ANTHONY Stroud did a fine bit of business for Ballyhimikin Stud’s James Hanly in 2017 when he purchased the Dansili (Danehill) mare Syndicate for 25,000gns. She had run six times, was a winner and twice runner-up at two, and had a very solid dam side.

Hanly did not head to stud immediately with Syndicate, and instead raced her in his wife Charlotte’s name, and she won again, trained in Ireland but travelling to Ffos Las to get her second success. She had a filly as her first foal, American Belle (Starspangledbanner), who was sold as a yearling to, you guessed it, Stroud Coleman. She won twice for James Fanshaw.

Next up was a colt by Night Of Thunder (Dubawi), and he made a splash, selling for 340,000gns in Book 2 of the October Yearling Sale, selected by Anthony Stroud. That was money well spent, as the colt, named Ombudsman, was an impressive winner of Wednesday’s centrepiece, the Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes. Unraced at two, he was unbeaten at three and won a Group 3 in France, and now he has jumped many rungs up the ladder.

This was a landmark 70th Royal Ascot win for John Gosden. When Ombudsman’s full-sister went for sale last year, she was bought by SackvilleDonald for 900,000gns. She is named Synchronicity (Night Of Thunder), while Hanly has a yearling half-sister to the above by Ten Sovereigns (No Nay Never). Syndicate has two stakes-winning siblings, and both are full-brothers.

Runnymede (Dansili) won 11 races including a Group 3 in Italy and a listed race in Germany. Stipulate (Danili) won two listed races, one at Newmarket and one in Australia.

Interestingly. Ombudsman’s third dam, Insinuate (Mr Prospector), who gained her only win in a listed race at Ascot, bred a Group 3 winner by Danehill (Danzig), and another by Dansili. Insinuate was a daughter of the Group 1 Prix du Moulin de Longchamp winner All At Sea (Riverman), and her best performer.

What a year Night Of Thunder is having. His daughter Desert Flower won the Group 1 1000 Guineas and placed in the Oaks, while both Choisya and Dynamic Pricing have won Grade 1s in the USA. Ombudsman is his fourth top-level winner of the year.

A first Queen Mary for O’Brien

IT is scarcely believable that Aidan O’Brien had never trained the winner of the Group 2 Queen Mary Stakes, until now. Enjoying his 93rd Royal Ascot success, the Ballydoyle master has finally added this juvenile feature for fillies to his tally of major race successes, thanks to the Coolmore-bred True Love. The daughter of No Nay Never (Scat Daddy) embellishes one of the most famous families in the stud book.

True Love was winning for the first time, having been twice runner-up, once to Group 2 Coventry Stakes winner Gstaad, and she is one of five foals produced by the listed winner Alluringly (Fastnet Rock). That mare gained her stakes win at Gowran Park, was beaten less than two lengths by Enable when second in the Listed Cheshire Oaks, but was a well-beaten third to the same filly in the Group 1 Oaks.

Alluringly has a yearling filly by Frankel (Galileo), and her first four offspring includes three runners, three winners, and all stakes winners. Her first foal Lily Pond (Galileo) won the Group 2 Kilboy Estate Stakes at the Curragh, while True Love’s full-sister Truly Enchanting (No Nay Never) won the Group 2 Balanchine Stakes at two last year. Three Group 2 winners with a trio of runners is quite the start.

All I need to say, apart from mentioning True Love is a 40th group winner for No Nay Never, is that her third dam was All Too Beautiful (Sadler’s Wells), the Group 1 Oaks second and Group 3 winner whose siblings include Galileo (Sadler’s Wells), Sea The Stars (Cape Cross), My Typhoon (Giant’s Causeway) and Black Sam Bellamy (Sadler’s Wells) – all Group/Grade 1 winners.

Windsor Castle

The Queen Mary Stakes opened Wednesday’s racing, and the Listed Windsor Castle Stakes ended the day.

A month before this year’s winner, Havana Hurricane, was born, his sire Havana Gold (Teofilo) died. He was just 13, and had stood at Tweenhills since going to stud. His son Havana Grey was making waves at the time, and remains his sire’s only Group 1 winner.

