COLM Murphy has a training CV that bears comparison with any of his peers, and his impressive list of Grade 1 winners in the past include such as Brave Inca, Big Zeb and Quito De La Roque, the mares Feathard Lady and Voler La Vedette, while another mare, Impervious, was a multiple Grade 2 winner, including at Cheltenham, and Megans Joy won a Grade 2 hurdle race.

Now Murphy can add Zanoosh (Harzand) to his list of mares who are winners at the highest level after this six-year-old joined a stellar list of recent winners of the Grade 1 Irish Stallion Farms EBF Mares Novice Hurdle at Fairyhouse, run in honour of the winner in 2019, Honeysuckle.

Winner of a bumper at the same track from three starts in that code, Zanoosh was beaten on her first three runs over hurdles, but has not looked back since and has now won five on the trot, improving each time. She has also accumulated wins in a listed race at Navan and a Grade 3 in Limerick.

Zanoosh will always have a special place in the heart of jockey Brian Hayes, as she gave this talented rider his first Grade 1 winner, which says so much about the level of talent in the saddle here in Ireland. She is another smart winner for Winning Ways Racing, and will have given great pleasure to her breeders.

Nicky Hartery is chairman of Horse Racing Ireland, and a multiple Group 1 breeder on the flat. His wife Catherine is co-breeder of Zanoosh with John Dewberry, and they sold her at the Goffs Arkle Sale through Peter Molony’s Rathmore Stud in 2023 for €41,000.

Dual Derby winner Harzand (Sea The Stars), based at Con O’Keeffe’s Kilbarry Lodge Stud since 2023, was originally at Gilltown Stud, but he did not produce the flat results everyone hoped for and moved south. His fourth crop started to make some headlines, Caught U Looking winning the Group 3 Park Stakes (and selling for 1,800,000gns), and Shamarkand winning a listed race in France. He did even better with his National Hunt runners from the same crop.

Hello Neighbour was one of the best juvenile hurdlers of his year, winning a Grade 1 in Leopardstown while Six Figures won the Grade 2 Prix Amadou Hurdle and been placed in Grade 1 contests. Zanoosh is one of her sire’s seven blacktype winners. Harzand’s first Kilbarry Lodge crop are two-year-olds.

Zanoosh’s came into Hartery ownership just over 25 years ago. Under Caherass Stud they spent IR36,000gns for a young mare, Manazil (Generous). Trained by Robert Armstrong for her breeder, Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum, she ran at three, winning three times, including at Newmarket and Ascot. She had two foals for Shadwell before she was sold, one of which won.

In her new ownership Manazil bred three more winners, one being the dam of Zanoosh, Sinful Pleasure (Sinndar). In training with Michael Halford, Sinful Pleasure won consecutive starts at Tramore and Wexford in the summer of 2008 over 12 furlongs, and then it was off to stud in Croom, Co Limerick, at Caherass Stud.

Sinful Pleasure has just turned 21, and after producing a filly in January 2025 by Awtaad (Cape Cross), she was covered again by the Derrinstown stallion. The yearling is the 14th foal she has had in 15 years. Six of her eight runners have won, while Zanoosh’s five-year-old full-sister Wicked Pleasure (Harzand) has placed on both her starts in bumpers for Henry de Bromhead. Nicky Hartery has Sinful Pleasure’s four-year-old son Noble Indulgence (Order Of St George) in training with Noel Meade, though he has yet to race.

Showing versatility as a broodmare, Sinful Pleasure has three blacktype winners. Zanoosh joining the Italian listed winner and Group 2 Oaks d’Italia runner-up Paiardina (Casamento), and the Uttoxeter listed chase winner Brave Eagle (Yeats) on that list.

A winner who means a lot to his connections

A WILLIE Mullins-trained debut winner is no surprise, but there was added significance to the victory of Robertjames in the opening maiden hurdle at Downpatrick recently on the day when Randox sponsored the Ulster National.

A five-year-old son of Saint Des Saints (Cadoudal), Robertjames carried the colours of Dr Peter FitzGerald, who will be cheering on his Spanish Harlem in today’s Grand National at Aintree, and he is the founder of Randox. Peter’s sister Nicola looks after all of his equine interests, and she purchased the dam of Robertjames at Arqana in December 2018 for €15,000, and so the Downpatrick winner was a homebred for Peter in the name of his Cherryvalley Farm.

As if all of this was not enough, Peter told me recently that Robertjames was named after his and Nicola’s late father. One can imagine that you would only do this if you felt you had something above average among your stock, and winning a maiden on your racecourse debut by 16 lengths would suggest that Robertjames is held in some special esteem. His victory was over two miles six furlongs, and given his size it might well be as a staying chaser that he will be seen in his best light.

Credit to Nicola FitzGerald for picking Robertjames’ dam Cool La Mag (Silver Frost) out at the sale, where she was Lot 999, as apart from being in foal to Kapgarde (Garde Royale), you had to go back three generations to find something appealing in the female family. Cool La Mag’s third dam, three-time West German winner Kaisertreue (Luciano), had seven winning offspring, among them Kadi (Shareef Dancer) who carried Norman Williamson to victory in the Mildmay of Flete Chase at Cheltenham in 1995. That winner, bred by Darley, was trained by David Nicholson.

One of Kadi’s half-sisters, Karlshorst (Surumu), gave up five winners, the best of which was Group 3 winner Kapitol (Winged Love). The latter mare bred two winners who are both worth mentioning. Kamsin (Samum) was the champion German three-year-old and his three Group 1 wins included the Derby in Hamburg. At stud, which included a stint in Ireland, he enjoyed moderate success, getting a Grade 1 winner over fences in France.

Six lengths

Kamsin’s half-brother Khan (Santiago) won the Group 1 Preis von Europa by six lengths eight years ago, but failed to build on that, and had his attention turned to hurdling, first in France and later in England with Milton Harris, for whom he won five times. He now stands at Edmund Vaughan’s Clongeel Stud. A half-sister to Kapitol is the grandam of last September’s Grade 1 Gran Corsa Siepi di Merano Hurdle winner Kaja (The Grey Gatsby).

Cool La Mag was carrying her second foal when she was acquired by the FitzGeralds, and the first turned out to be Imperial Mag (Kapgarde), winner of listed hurdle races at Auteuil and Compiegne and Grade 3-placed. The filly she was carrying was Not Negotiable (Kapgarde), a Tipperary bumper winner for Peter FitzGerald at five who pulled-up on her only start since, in December, and was found to be post-race abnormal.

Robertjames is Cool La Mag’s fourth foal and third winner, and is followed by Thistleborough (Doctor Dino), an unraced four-year-old son, and the gelding Faucil (Doctor Dino) who was sold as a yearling for €52,000, and resold last year at two for £95,000 to Dai Walters.