BLUE Bolt, a daughter of Darley’s Kildangan Stud-based Blue Point (Shamardal), rose to the highest level last Friday when she cosily won the Group 1 Tattersalls Sceptre Sessions Falmouth Stakes over a mile at Newmarket. The Andrew Balding-trained and Juddmonte-owned four-year-old was always going well and wasn’t hard pressed to beat the four-time Group 1 winner Precise by two lengths.

From nine career starts, Blue Bolt has now won six races and been runner-up twice, netting more than €630,000 in winnings. Unraced at two, she made an inauspicious start to her racing career when fifth of nine in a seven-furlong maiden at Southwell in April, 2025. She was stepped up to a mile after that, a trip she has contested eight times since, and quickly ran up a sequence of three wins, culminating with a listed success at Sandown.

After finishing second in the Group 3 Atlanta Stakes on her next start, it looked as though she might be a little out of her depth on her final three-year-old start, but she put in a career-best effort to run second to Fallen Angel in the Group 1 Sun Chariot Stakes at Newmarket. Kept in training at four, she has been a further revelation this year, and is unbeaten on all her three outings.

Starting with a listed win at Goodwood, a timely warm-up for Royal Ascot, she reached a new racing high when she was victorious in the Group 2 Duke Of Cambridge Stakes last month. Her most recent win would suggest she has improved about another five pounds, and who knows what heights she might yet ascend.

Matron Stakes

Good news in the immediate aftermath of the race is that Blue Bolt has the Group 1 Matron Stakes at Leopardstown as her principal autumn target, with the possibility that French racegoers might get to see her contest the Group 1 Prix de Rothschild. She is currently the best older filly or mare at a mile, and is a most exciting prospect for the remainder of the season.

Blue Bolt was bred by Brendan and Anne-Marie Hayes’ C-Squared Investments, and was a €400,000 Arqana yearling purchase by Juddmonte from the Ballylinch Stud draft, signed by SackvilleDonald. She is out of the Kilfrush Stud-bred pattern winner Mayhem, whose sire Whipper (Miesque’s Son) raced for the Limerick farm’s former owner Richard-Charles Strauss. He had the stud with Jean-Pierre Binet. Whipper stood for his first five seasons at Ballylinch Stud.

This is a memorable year as breeders for Brendan and Anne Marie, as they enjoyed a further Group 1 success when Ten Bob Tony captured the opening Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot. Both he and Blue Bolt are from families that have an extended connection with them. In the case of Blue Bolt, her fifth dam was the appropriately-named Truly Special (Caerleon).

Solo De Lune

Truly Special’s first foal was Solo De Lune (Law Society), and she gave her dam a promising start at stud when she won in France and went to Germany to finish second in a listed race. She became a prolific producer, with 11 successful offspring, two Group 1 winners, four stakes winners and eight blacktype performers. Ironically, it was a listed-winning daughter who became a champion. She was L’Ancresse (Darshaan), rated the best of her generation at three after running second in the Group 1 Irish Oaks and Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf. She went on to breed three stakes winners.

Another daughter of Solo De Lune, Moonstone (Dalakhani), won a single race, but it was the Group 1 Irish Oaks. She was a maiden when she placed second in the Group 1 Oaks at Epsom. Four sons and one daughter of Moonstone won stakes races, among them the Group 3 winner and Group 1 Derby second US Army Ranger (Galileo).

This brings us to the best offspring from Solo De Lune on the racecourse, Cerulean Sky (Darshaan), a full-sister to L’Ancresse. One of the best three-year-olds of her generation in France, Cerulean Sky won the Group 1 Prix Saint-Alary and placed in the Group 1 Prix Vermeille. She was runner-up in Canada in the Grade 1 E.P. Taylor Stakes. Like other daughters of Solo De Lune, Cerulean Sky has established her own successful branch of this family.

Full-brother

Her son Honolulu (Montjeu) won the Group 2 Doncaster Cup and placed in the Group 1 St Leger, while two of her grandsons were Group 1-placed, Memphis Tennessee (Hurricane Run) in the Irish Derby, while Group 2 Prix Daniel Wildenstein winner Royal Bench (Whipper) was second in the Hong Kong Mile. Royal Bench is a full-brother to Blue Bolt’s dam Mayhem.

Lightly-raced in the colours of Anne-Marie Hayes, Mayhem won five times, best of these was when taking the Group 3 Prix Allez France at Chantilly. She was placed at Group 2 level, notably third to Treve at Saint-Cloud, and she was two lengths off the winner when fourth in an Italian Group 1. Mayhem has been a star for the Hayes family, in the sale ring and on the track. Her progeny has grossed more than €2.5 million as foals or yearlings.

Four of Mayhem’s first five foals have won – the only one who did not was her sole colt of racing age – and three of the quartet are stakes winners. Her sixth produce is a placed three-year-old this season, and next up is a yearling son of Baaeed (Sea The Stars).

Fantastic

It was a fantastic two days for Blue Point at Newmarket as Blue Bolt’s win came after the sire’s two-year-old son Inner City Blues stayed unbeaten in the Group 2 July Stakes. Blue Point has sired a mouth-watering 23 blacktype performers this year alone, and Blue Bolt joins Rosallion, Kind Of Blue and Big Evs as his fourth Group 1 scorer.

The oldest crop by Blue Point are five-year-olds, and while he was a smart two-year-old, winning the Group 2 Gimcrack Stakes and being twice Group 1-placed, he would go on to become an outstanding sprinter at the age of five. In March of that season he won the Group 1 Al Quoz Sprint at Meydan, before dominating Royal Ascot 2019 with triumphs in two of the season’s best sprints, the five-furlong Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes, and the six-furlong Diamond Jubilee Stakes. He defeated Battaash and Dream Of Dreams respectively.

Blue Point has just completed his second season at Kildangan at a fee of €100,000. In the year that his first runners appeared he stood at a low of €35,000.

July Stakes

Inner City Blues may only have had two opponents at Newmarket, but he readily disposed of the Group 2 Coventry Stakes runner-up Adaay Of Scarlet and the multiple winner Hickory Lad. Bred by John and Mari Banahan’s Attlehill Ltd, trading as Ridge Manor Stud, Inner City Blues is a second winner out of Dancin Inthestreet (Muhaarar), a daughter of the Group 3 Prix Eclipse winner Souvenir Delondres (Siyouni). They purchased Dancin Inthestreet for 100,000gns.

The July Stakes winner sold to Yeomanstown Stud for €180,000 at Goffs as a foal, and while listed as a 375,000gns yearling, he was a €900,000 purchase for Godolphin at the Arqana Breeze-Up Sale this year from Yeomanstown. Ridge Manor received 230,000gns from Jamie McCalmont Bloodstock last year for the current yearling out of Dancin Inthestreet, a son of Starspangledbanner (Choisir).