“ALMERIC is a smart horse. He’s not in the Derby, but he’s in the French Derby and a host of others. I think the plan would be to go to the Dante before a crack at the Prix du Jockey Club.”

These were the words of trainer Andrew Balding after the three-year-old son of Study Of Man (Deep Impact) won the Listed Feilden Stakes at Newmarket back in mid-April. Beaten just two lengths when fourth in a Sandown maiden on his debut at two, Almeric came out three weeks later to score in a mile maiden at York, and was put away for the winter. His listed win came on his three-year-old bow.

Sadly, we didn’t see Almeric again until last weekend, when he was sent to Scotland to contest a second listed race, the Doonside Cup.

This was fully five months since his previous run, and things didn’t go well at the start. He dwelt, was slowly away, and raced in rear for a mile. However, Almeric showed his class when laying down a challenge a quarter of a mile from home in the 10-furlong race, and he went on to win.

The patience of Almeric’s trainer and his owner-breeder will hopefully be soon rewarded, and the grey is a horse to watch when he next starts, perhaps in the Group 1 Champion Stakes. He will likely be even better at four. His owner-breeder is none other than Kirsten Rausing, and Almeric is from one of her very best families.

Three wins in four starts is surely the start of an upward success curve for Almeric, and the Ayr meeting featured a Group 3 juvenile win for his ‘cousin’, Catching The Moon (No Nay Never). She is reviewed below.

With a few exceptions, one of them notable, this family has been single-handedly curated and cared for by Kirsten Rausing, and it is one that she can be immensely proud about. The line is renowned for the quality of its runners, and for the ability of the mares within it to produce winner after winner after winner. I wonder what percentage of the broodmare band at Miss Rausing’s Lanwades and associated studs are from this line.

There has hardly been a year in the past three decades or more that this family has not produced a significant runner, and the two Ayr feature winners are keeping that run going. It is apt that Almeric is emerging as a potential star exactly 40 years after Kirsten Rausing and her friend Sonia Rogers purchased the two-year-old winner Alruccaba (Crystal Palace). She was in the frame on three of her four starts, but her influence grows year by year.

Four of Alruccaba’s eight winners were stakes-winning daughters, and Rausing has often referred to the fact that the family’s great success in part comes down to the line breeding more fillies than colts over the years. It is worth pointing out that descending from Alruccaba are 64 blacktype winners on the flat (plus another five over jumps), and that is coming close to two new stakes winners each year.

Outstanding tally

Nestled among this outstanding tally are such as dual Group 1 Champion Stakes winner Alborada (Alzao) who is Almeric’s grandam; triple Group 1 winner Albanova (Alzao); Alpinista (Frankel) whose six Group 1 wins include the Arc; Group 1 Irish and English St Leger winner Eldar Eldarov (Dubawi); French classic and US Grade 1 winner Aussie Rules (Danehill); dual Group 1-winning filly Coronet (Dubawi); and the Group 1 winners Allegretto (Galileo) and Galileo Chrome (Australia).

There are four more Group or Grade 1 winners, all who trace to Alruccaba’s placed daughter Jude (Darshaan), and they feature in the review of Catching The Moon. The quartet is Yesterday (Sadler’s Wells), Quarter Moon (Sadler’s Wells), Diamondsandrubies (Fastnet Rock) and Timberlake (Into Mischief).

This is a family that needs no more explaining. Just to say that Almeric is from the second crop of the Group 1 Prix du Jockey Club-French Derby winner Study Of Man, and one of nine stakes winners he has sired. It should be stressed that he has achieved this from 121 foals in those two crops, and he has another five stakes-placed performers. Study Of Man’s star is the Group 1 winner Kalpana.

Almeric’s dam Alvarita (Selkirk) won a listed race at Saint-Cloud, and her current stakes-winning son is the third to earn victory in a blacktype contest. They are among Alvarita’s 10 winners, with more set to race in the years ahead. Two of Almeric’s half-sisters, Alla Speranza (Sir Percy) and Altesse (Hernando), won at Group 3 and listed level respectively in Ireland, and the former bred a Group 2 winner in Shine So Bright (Oasis Dream).

Another daughter of Alvarita is Almiranta (Galileo), and she is emerging as a star in the paddocks. All but one of her five successful daughters won stakes races, and two are now dams of a stakes winner. Three of the four are Group 2 Park Hill Stakes winner Alyssa (Sir Percy), Group 3 juvenile winner Alea Iacta (Invincible Spirit), and the listed winner Albaflora (Muhaarar) who was runner-up in Group 1 races on two occasions.

Tipperary couple shout home latest winner

THOUGH they watched the race on television, the shouts of encouragement from Richard and Roisin Henry could likely be heard in Ayr when their homebred two-year-old filly Catching The Moon (No Nay Never) won the Group 3 Firth of Clyde Stakes.

Runner-up on her late-July debut, Catching The Moon made no mistake at the second time of asking, beating seven opponents to win a novice at Beverley, including three subsequent winners. She showed grit and determination on Saturday to win the 14-runner Group 3, and connections’ future plans for the filly will be interesting. She is from a female line that one associates with improvement with age, and this is a branch of the Kirsten Rausing family reviewed under Almeric above.

It is exactly a decade ago that Catching The Moon’s grandam Diamondsandrubies (Fastnet Rock) won the Group 1 Sea The Stars Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh for Roisin Henry and Sue Magnier. Since then, she has bred four winners, and best of these is also a daughter of No Nay Never (Scat Daddy), Pearls And Rubies. That filly was at her best at two, winning on her debut before running second in the Listed Chesham Stakes at Royal Ascot and the Group 3 Anglesey Stakes. She rounded off her first season with a career-best second to Porta Fortuna in the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes at Newmarket.

Catching The Moon is trained by Richard Fahey, and he handled the training of her dam Riches And Rubies (Uncle Mo). Like her daughter, Riches And Rubies won at Beverley and was second there, the best of her seven starts. Last year Riches And Rubies was sold for 130,000gns at the December Sale. SackvilleDonald were acting for Jockey Club member and Watercress Farm owner Fred Hertrich.

No regrets

If Richard and Roisin have any regret about selling the mare, they can gain comfort in the knowledge that they retain Riches And Rubies’ first two foals, the Group 3 winner and a yearling filly by St Mark’s Basilica (Siyouni).

The couple’s association with this family, in partnership with Sue Magnier, is traced back to the purchase of Catching The Moon’s fourth dam, Jude (Darshaan), for 92,000gns in 1997. Jude is a daughter of Alruccaba (Crystal Palace).

Jude made an explosive start at stud, her first two foals becoming Group 1 winners. Quarter Moon (Sadler’s Wells) was champion juvenile filly in Ireland after winning the Moyglare Stud Stakes, and she was followed by Irish 1000 Guineas winner Yesterday (Sadler’s Wells). Between them and a third full-sister, they placed in six other classic races! Jude’s daughter All My Loving (Sadler’s Wells) is the grandam of US Grade 1 winner Timberlake (Into Mischief) who has completed his first season at stud.

Catching The Moon is the 78th stakes winner for No Nay Never, and his 45th son or daughter to win a group/graded stakes.