WHEN Islanmore Stud’s Starspangledbanner (Choisir) filly lit up the sale ring on the second day of Book 2 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale on Tuesday, selling for 900,000gns to Godolphin, she became the second highest-priced filly ever sold at Book 2 and the equal third highest-priced lot.

While her appeal was obvious, it was no harm at all that on the previous Friday, just up the road at Newmarket racecourse, a daughter of the same Coolmore sire, added the Group 1 bet365 Fillies’ Mile to her win a month earlier in the Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes. Precise has won all her four starts since a second-place finish in a Fairyhouse maiden on her debut in early July, and she was victorious at Glorious Goodwood too in the Group 3 Prestige Stakes.

Precise is one of seven stakes winners by Starspangledbanner out of a Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) mare, and the first to win at the highest level. All but one of the seven have done so in the past three years, and this year is being especially rewarding.

The cross has worked in 2025 with Group 3 juvenile winner Suzie Song, listed winner Grand Marques, and the unbeaten listed winner Avicenna, a two-year-old full-brother to Tuesday’s sale-topper.

Good year

Starspangledbanner’s good year with his two-year-olds has come close to being magical, with his Group 2 Coventry Stakes-winning son Gstaad finishing second since in three Group 1 races, the Sumbe Prix Morny, Goffs Vincent O’Brien National Stakes and the Darley Dewhurst Stakes.

Precise joins Prix Morny winner The Wow Signal and Cheveley Park Stakes winner Millisle as juvenile Group 1 winners sired by Starspangledbanner, while multiple winners at this level are State Of Rest (four times) and California Spangle (three).

This record is all the more meritorious given that Starspangledbanner suffered from sub-fertility in his early years. Remember that he had just 33 foals in his first crop, 11 in the second, and returned to training for two years.

You could argue that the best is yet to come, and yet his tallies are 39 group or graded winners, 57 stakes winners, and 91 stakes performers. As an aside, his daughter Millisle’s second living foal, a No Nay Never (Scat Daddy) colt, sold recently for 1,700,000gns.

All winners

Precise is the third foal out of Way To My Heart (Galileo) to win, the others doing so in the USA and Sweden, and all three have won this year. A plan to sell Precise’s Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj) yearling half-brother in Tattersalls Book 1 was presumably shelved after her emergence as such a talent. Bred by Annemarie and Aidan O’Brien, Precise has a half-sister born this spring, also by Wootton Bassett.

Way To My Heart, bred by Annemarie and Aidan, was trained by the latter and placed twice. She was sold for 200,000gns in 2017, but her first few offerings at the sales failed to really shine, and she was brought back into the O’Brien’s Whisperview Trading family in 2021, at a discounted €57,000.

Precise was the first of Way To My Heart’s foals whose mating was planned by Annemarie O’Brien. Way To My Heart will sell at Tattersalls in December, in foal to Wootton Bassett.

Twenty-one years ago, Annemarie gave €25,000 for the third dam of Precise, Lady Icarus (Rainbow Quest). Four of that mare’s five winners won at stakes level, and two were Group 1 classic-placed, Furner’s Green (Dylan Thomas) in the French 2000 Guineas, and Lady Lupus (High Chaparral) in the Irish Oaks. A couple of Lady Icarus’s daughters bred Group 1 performers, all by Galileo, and they were Kingfisher (second in the Ascot Gold Cup and Irish Derby), High Definition (second in the Tattersalls Gold Cup), and Innisfree who chased Kameko home in the Vertem Trophy. Lady Icarus was a daughter of the European champion Sonic Lady (Nureyev).

CELIKOGLU Stud in Turkey has been home to Ten Sovereigns (No Nay Never) since his sale last year by Coolmore after spending five seasons in Tipperary.

The Group 1 Middle Park Stakes winner at two and Group 1 July Cup hero at three had failed to meet the exacting standards expected of many with his early runners, despite his first crop including the Group 3 Cornwallis Stakes winner Inquisitively.

Well, his second crop has now thrown up two American Grade 1 winners. Back in May, Zulu Kingdom won the American Turf Stakes at Churchill Downs, and now Lush Lips has added the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup Stakes at Keeneland, inflicting a first defeat on Laurelin.

Lush Lips is owned by a group that includes familiar names such as Sue Magnier and Linda Shanahan.

Lush Lips was bred by the Pocock Family at their Stringston Farm and sold as a yearling for £82,000 at Goffs UK to Mark McStay’s Avenue Bloodstock, Medallion Racing and Donnacha O’Brien. Placed at two for the latter, Lush Lips transferred to Brendan Walsh in the USA where she has thrived. She has won four times, including the Listed Tepin Stakes at Churchill Downs, and the best of her other runs was finishing second in the Grade 1 Del Mar Oaks. Her winnings in the United States are now almost $750,000.

Back in June, after Lush Lips won her first stakes race by four lengths, I wrote about her in the context of a yearling half-brother that Anna Murphy and Barry Kennedy of Rigsdale Stud owned. The couple had started 2025 being honoured at the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association’s national awards.

At last year’s Tattersalls December Sale, they spent 25,000gns on a yearling colt by Harry Angel (Dark Angel), out of the winning Arcano (Oasis Dream) mare Lamyaa.

When they bought the colt, the pedigree was a solid one. The colt’s grandam Divine Grace (Definite Article) bred eight winners, all her runners, and between herself and one of her daughters they produced three group winners, including Group 2 Prix de Pomone winner Melo Melo (Gleneagles) who was runner-up in the Group 1 Prix Vermeille.

Under the colt’s fourth dam Rossaldene (Mummy’s Pet) were five stakes winners, notably three-time Group 1 winner Paco Boy (Desert Style).

Conor Hoban

Barry and Anna sold the Harry Angel for €55,000 in Book 1 of the Goffs Orby Sale to Conor Hoban’s Beechlea Bloodstock, and he can now face the winter with raised hopes.

Hoban has until early next year to choose a breeze-up sale for the colt, but it appears the choice will be between Doncaster or the Craven. Conor was thrilled to get such an important update, and there are plenty of other potential winners just bubbling under in the immediate family too.

While all of this is happening, the Pocock Family will hope to benefit financially from the recent Grade 1 success for Lush Lips. The filly’s full-brother is one of six foals they will send to the Tattersalls December Sale this year. Born on March 21st, he is one of the early lots in the sale, but could be a smart pinhooking opportunity should Lush Lips continue to race and continue to improve. The good news from her trainer is that they always considered her a four-year-old type, and winning a Grade 1 this early is a bonus.