CLIVE Cox will be familiar to visitors at the Cashmans’ Rathbarry Stud. He has been the stallion man for more than 20 years, and has a special affinity with the farm’s Kodi Bear (Kodiac), a prolific sire of two-year-olds. Indeed, Cox is the breeder of one of the stallion’s current juvenile crop, the ultra-smart Group 3 winner Push The Boat Out.

Named in honour of the late John Fleming, who was a regular user of the phrase to push the boat out, the grey colt is unbeaten in two starts, and a horse with no shortage of ability. Push The Boat Out won a maiden at Curragh on his debut, but when he lined up for last weekend’s Group 3 Heider Family Stables Round Tower Stakes, he had a trio of more fancied opponents.

Great Barrier Reef was the unbeaten Group 2 Coventry Stakes winner, Velozee won a listed race at the Curragh and on her most recent start she was third to Sun Goddess in the Group 1 Keeneland Phoenix Stakes, while the more experienced Livenka had won her last two races. The outsider in the field of five was the Sandown listed winner Where Love Lives. Push The Boat Out had them all in arrears, and he is a hugely exciting prospect.

Megan Nicholls gave 37,000gns for Push The Boat Out as a December Sale yearling, and the colt next appeared in the Guineas Breeze Up Sale from Joey Logan’s Grangeclare. His value grew to 85,000gns, and trainer Michael O’Callaghan signed for him as Michael and Harvey.

The sale was seven days after Fleming, known to all as Harvey, was tragically killed. What heavenly joy the Curragh win was for all.

Full-sister

Four days before the Group 3 win, Clive Cox sold a yearling full-sister to the winner for £82,000 at the Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale to Hurworth Bloodstock, and in the space of those few days their new purchase has likely doubled in value at least. It will be a consolation to Cox that he has a full-sister at home, born in February. Their dam, Brief Angel (Dark Angel), had one other earlier foal, and is in foal to Rathbarry’s Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner Unquestionable (Wootton Bassett).

As I write this, Kodi Bear has sired 29 juvenile winners, going one better than the previous best he established last year, and five of them have earned blacktype. Push The Boat Out is the leader of this year’s crop, while in 2025 the Group 2 Gimcrack Stakes winner Lifeplan was best.

STANDING at Kildangan Stud, Naval Crown (Dubawi) sired his first pattern winner last Saturday when his first-crop daughter Sea Of Rain landed the Group 3 Flame Of Tara Stakes at the Curragh. The most experienced in the field with six runs, she cruised throughout and held on to win by three-parts of a length in the mile contest.

Owned by Jackie Bolger, and trained and bred by her husband Jim, Sea Of Rain is being touted as a classic hope by connections, and why not. She looks as though she is only getting into her stride, and her dam was the winning Teofilo (Galileo) mare Neophilia who was successful over a mile and a half. She has three other offspring who are multiple winners, and one, New Reality (New Approach) won over an extended 12 furlongs on the flat and two miles over hurdles. Last year, Bolger offered Sea Of Rain as a yearling at Goffs, and bought her back at €12,000.

The move has been well and truly vindicated, and this year Neophilia has a yearling filly from the first crop of Mac Swiney who stands at Alastair Pim’s Anngrove Stud.

Naval Crown won the Group 1 Platinum Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot, beating 23 of the world’s best speedsters. He beat Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Master Of The Seas over a mile at Meydan, won York’s Convivial Maiden Stakes at two, and was runner-up to Alcohol Free in an especially fast Group 1 July Cup. His first yearlings in 2025 sold for up to €320,000. Naval Crown’s seven winners from his first crop also includes Hell Of A Spin.

He impressed when winning at Hamilton, and since has been placed in both the Group 2 Gimcrack Stakes and Group 3 Molecomb Stakes. Three others have ratings of 90 or more.

DR JON Scargill has been training horses for nigh on four decades, never with a stable of great numbers.

Based in Newmarket, he has saddled one runner this year, in the colours of his wife Sue, and the filly won at the fourth time of asking when taking a modest maiden at Lingfield on the first of the month. You might wonder why she is featuring in Breeding Insights, while the rest of the pages are filled with group winners.

The four-year-old Nothing But Love, a daughter of Land Force (No Nay Never), is a deserved winner of the accolade of bargain of the week.

Bred by the Warren’s Highclere Stud, Nothing But Love sold as an unnamed two-year-old at the 2024 Tattersalls December Sale for 1,000gns, the minimum price on the final day of that year’s sale.

Scargill was obviously patient with his buy, and she made the first of her four appearances on the track in June, well beaten in fifth on the turf at Lingfield. She was back there a month later on the all-weather, fourth behind a previous winner over a mile and only headed inside the final furlong.

She was one of four to go to post in a seven-furlong novice at Newmarket in early August, but the winner was the 1/25 favourite Cerro Blanco.

The listed-placed winner took the contest easily, while Nothing But Love was more than seven lengths in front of the third. On run number four, instead of starting at odds of 18/1, 33/1 and 66/1 as she did on her earlier starts, Nothing But Love went off as 13/8 second favourite, and had that day’s more fancied runner back in fourth.

The win was a minor one, but if Nothing But Love went through the ring in December, she would be sure to make multiples of her previous price.

She is by a well-bred, if disappointing, sire, but she a desirable dam side to her pedigree.

Highclere Stud

Group 2 Richmond Stakes winner Land Force started his stud career at Highclere Stud, spent two years at Hedgeholme Stud, but his current location is unknown. He sired winners, but just three were stakes-placed. Nothing But Love has two half-brothers, Approval (Le Havre), a 160,000gns yearling who won twice, and two-year-old Thunder Bay (New Bay), sold last year for 100,000gns. They are out of the unraced Alnoras (Kingman), and last year she was covered by St Mark’s Basilica (Siyouni).

This is the family of three Group/Grade 1 winners; Breeders’ Cup winner Lahudood (Singspiel) and King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes hero Hukum (Sea The Stars), but the standout among the trio is Baaeed (Sea The Stars), six times winner at the top level and a European champion.