LAST year Heart Of Honor (Honor A P) was pipped by a head in the nine and a half-furlong Listed Al Bastakiya Stakes at Meydan, leaving jockey Saffie Osborne “devastated”.

Bred by David Redvers Bloodstock, Heart Of Honor can be claimed by three sales companies, having sold for 35,000gns to Rosemount Bloodstock as a foal, making no money when bought by Hurley House Stud for €42,000 as a Goffs yearling, and leaving plenty of profit when sold to Jamie Osborne at Arqana as a breezer for €160,000.

The trainer has campaigned him ambitiously, taking in the Preakness and Belmont Stakes in the USA, and the gelding has already amassed winnings of well over £500,000, and there is more to come.

Heart Of Honor won for the fourth time in Meydan just before Christmas, in the Listed The Entisar, and on his only start this year was third in the Group 1 Al Maktoum Challenge.

Given what he presumably knew about the then two-year-old Heart Of Honor at home, it must have given Osborne great delight to go to the October Yearling Sale and purchase his Zoustar (Northern Meteor) half-brother for 40,000gns. The price has been well and truly repaid, thanks to Brotherly Love going one better than his sibling and winning the Listed Al Bastakiya Stakes. This race earned the colt valuable points in his quest for a place in the Kentucky Derby.

Champion filly

Brotherly Love and Heart of Honor are both out of Ruby Love (Scat Daddy), a champion two-year-old turf filly in Chile who was bought by Redvers for $90,0000 at the 2021 Keeneland November Sale. It has turned out to be a very shrewd purchase, even if the mare’s first two foals did not advertise her ability. A son does not seem to have raced, despite selling well, and her daughter Unrelenting Love (Violence) was placed on her only start.

Following Brotherly Love is a two-year-old filly, Hart Of The Matter (Havana Grey). She was purchased as a foal by StroudColeman for 80,000gns, while Ruby Love had a Kameko (Kitten’s Joy) colt in 2025, after which she died. As ever, it is always the good ones that are taken too soon.

After the recent win for Brotherly Love, Saffie Osborne said: “I thought Brotherly Love was easier to ride than Heart Of Honor but, just like Heart Of Honor, he has just got progressively more lazy. Just like his brother, once I really started getting into him, he found another gear and he just stays all day. This horse obviously has a lot of class.”

The next logical step for Brotherly Love would be the Group 2 UAE Derby, in which Heart Of Honor was beaten a nose, on March 28th. It is virtually a ‘win and you’re in’ for the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby. Should Brotherly Love contest a US classic he will be following in the hoofprints of Heart Of Honor, who finished fifth in the Preakness and sixth in the Belmont.

Unbeaten

Ruby Love was unbeaten as a two-year-old in Chile, the only year she raced there. Her three wins were highlighted by victories in the Group 1 Premio Arturo Lyon Pena and the Group 3 Premio Julio Subercaseauc Browne, both run at Club Hipico de Santiago. After her move to the USA, she made two starts for Lael Stables, never posing a threat on either occasion.

One of four foals and four winners for her dam, Rogue (First Samurai), Ruby Love is the best of that quartet. Her half-brother Pogbaa (Daddy Long Legs) won 15 races in Chile. Rogue was foaled in the USA and sold as a two-year-old for $8,000. She had shown little in two starts, but gained the first of eight wins on her next start, and won $135,000 in a 33-race career.

Rogue’s dam Vous (Wild Rush) won a stakes race at two in Calder and the following year placed in the Listed Calder Oaks. She had five winners, but could not match the achievement of her stakes-winning half-sister Mohegan Sky (Straight Man). That mare found her way to Australia where she is dam of the Group 1 Blue Diamond Stakes winner Little Brose (Per Incanto). He has completed his first season at stud in New Zealand.

Crowned champion

What is there to say about Zoustar that could possibly add further to his CV? Runner-up on the leading sire table in Australia two seasons ago, he was deservedly crowned champion for the first time last season, and currently lies in third position behind Snitzel and The Autumn Sun, both sons of Redoute’s Choice. Zoustar’s fee for the recent covering season was his second at A$275,000, or about €155,000. The highest he cost during six seasons at Tweenhills was £30,000, and his final European crop are this year’s juveniles.

What a weekend it was for Zoustar, the leading sire of winners in the world in 2025. He had a pair of stakes winners in the Northern Hemisphere, while in Australia he got his first Group 1 winner as a broodmare sire. After Brotherly Love’s victory, his five-year-old daughter Sky Safari put in a career best performance to win the Group 3 Winter Derby on the all-weather at Lingfield. Trained by James Fanshawe, this dual stakes winner has a record of seven wins from 11 starts.

Mares by Zoustar are set to be in high demand in the future. His daughters have bred four stakes winners, led by Saturday’s Group 1 MRC Blue Diamond Stakes winner Streisand (Magnus). She is already the winner of A$1.5 million, having cost just $100,000 at Inglis Premier.