GOFFS sponsored the Group 2 Prix Robert Papin in Chantilly on Sunday for two-year-olds, and the winner was, appropriately enough, a graduate of that company’s sale ring. Trained by Joseph O’Brien for Simon Munir and Isaac Souede, Green Sense cost €90,000 in Book 1 of the Orby Sale, and she beat the colts to capture this win.

A daughter of first-season sire sensation Starman (Dutch Art), Green Sense was bred by Horse Racing Ireland’s chairman Nicky Hartery at his Caherass Stud in Croom, Co Limerick, and sold through The Castlebridge Consignment. She is the eighth foal and fifth winner from Big Boned (Street Sense), a filly who was a well-beaten third on the second of six starts she made while racing in England.

Big Boned was sourced by David Redvers for Qatar Racing as a yearling, costing $95,000, She had a solid pedigree, and her third dam was Windy’s Daughter (Windy Sea), one of the best two and three-year-olds of her generation, back at the start of the seventies. She won 12 of her 17 starts, and her biggest wins were gained a fortnight apart when she garnered a pair of Grade 1 wins, the Acorn Stakes at Aqueduct and the Mother Goose Stakes at Belmont. Windy’s Daughter went on to breed nine winners, only one of which earned any blacktype.

At the end of her short racing career Big Boned was sold at Goffs, again through The Castlebridge Consignment, to Rathasker Stud for €27,000, and passed into the ownership of Hartery. Her first foal, K Club (Kodiac), was conceived at a fee of €25,000, and sold for a profitable €85,000 as a yearling. She went on to win four times and gain a valuable win in a Group 3 in Germany, where she was also placed multiple times. K Club’s second offspring, a two-year-old daughter of Sea The Stars (Cape Cross), sold at last month’s Goffs Classic Breeze-Up Sale for €160,000.

Big Boned obviously gets good quality stock, and her second foal, another filly, was Back To Brussels (Starspangledbanner), a €105,000 yearling buy and resulting from a €15,000 cover. A dual winner at two, she was placed three times in listed company. Big Boned’s third offspring was her first colt, Cedric Morris (Fast Company), and this €90,000 yearling purchase went on to win eight times in Italy. He was later joined there by his half-brother Midnight Toker (Acclamation), a €195,000 foal who went on to make €330,000 as a yearling. He has won five races.

There have been other sales wins for progeny from Big Boned, the placed filly Kodi Banphrionsa (Kodiac) selling for €200,000, while the unraced mare Wish For Me (Mehmas) cost €330,000 as a yearling.

Big Boned had three winning siblings when she sold as a yearling, a fourth emerging a year later in Japan, and they were headed by Cool Bullet (Red Bullet) and Casper’s Touch (Touch Gold). The latter was placed in a Grade 3 at Keeneland, while Cool Bullet won three stakes races in the USA and was runner-up in the Grade 2 Commonwealth Stakes, again at Keeneland.

Their dam Lizzy Cool (Saint Ballado) was a stakes winner and stakes-placed at Aqueduct, and was one of nine winners out of Well Supported (Ket To The Mint).

Well Supported had a second stakes-winning daughter, Sense Of Honour (Be My Guest), was bred by Moyglare Stud, selling as a three-year-old for just IR11,000ggns in spite of winning a maiden at Gowran Park, and being placed a few times.

She transferred into the ownership of Dermot Weld’s mother Marguerite and raced on at four. Placed a number of times, she made her 13th and final career start in the Listed Glencairn Stakes at Leopardstown, the outsider of two runners from Rosewell House, and won. The other runner for Weld was a more-fancied starter for Moyglare!

Sense Of Honour went on to have a belated influence on breeding, and that turned out to be in Turkey. She is the third dam of the 2021 champion three-year-old there in Burgas (King David), and last year he was also rated the best older horse in Turkey. Still racing, Burgas has now won 15 races and is something of a legend in that country. Sense Of Honour is also the grandam of the 2022 Turkish champion two-year-old colt Lion Victory (King David).

Waxing lyrical about the latest Tally-Ho star

WHILE Ziggy Stardust is cited as David Bowie’s breakthrough album, Starman in particular is considered to be the track that made him, well, a star.

Then we had a racehorse of the same name, bred and raced by David Ward. Starman was honoured with the Cartier Sprinter Award as a four-year-old in 2021, and rated the champion older sprinter in Europe. Unraced at two, clearly no hindrance when it comes to siring precocious types, Starman won all but one of his four starts at three, each over six furlongs and including a listed race, and he was a very much improved runner at four.

That season he faced the starter four times, winning the first two. His second win came when landing the Group 2 Duke of York Stakes. Starman found just one too good for him on his final start in the Group 1 Haydock Park Sprint, beaten a short head by Emaraaty Ana, and he was placed behind Marianafoot in the Group 1 Prix Maurice de Gheest over six and a half furlongs, the only time he raced at any distance other than six furlongs.

Retired to stud in 2022 at a fee of €17,500, Starman was an instant hit with breeders, such that his first crop numbers more than 200 juveniles. This was bound to give him a head start over most of his peers when it came to the race for champion first-season sire, and Starman is not disappointing. In fact, he is well out in front of his fellow sires with their first runners, and more than holding his own against the established ones too.

A drawback to writing this column early in the week can be that when you read this on Saturday, the picture may have changed. It is likely to be the case with Starman’s statistics. For now, I can tell you that he has 16 winners, double the number of his nearest challenger among first-season sires, while he dominates when it comes to blacktype horses. Three of his first crop are group winners, and three more are stakes-placed. Five of the six are fillies, and three are bred by Tally-Ho, the stallion’s home.

Class act

Green Sense was runner-up to Starman’s first pattern winner when chasing home the Tally-Ho bred Lady Iman in the Group 3 Nass Juvenile Sprint Stakes. Lady Iman is a class act, as she also beat True Love to win her maiden, and on her most recent start was runner-up to Beautify in the Group 2 Airlie Stud Stakes at the Curragh. Another Tally-Ho bred Venetian Sun is unbeaten in three starts, and she added the Group 2 Duchess of Cambridge Stakes to her win at Royal Ascot in the Group 3 Albany Stakes.

Yet another O’Callaghan-bred, Flowerhead was runner-up to True Love in the Group 2 Queen Mary Stakes at Royal Ascot, and that winner cemented her growing reputation at the weekend when she won the Group 2 Railway Stakes. Starman’s son North Coast, bred by Ringfort Stud, was second in the first running of the Listed Pat Smullen Stakes at Naas, while the final blacktype Starman runner for now is Moonage Daydream. That Pier House Stud-bred filly was second in the Listed Premio Vittorio Crespi.

Hats off to all the breeders who used Starman last year and this at a fee of €10,000. Maybe now is the time to be doing a deal for next year! He is only going to get more expensive on this evidence.