WHAT a few days of world-class racing and breeding at the Irish Champions Festival in Leopardstown and the Curragh. Forget about carping over attendances and smaller than wished for fields for some of the two-year-old races. This was racing at its best, and I for one will celebrate some great victories.

The problem is where to start, and how do I fit so much in four pages; about half of what I would need to get everything covered. While focused to a large extent on what happened on this island, I have to include some notable wins at Doncaster and in France. There was no end of quality on view in the various winners’ circles, and so much juvenile talent. Let’s get down to business.

Few races were anticipated as much as the Group 1 Royal Bahrain Irish Champion Stakes, and it lived up to its billing. I admit to possibly being Anmaat’s number one fan, and if there is a more admirable horse in training, please put forward a case.

For me, Anmaat (Awtaad) is a horse who gives his all every time, and what a benchmark he provides each season and between generations.

Apart from being a dual Group 1 winner bred by Ringfort Stud, also responsible recently for Group 1 Haydock Sprint hero Big Mojo (Mohaather), Anmaat has this year, at the age of seven, chased home Delacroix at the weekend, Ombudsman in the Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes, and Los Angeles in the Group 1 Tattersalls Gold Cup. On his debut at two, and his only start that year, Anmaat was second to Rebel’s Romance over a mile at Kempton and immediately gelded. The winner, now an eight-time Group or Grade 1 winner, was gelded too before he even made his debut in that race!

Victory for Delacroix (Dubawi) was hugely important for Coolmore and, in conversation with M.V. Magnier before the winner came back in, it was clear that the manner of the victory meant so much. A burst of acceleration two furlongs out effectively won the race for the three-year-old, along with his class. If anyone had doubts about Delacroix before the Leopardstown feature, he surely silenced them with his sixth success.

Forgetting his run in the Derby at Epsom, Delacroix has won or been second in 10 starts. Denied a juvenile Group 1 win by a nose in the William Hill Futurity at Doncaster, he found Jessica Harrington-trained winners too good on three occasions last year. He went off favourite at Epsom after a pair of Group 3 Leopardstown triumphs, and bounced back after the Derby to beat Ombudsman a neck in the Group 1 Eclipse Stakes.

Only regret

These positions were reversed in the Group 1 Juddmonte International, but that race was something of an absurdity. The only regret following Delacroix’s win on Saturday was that Ombudsman, recently rated the best racehorse in the world, did not travel.

If the winner, Ombudsman, Calandagan and Anmaat, defending his crown, meet in Ascot’s Champion Stakes we could be in for a spectacle. What are the odds that Delacroix heads to stud very soon? One would imagine that this is a real likelihood, and especially if he were to win another Group 1 this year.

Delacroix has Northern Dancer (Nearctic) three times in the fifth remove of his pedigree, and Round Table (Princequillo) twice. On the sire side, Northern Dancer is the sire of Shareef Dancer, and his daughter is the dam of Dubawi’s sire Dubai Millennium (Seeking The Gold). Delacroix is a son of the brilliant racemare Tepin (Bernstein), and her grandsire Storm Cat (Storm Bird) is a grandson of Northern Dancer. Tepin’s own dam Life Happened (Stravinsky) is a granddaughter of Nureyev (Northern Dancer).

This is all sufficiently removed to make Delacroix an ideal mate for a large portion of the broodmare band at Coolmore. The success being enjoyed by the dual Group 1 winner is also justification for M.V. Magnier’s $8 million spend on Tepin when she was carrying the first of the four foals she produced. Sadly, Tepin died in 2023.

Exceptional year

Bred by the Tepin Syndicate, Delacroix is a son of the 23-year-old Dubawi who is enjoying another exceptional year, with 27 individual stakes winners, including the globetrotting Rebel’s Romance who had an eighth victory in Group/Grade 1 company in the Grosser Preis von Berlin. Dubawi’s sons at stud number three-time Group 1 winner Space Blues among them, and the latter sired his first Group 1 winner recently, Power Blue in the Keeneland Phoenix Stakes.

Tepin’s six top-flight wins included the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot and the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile at Keeneland. Twice a champion in the USA, she won 13 of her 23 starts, having been bought as a yearling for $140,000. Tepin returned $4.5 million in winnings before selling for $8 million. She was carrying a filly, Tepin Thru Life (Curlin), who never raced, and her next foal, Swirl (Galileo), never started. They were followed by Grateful (Galileo), and last year she won the Group 1 Prix de Royallieu. Delacroix is Tepin’s last and best produce.

NOTABLE Speech (Dubawi) returned to winning ways on Saturday with a rousing charge to overtake the field and land the Grade 1 Woodbine Mile. The victory earned the four-year-old an automatic berth in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile at Del Mar.

The Godolphin homebred won both the Group 1 2000 Guineas and Group 1 Sussex Stakes last year, and prepped for his third top-level win when denied by a head in the Group 1 Prix Jacques Le Marois last month. He will be hoping to improve on his third-place finish last year in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile, which was also staged at Del Mar.

Sheikh Mohammed’s association with Notable Speech’s family goes back to 1982 when he spent $175,000 at Keeneland for a yearling daughter of Secretariat (Bold Ruler) and the champion Irish two-year-old filly Welsh Garden (Welsh Saint). She was named Celtic Assembly and at three she was runner-up in the Listed Lupe Stakes. At stud Celtic Assembly bred Volksraad (Green Desert) and Cherokee Rose (Dancing Brave). The former was champion sire six times in New Zealand.

Top-class performer

Cherokee Rose emerged as a top-class performer at four when winning the Group 1 Prix Maurice de Gheest and Group 1 Haydock Sprint Cup. She bred the French classic-placed Bowman (Irish River), and the Group 1 Al Quoz Sprint runner-up Ahtoug (Byron). One of her daughters bred Mastery (Sulamani), winner of the Group 1 St Leger and Hong Kong Vase. Cherokee Rose is third dam of the Group 1 Eclipse Stakes winner Mukhadram (Shamardal).

Notable Speech’s third dam Hint Of Spring (Seeking The Gold) won the last of five starts, and had one foal before heading to Japan. She is Tulips (Pivotal) who won a listed race in France and was fourth in the Group 1 Prix Maurice de Gheest. Tulips has a perfect record at stud. her six progeny all winning, and three of them have earned blacktype.

Grade 1 Natalma Stakes winner Wild Beauty (Frankel) is the best of them, Desert Wisdom (Dubawi) is a Group 3 winner in the UAE and runner-up in the Group 2 Godolphin Mile, while Swift Rose (Invincible Spirit) is the third.

Winner on her debut at two, Swift Rose came close to landing the Group 3 UAE Oaks, headed in the shadow of the post by another Godolphin runner. Notable Speech is her first foal.