THE Keadeen Hotel Handicap carried a winners’ purse of almost €30,000, and the five-year-old Perry Mason (Advertise) was brave in winning the 20-runner contest by a nose from the favourite, both of them shouldering 9st 5lbs.

Maurice Ahern trains the gelding beside Kildangan Stud, and he sports the trainer’s silks. Ahern had to move from his Cork base near Mallow due to rapeseed, and its negative effect on horses, and in just over a month since the change he has sent out two winners.

Bred by Anthony Oppenheimer at his Hascombe & Valiant Stud, Perry Mason was catalogued twice as a yearling, but did not appear at the sales. Oppenheimer put him in training with Jane Chapple-Hyam and he made one start, a closing fifth in a Newmarket maiden over seven furlongs. That autumn he did go through the ring at Newmarket and sold for 3,000gns to owner Jerry Stevens.

The gelding moved to Michael Wigham, raced four times in two months at the beginning of last year, and finished at distances between 12 and a half lengths and 48 lengths behind the winners. The sales beckoned again, and this time he sold for 500gns more than before to Ahern. In 10 runs since he has won four, finished second, third and fourth, and has winnings that are heading towards €80,000.

Timely advertisement

This was a timely ‘advertisement’ for Advertise who is standing his second season at Gordon Doyle’s Knockmullen House Stud at a fee of €5,000, well below the £25,000 he commanded when he retired to the National Stud in Newmarket in 2020. Advertise spent three seasons there, two at Manton, and now is in Co Wexford. He has sired four pattern winners, led by the Group 2 Gimcrack Stakes hero Cool Hoof Luke, and has eight stakes performers in total.

Perry Mason is the fourth winner for his dam Precious Ramotswe (Nathaniel), and two of these have been placed in listed races. Devil’s Advocate (Too Darn Hot), a 350,000gns yearling, is trained by John and Thady Gosden for Godolphin and was second in a listed race last month.

An hour after Perry Mason won at the Curragh, his three-year-old half-sister Earth Shot (Time Test) was beaten a head in a listed race at Goodwood on her third start. She is a smart filly.

Dark Issue among her sire’s Saturday highlights

WINNING a six-furlong maiden at Goodwood by five and a half lengths is no mean feat, but that is what Dark Issue did on Saturday. The victory stamped the filly’s passport for a trip to Ascot next month, but there may be some discussions before then.

Richard Hannon also won the race last year with Indigo Dawn, and she contested the Group 3 Albany Stakes. It appears that Dark Issue’s owner Elizabeth Roberts wants to follow the same route, but her racing and bloodstock manager Will Edmeades, who bought Dark Issue as a yearling for 62,000gns, believes seven furlongs would be better.

Mrs Roberts has enjoyed big race success on the flat and under National Hunt rules with such as Group 1 Prix Jean Romanet winner Aristia, the then Group 2 Pretty Polly Stakes winner Lady Upstage, and the Grade 1-winning chaser Fiddling The Facts.

Dark Issue was sold from Luke Lillingston’s Mount Coote Stud where she was foaled. She is the first produce out of Long Ridge Road (Ribchester) who sold three times, for €140,000 as a foal to Denis Brosnan, 185,000gns as a yearling to Peter Brant and for whom she won and was listed-placed, and for €135,000 as a three-year-old to Lillingston. Long Ridge Road has a Starspangledbanner (Choisir) yearling colt who will surely be sales-bound in the autumn.

Dark Angel

Dark Issue was one of three winners on Saturday for Dark Angel (Acclamation) in England, and the others were Night Raider in the Group 2 Temple Stakes (now off to Royal Ascot for the Group 1 King Charles III Stakes), and Almeraq in a listed race at Salisbury. He too holds entries in both Group 1 races that Night Raider does, as well as in the Wokingham Stakes.

Now in his 19th season at Yeomanstown and Morristown Lattin Studs, Dark Angel covers this year at €45,000, his lowest fee since the O’Callaghan family charged €27,500 for him in 2015. He is one of the most proven stallions at stud, with 72 pattern winners, 17 of them Group 1, and a total of 118 blacktype winners.

Long Ridge Road is one of half a dozen winners from the French three-year-old winner Surrey Storm (Montjeu), and that mare is also dam of Aroha (Kodiac) who ran the race of her life to finish second in the Group 3 Princess Margaret Stakes, but who failed to win a race.

It has to be Brave for Royal Ascot

WEATHERBYS sponsored the six-furlong Group 2 Greenlands Stakes for the 32nd time on Saturday, and the winner, Comanche Brave (Wootton Bassett), now heads to the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes over the same trip. This will be his second time at the track, and last year he was third in the seven-furlong Group 3 Jersey Stakes, a race won by his dam 14 years ago.

Comanche Brace was winning a blacktype race for the first time, and appears to be improving each time he runs. He was not disgraced behind the phenomenal Ka Ying Rising at Sha Tin in a Group 1 in April, and victory next month in Berkshire would come as no shock. He became the 59th group winner and 84th stakes winner for Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj).

Bred by Annemarie and Aidan O’Brien’s Whisperview Trading, responsible also for classic winner Precise, Comanche Brave is the best runner for his dam Ishvana (Holy Roman Emperor) who won the Jersey Stakes in Annemarie’s colours, and she had prior to that been second in the Group 1 Irish 1000 Guineas.

Ishvana is out of Song Of The Sea (Bering), another Annemarie special, bought two decades ago for €23,000 as a five-year-old.

Holy Alliance

Ishvana is a full-sister to Holy Alliance (Holy Roman Emperor), and the two could not be more different when it came to racing ability, or non-ability!

Holy Alliance beat one home in two juvenile starts at the Curragh, and was nearly 10 lengths off the winner on her only other outing at Dundalk. She has made up for that deficiency at stud, and her list of winning offspring is led by Mountain Bear (No Nay Never).

He won the Listed Star Appeal Stakes at two and travelled to Santa Anita where he was second in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf after running third in the Group 2 Vintage Stakes at Goodwood. He was largely disappointing at three until he contested the Grade 1 Coolmore Turf Mile at Keeneland, and finished third to Carl Spackler.

He sold after that for 330,000gns to join Wesley Ward, but is only a shadow of his former self now.