy Murphy-trained gelding made amends for his debut runner-up finish by winning his next three, a listed race at Chantilly at the end of May, and now the Group 3 Prix du Bois at Deauville.

Full-sister

Pleasing for the breeders of Tokaido is that they have a yearling full-sister to Tokaido at home. She will surely be sought after by the sales houses for the autumn. Ubettabelieveit has an average of 75 progeny in each of his first three crops, all conceived at a fee of £5,000. His yearlings to date have averaged four times his fee, but demand for the third crop which will be on offer this year is likely to push that higher, now that trainers have seen what they are capable of doing. Breeders too need to cotton on to his ability to get winners, as he covered just over 30 mares in 2025.

Richard Kent reports that this number has grown in 2026, and should do so even more in future. It is hard for stallion masters to attract huge numbers to horses standing for a four-figure sum, but the returns on investment can be so much better, and especially with offspring by a sire that trainers like. For young mares too, getting winners on the page is vital.

Last year Ubettabelieveit’s yearlings realised up to 90,000gns (bought by Alex Elliott), while others were purchased by Jamie Piggott, Rabbah Bloodstock, Peter and Ross Doyle, Phil Cunningham, Highflyer Bloodstock and Rod Millman.

FRANKEL may have been the centre of attention at the Curragh with a classic winner, but fellow Banstead Manor Stud sire Kingman (Invincible Spirit) was not for being overlooked, and he had three winners on the card. One of these, the four-year-old colt Purview, is already being hailed as a hopeful Breeders’ Cup challenger in November.

It is a lofty ambition, but his trainer Dermot Weld is no stranger to success there, nor is Colin Keane, and the colt’s owner-breeders, Juddmonte, has already posted seven Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup winners, all bar one of them homebred. Purview won for the fourth time in seven starts. His weekend Group 3 International Stakes win being added to a pair of listed successes, and two Group 3 runner-up places.

Purview is the second of two foals out of Variable (Sea The Stars), and what a disappointment that was for Juddmonte. Also trained by Weld, Variable raced four times, winning a maiden by six and a half lengths at Cork on her second start, and ending her brief racing career with a three-length victory in a 12-furlong listed race at the Curragh. She went in foal in her second season at stud, producing a filly, Vario (Kingman), but it would be four years before she had her second and final foal.

Vario made a single start at two, pitched in for a listed race on Irish Champions Weekend, and she was fourth, with subsequent Group 1 winner No Speak Alexander second.

At three she contested four maidens, was placed in the first two at Gowran Park and Naas, but she failed to do better. She sold later that year to James Hanly and Anthony Stroud, and her first foal is a winner this year.

Variable is one of two blacktype-winning daughters of the 2008 French champion two-year-old filly Proportional (Beat Hollow). She won the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac by three lengths from Elusive Wave, and the latter went on to win the following year’s Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches-French 1000 Guineas. Proportional’s other stakes winner is First Instinct (Bated Breath). She won a listed race at Cork last year at three for William Haggas, later adding the Group 3 World Trophy Stakes at Newbury.