ALSO bearing the name of a famous ballet, the equine Giselle (Frankel) put herself forward as a classic hopeful when she was a facile winner of the three-runner Listed Oaks Trial Stakes at Lingfield Park, and if the betting on classic success was based solely on pedigree, she would be a much shorter price than she is currently. She is the first foal of an outstanding racemare.

The Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf winner Newspaperofrecord (Lope De Vega) was bred by Allan Belshaw, and he sold her as a yearling for 200,000gns. In a 10-race career which saw her win five times, she also landed the Grade 1 Just A Game Stakes, the Grade 2 Miss Grillo Stakes and a Grade 3, all at Belmont. She finished out of the frame just once.

Acquired privately by Coolmore and White Birch, Newspaperofrecord’s first three offspring are all by Frankel (Galileo). Her two-year-old son is named Benvenuto Cellini, and she has a yearling full-sister to Giselle. Newspaperofrecord is the second stakes winner, joining Classical Times (Lawman), out of the Group 3 winner and Group 1 runner-up Sunday Times (Holy Roman Emperor), and one of five winners for that mare. In 2021, M.V. Magnier paid 1,800,000gns for Sunday Times, in foal to Lope De Vega (Shamardal).

Head-to-head

Bidding opened on Sunday Times at 400,000gns and the US breeder Greg Goodman was involved in the early action, but the battle came down to a head-to-head between Magnier and David Redvers, the latter sitting with owner-breeder David Howden. They joined the proceedings at 1,400,000gns. “She is an absolute cracker,” Magnier said afterwards. “She has bred a champion and hopefully she is carrying a full-sister to her. She is a very nice mare; she has done it before and Newspaperofrecord was incredible with what she did in the Breeders’ Cup that day.”

Sunday Times was sold by Belshaw, whose bloodstock interests come under the banner Times Of Wigan, named after his engineering company. He said: “I am satisfied, happy about it. Slightly disappointed as I have had her since a baby, but there comes a time when she had to move on. I have plenty of babies from the family, so it is like starting again with a young family.

“She was not sold as a yearling for 10,000gns. I brought her [to Tattersalls] to Book 2; Holy Roman Emperor was just starting his career. I don’t know if there was even a bid. I was hoping to get 30,000gns for her, but she turned into a good racehorse and an even better broodmare, and the big moment, of course, was with her daughter in the Breeders’ Cup.”

Classical Times

Sunday Times won the Group 3 Sceptre Stakes and ran second in the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes. Her first foal was the listed winner Classical Times, and she is now the dam of five winners with her first six foals. The non-winner among them was the only colt. Now, for Coolmore and Peter Brant’s White Birch, Sunday Times is the dam of a three-year-old, once-raced this year, full-sister to Newspaperofrecord, Intensify (Lope De Vega). Last year she had her second colt, a son of Camelot (Montjeu).

Sunday Times’s stakes-placed half-sister Question Times (Shamardal) has made a significant contribution to the family’s fortune as the dam of the Group 1 Irish Derby winner Latrobe (Camelot), Group 3 winner Diamond Fields (Fastnet Rock) who is herself dam of a Group 3 winner, and stakes winner Pink Dogwood (Camelot). The latter mare was runner-up in the Group 1 Oaks and third in the Irish equivalent.

Giselle is stakes winner number 155 for Juddmonte’s Frankel who stands at Banstead Manor Stud. More than 100 of them are group winners.

Gezora follows

her dam to glory

WHAT a pity that, for the second year, the former Group 1 Prix Saint-Alary has been contested as a Group 2 contest. Last year’s winner Birthe did not frank the form of the race afterwards, while this year’s winner Gezora (Almanzor) beat just three opponents, and this will not be enough to get the race upgraded anytime soon.

Nonetheless, the winner, bred by Haras d’Etreham and racing for Peter Brant’s White Birch Farm, has finally given her dam Germance (Silver Hawk) a worthy-performing daughter to carry on the family line.

Germance won the then Group 1 Prix Saint-Alary 19 years ago, and that Edmund Loder-bred was runner-up in the Group 1 Prix de Diane-French Oaks. Sir Edmund bred Germance in the USA and sold her there as a yearling for $200,000.

Germance is from a female line well-known throughout Europe. The dam of seven winners with her first 12 foals, Germance and her stakes-winning half-brother Gaily Game (Montjeu) are the best of five successful progeny of the Japanese winner Gaily Tiara (Caerleon). This family has had something of a renaissance in recent times, thanks largely to Gaily Tiara’s Group 3-winning half-sister Aiglonne (Silver Hawk), bred on similar lines to Germance.

Aiglonne is the dam of four group/graded winners, the best of them being the Group 1 Prix d’Ispahan winner Mekhtaal (Sea The Stars). This is the family of Group 1 Prix Jean Prat and Group 1 Dubai World Cup winner Almutawakel (Machiavellian), and Group 1 Derby Italiano winner White Muzzle (Dancing Brave).

Komedy comes good with stakes winner

WHAT a story there is behind the victory of Garden Of Eden (Saxon Warrior) in the Listed Darley Irish EBF Naas Oaks Trial Stakes, who had her more fancied stablemate Island Hopping nearly two lengths back in third.

Last year, at two, Garden Of Eden was the complete outsider of three Aidan O’Brien runners in the Listed Ballylinch Stud Irish EBF Ingabelle Stakes on Irish Champions Weekend, but was the best at the finish when less than a length off the winner, Chantez. Now she is a stakes winner on her eighth start. Garden Of Eden races for Sue Magnier and partners.

This is not the first time that the filly, bred by Mark Hanly and Stephanie Hanly, has been in the news. As a foal Garden Of Eden sold for €160,000 at the Goffs November Sale to Camas Park Stud, putting her among the top 25 foals at the sale, but there was only a small profit when she resold to Peter and Ross Doyle the following year in the Orby Sale for €200,000.

One thing is abundantly clear, and it is that Garden Of Eden’s dam Komedy (Kodiac) produces good looking stock. Last year, Garden Of Eden’s full-brother also sold from the Hanly’s Grange Hill Stud, and he made €250,000 to Jamie McCalmont. This put him among the top 15 lots at the sale. During pandemic times, two more of Komedy’s offspring brought six-figure sums, £100,000 and £110,000, as yearlings.

Sold as a yearling for €70,000 at the Goffs Orby Sale, Komedy placed a few times at two but she was sold for just 9,000gns at the end of her juvenile season. She went to Spain where she won and placed.

The subsequent emergence of her year-younger full-sister On Her Toes (Kodiac) as a listed winner at two led to Komedy’s acquisition for breeding purposes, and she has been well worth the effort to do so.

For double good measure, Komedy’s year-old half-sister Jane’s Memory (Captain Rio) also emerged as a stakes winner the same season that On The Toes did, winning the Cecil Frail Stakes. She and On Her Toes were both placed at Group 3 level.