IT would be very tempting to say that the Swiss-based Barbara Keller is a lucky owner, and she is, but she has enjoyed so much stakes success with her runners, primarily fillies and mares, that she also exercises great judgement in what she acquires.

Her list of big races winners, in her own colours, is headed by Blond Me, Odeliz and Dansant, while more recently White Lavendar and Bounce The Blue, have carried her silks into the winners’ enclosure. Oh, and also Encapsulation. In partnership she has raced such as Comedy, Malavath and Katie’s Diamond. All of this has been achieved without having more than about three in training at any time.

Odeliz failed to sell at 950,000gns in 2015 at the Tattersalls December Sale, but changed hands a day later for a million, though the Tattersalls website still fails to show that this transaction ever took place.

I met Barbara on the opening day of Royal Ascot, and she told me that she is still in shock that Malavath, a €120,000 yearling purchase by David Redvers, sold in 2022 to Moyglare Stud for €3.2 million after winning a Group 3 that year and finishing second to Kinross in the Group 1 Prix de la Foret.

A very recent purchase by Barbara, whom I also saw at the ITBA awards when she travelled in support of her friend Eimear Mulhern, was the Michael O’Callaghan-trained Copacabana Sands, a three-year-old daughter of Sands Of Mali (Panis) who has not stopped progressing since joining her trainer this season. She ran five times at two with Diego Dias, and showed enough for O’Callaghan to add her to his string for this year.

Second in a maiden at the Curragh on her first outing for O’Callaghan, she was still a maiden when she ran fifth in a Group 3 at Leopardstown. Connections eschewed any opportunity to win a maiden, and instead Copacabana Sands won the Listed Owenstown Stud Stakes at Naas, after which she was purchased by Barbara Keller.

She didn’t have to wait long for some repayment, just 10 days in fact, taking home a tasty €35,000 for winning the Group 1 Barberstown Castle Stakes, a race we know more familiarly as the Ballycorus Stakes. Copacabana Sands is currently on a short holiday.

Springfort Park

Bred by Peter and Hugh McCutcheon at their Springfort Park Stud in Tipperary, Copacabana Sands was a bargain purchase as a yearling at Tattersalls Ireland, a bid of just €7,000 proving to be enough to acquire him.

Copacabana Sands’ dam Buttonhole (Montjeu) was purchased 10 years ago at Tattersalls as a seven-year-old for 7,000gns from the McEnery’s Rossenarra Stud, a big discount from her three-year-old sale value of 65,000gns.

The year before her acquisition by the McCutcheons, she sold for €31,000 at Arqana, in foal to Dark Angel (Acclamation). At Tattersalls, the catalogue listed that her first produce died as a yearling, her second was unraced, and she missed a year at stud.

That picture is very different now. Three of her four winners have appeared since. The other three have all done better with age, and perhaps her latest, and best, can improve too with age. In any case, this listed win will enhance the value of Buttonhole’s yearling filly by Nando Parrado (Kodiac).

Buttonhole made one start for her breeders, Cheveley Park Stud, and was trained by Sir Michael Stoute. The choice of Stoute was deliberate.

He trained Buttonhole’s half-sister Red Bloom (Selkirk) to win the Group 1 Fillies’ Mile at two, and she placed a number of times at that level, twice in the Pretty Polly Stakes.

Red Bloom, who bred the Group 3 winner and Group 1-placed Senator (Frankel), was the best of six winners out of the French classic-placed mare Red Camellia (Polar Falcon). Trained by Sir Mark Prescott, Red Camellia was a Group 3 winner at two and beaten a length when third in the Group 1 French 1000 Guineas.

Breakthrough win

Copacabana Sands is the breakthrough pattern race winner for her sire. She is one of three stakes winners and six stakes performers from the first crop by Ballyhane Stud’s Sands Of Mali, the Group 1 sprint-winning son of Panis (Miswaki). What a start he made to his career last year with 22 winners. He had a memorable Royal Ascot when he sired the first and third in the Listed Windsor Castle Stakes.

The Group 2 Lowther Stakes runner-up Time For Sandals is surely a certainty to become a stakes winner soon, only denied a Group 3 victory recently at Chantilly by a head. His 2025 crop of juveniles is already throwing up winners, with an almost 50% winners to runners ratio

Sands Of Mali is all about speed, and he is easy to mate with, being free of Danehill (Danzig), Green Desert (Danzig), Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) and Dubawi (Dubai Millennium) blood. He was a Timeform-rated 116 juvenile after he beat Invincible Army easily in the Group 2 Gimcrack Stakes, and that figure rose to 125 at three.

That year he won a Group 3 sprint in France, the Group 2 Sandy Lane Stakes, was a half-length runner-up to Eqtidaar in the Group 1 Commonwealth Cup, and beat Harry Angel by a length in the Group 1 Sprint Cup at Haydock.