JACK Hobbs (Halling) has averaged more than 90 foals in each of his first six crops, including his present two-year-olds. That number has fallen to just over 50 yearlings, and he will have fewer foals this spring.

However, it is clear that his runners get better with time, as he did when racing, and he had a breakthrough at the weekend with his first blacktype winner, coming from his first crop.

The seven-year-old Jax Junior is owned and was bred by Cheryl Burton, and trained by Lucy Wadham. He showed decent form in bumpers without winning, was a smart hurdler with three wins in that code, but is proving to be a better chaser, with victories at Kempton, Sandown and now the Grade 2 Pendil Chase back at Kempton. He is a template for the type of horse that his sire seems to be getting, one that perhaps just needs time to mature.

The same can be said of the dam side of the pedigree. Jax Junior’s dam Double Storm (Double Trigger) did not race until she was six. She ran four times and was runner-up once in a Sedgefield bumper. Jax Junior is her first foal, and her second is that gelding’s full-sister Jax Belle (Jack Hobbs) who was placed on her second start in a bumper last year at the age of five.

First crop

The first crop by Jack Hobbs includes the admirable Intense Approach. After winning his only point-to-point, he sold for £210,000, and since then has added two bumpers, four hurdle races and a chase, and finished second in the Grade 2 Persian War Novices’ Hurdle at Chepstow. Fellow first crop member I’m A Lumberjack didn’t manage to win a bumper, though placed in a listed contest at Newbury, but he has now won and placed in six of his eight hurdle starts for Alan King.

Simon Sweeting at Overbury Stud, where Jack Hobbs has stood since 2018 and remains at his starting fee of €4,000 this year, has much to look forward to with Jack Hobbs, whose runners, if not always getting blacktype to date, have been consistently rated highly.

Now that he has got his first graded winner, he could follow on with more. One to watch for is Bossman Jack, from his second crop. This £50,000 store has won three of his four starts, and holds an entry for the Turners at Cheltenham.

Jack Hobbs was shown patience by John Gosden, befitting a horse of his size. He raced once at two, winning over an extended mile at Wolverhampton two days after Christmas. That was one of just two starts he made on the all-weather, adding the Group 3 September Stakes at Kempton a little more than eight months later. He started at odds of 1/5 on that occasion, and with good reason.

Irish Derby

Two months or so earlier Jack Hobbs ran out a five-length winner of the Group 1 Irish Derby, having run a respectable second to his stablemate Golden Horn in the Derby at Epsom. That pair finished in the same order in one of the best Derby trials, the Group 2 Dante Stakes at York. After his Kempton win, Jack Hobbs was half a length behind Found in the Group 1 Champion Stakes, the pair beaten by Fascinating Rock.

Kept in training, Jack Hobbs suffered a major setback when pulled up on his return, and we did not see him again until he contested the Champion Stakes again, finding Almanzor and Found too good on this occasion. The following March he gained the most valuable win of his career, landing the Group 1 Dubai Sheema Classic.

Jack Hobbs’ sire Halling (Diesis) got a number of top-level winners under both codes. Of great interest is that two of his sons became Grade 1 National Hunt sires. Norse Dancer is best known for Yanworth, while Coastal Path sired such as Asterion Forlonge, Bacardys and Saint Roi.

Australian-bred Crown Relic off the mark

A MOUTHFUL of a race title, the Bet £10 Get £40 With BetMGM Maiden Stakes over seven furlongs on the all-weather at Wolverhampton will likely have passed many readers unnoticed, won at the first time of asking by the three-year-old Kingman (Invincible Spirit) colt Crown Relic.

Born on March 3rd, 2023, Crown Relic was actually foaled in Australia after his dam was purchased for 375,000gns through BBA Ireland at the Tattersalls December Sale. The decision to send this first foal of that once-raced mare Trinket (Frankel) back to Europe was a costly one, and no doubt the team at Yulong hope it will prove to be worthwhile. He didn’t beat much at Wolverhampton, but the manner of his success suggests that he is better than simply a maiden winner.

Crown Relic’s dam Trinket, a Juddmonte homebred, was a distant sixth at a little-known track when in the care of Francis Graffard, sent there doubtless in the hope of a winning bracket. It might have been better had she been kept at home, but she had salvage value. She missed a year after foaling Crown Relic, but has a yearling filly by Alabama Express (Redoute’s Choice) and a filly foal by Pierata (Pierro). This season she visited Yulong’s Growing Empire (Zoustar).

In December, Tweenhills bought Trinket’s dam Lucky Kristale (Lucky Story) for 160,000gns. David Redvers will have been very familiar with the mare as he stood her sire for six seasons at Tweenhills. Lucky Kristale sold for 22,000gns as a yearling to George Margarson, who trained her for five wins. She was a notable juvenile when winning a pair of Group 2 races, beating Rizeena in the Duchess of Cambridge Stakes at Newmarket before adding the Connolly’s Red Mills Lowther Stakes at York.

Redvers had more than one connection to Lucky Kristale, making her all the more special as an addition to his broodmare band. One of the mares to visit Lucky Story (sire of Group 1 winner Art Connoisseur) in 2012 was Pikaboo (Pivotal), and she had been bought six years earlier by Redvers at the Tattersalls Horses In Training Sale for 20,000gns.

Different story

At that point she had been unplaced in two maidens, and she didn’t do much better in three subsequent starts carrying the Tweenhills brown and light blue colours. It was a different story as a broodmare. Her first foal was by a Tweenhills’ sire, Mon Visage (Ishiguru), who won at two.

Pikaboo’s second foal was by yet another Tweenhills’ sire, I See You (Sleeping Indian), and she won twice. Her third was Lucky Kristale, bred by Lilac Bloodstock and Redmyre Bloodstock (David and Laura Redvers, and Richard Pegum).

Unfortunately for Tweenhills, Pikaboo was sold back to her breeders, Paul and Adrienne Gay Venner of Petches Farm, for 50,000gns at the Tattersalls December Mare Sale in 2012.

She went on to produce three more pattern-winning fillies, all by Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) and racing from Ballydoyle. Flattering and Peach Tree won Group 3s, but the best was saved until last as Love won five Group 1s, including the 1000 Guineas, Oaks and Princess of Wales’s Stakes.

It must be special to have Lucky Kristale back at Tweenhills. Her three runners so far include the Group 2-placed middle-distance performer Bravais (by Frankel), and she is due in mid to late March to Charyn (Dark Angel).