Lady Cobham bred Havana Hurricane, having additionally bred and raced his dam Spitfire Limited (Excelebration). She was out of First Bloom (Fusaichi Pegasus), a mare that Lady Cobham paid 175,000gns for carrying her first foal.

The investment was ultimately disappointing, and the best of two winners the mare bred was Lossiemouth (Makfi). He was a Grade 2 novices’ hurdle winner, and not to be confused with the French-bred mare of the same name.

Unbeaten Carmers sets a new record

CARMERS did not just win the 14-furlong Group 2 Queen’s Vase, but did so in record time. Fiona Carmichael’s homebred three-year-old has quickly gone from winning a Ballinrobe maiden and the Listed Yeats Stakes at Navan, to becoming the 44th pattern winner sired by Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj), and one of his 64 stakes winners.

Carmers is the first winner for Signe (Sea The Stars), whom Carmichael bought for $1.1 million at Goffs 11 years ago. She went on to win three times. Signe is a half-sister to two Ballydoyle Group 1 winners in Together Forever and Forever Together, both by Sea The Stars’ half-brother Galileo (Sadler’s Wells). The first of those fillies is the dam of City Of Troy (Justify).

Signe was bred by Gillian and Vimal Khosla out of Green Room (Theatrical), the dam of three Group 1 winners. Her other winner of note. Lord Shanakill (Speightstown), failed by a nose to land the Group 1 Darley Dewhurst Stakes, but gained a top-flight success when he won the Prix Jean Prat.

Advocate again

Two years after she won the Queen Mary Stakes at the meeting, Crimson Advocate returned to her best and won for a second time at the meeting, this time annexing the Group 2 Duke of Cambridge Stakes.

This is her fifth win, two of which were in the USA, and all five have been in stakes races.

Crimson Advocate was bred by Whitehall Lane Farm and sold for $100,000 at the OBS Yearling Sale. What is the daughter of Nyquist (Uncle Mo) out of a half-sister to the dam of champion US juvenile filly Caledonia Road (Quality Road) worth now? Caledonia Road went from being a $140,000 yearling to a $2.3 million three-year-old.

A daughter of champion juvenile colt and Kentucky Derby winner Nyquist (Uncle Mo), Crimson Advocate is from the Darley stallion’s fourth crop, and one of his 30 stakes winners, a group that now includes eight Grade 1 winners. Nyquist’s fee this year doubled to a high of $175,000.

Coolmore-bred wins for KHK Racing

THE hugely competitive Royal Hunt Cup was won by the progressive four-year-old My Cloud (Blue Point), bred by Coolmore.

Runner-up on his first two runs, he then won at Newcastle. This year he began with a win at Ascot over the Royal Hunt Cup trip, took a valuable handicap at Newbury, and more than doubled his winnings with his victory on Wednesday.

My Cloud was bought by Anthony Stroud for €325,000 at the Arqana Breeze Up Sale in 2023, sold from Mocklershill. He was the foal that the unraced Beach Frolic (Nayef) was carrying when M.V. Magnier spent 2,200,000gns on her. The mare’s selling point was that she bred Palace Pier (Kingman), and Coolmore sent her back to the Juddmonte sire, producing the three-year-old Wim Me Over (Kingman), runner-up on her second start, and a yearling colt.

Blue Point came close to a Group 1 winner on Tuesday when Rosallion was denied by a nose in the Queen Anne Stakes, and I foresee My Cloud going on to be a group horse. How high he can fly is anyone’s guess.

Blue Point was not satisfied with a single winner, and in the race after the Hunt Cup, his four-year-old daughter Miss Information, bred by Ballylinch Stud, rewarded Norman Court Stud’s 90,000gns investment in her as a yearling, and took her tally of wins to five in the Kensington Palace Stakes.

Still without any stakes-placed runs, Miss Information will surely have that as her aim now. She has taken her racing well, and deserves to earn some blacktype before she heads to stud. She is one of four winners from her dam Newsletter (Sir Percy), a listed winner who ran third herself at Royal Ascot in the Group 2 Queen Mary Stakes.