THE final European crop of yearlings by Sottsass (Siyouni) will be on offer this autumn. He is now in Japan, and in his first season there covered 106 mares.

He had one colt sold from that crop in July for the equivalent of €60,000. Sottsass stands at Shizunai Stallion Station where he is with American Pharoah, Caravaggio, Declaration Of War and Makfi, among others.

Trained by Jean-Claude Rouget for Peter Brant’s White Birch Farm, Sottsass was a three-length winner over a mile on the second of two starts as a juvenile. In his second season he ran away with a 10-furlong listed contest at Chantilly a month before beating Persian King by two lengths in the Group 1 Prix du Jockey Club-French Derby over a half-furlong further at the same venue, and he landed the Group 2 Prix Niel a few weeks before chasing home Waldgeist and Enable in the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. He was rated the champion three-year-old colt in Europe.

Sottsass added the Group 1 Prix Ganay over a mile and two furlongs at Chantilly at four, was two lengths fourth to Magical in the Group 1 Irish Champion Stakes, and crowned his career with a neck defeat of classic star In Swoop in the Arc, hitting the front a furlong out. Persian King was third.

Group 1 winners

The Vintage Stakes at Goodwood has been won by a number of smart horses in the past decade, among them Group/Grade 1 winners Expert Eye, Pinatubo, Angel Bleu and Zavateri. Could this year’s victor, Dr Rascal (Sottsass), join them?

His form to date would suggest he could, and he remains unbeaten in three starts for his owner-breeders Charlie Rosier and his mother Julia.

This was also a landmark first group race win for trainer Olly Cole in his own name, after five years on the licence with his father Paul who trained three winners of the Vintage Stakes, Putra and Central Park in successive years, and Strategic Prince in 2006. Two decades on and the Cole name in on the roll of honour again. The immediate plan is to aim the homebred Dr Rascal at something like the Group 1 Dewhurst, a race that Cole senior won with the great Generous, the National Stakes or the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere.

By telephone

Julia Rosier purchased the dam of Dr Rascal by telephone, giving £32,000 for her at the Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale through the auspices of SackvilleDonald. She was sent to Tom Ward, who was tasked with submitting her naming form.

As a result of a human error, she was named Litte Miss Rascal (Zoffany), rather than ‘Little’.

Litte Miss Rascal (all Rosier horses include the word rascal in their name) did not race, but she was originally purchased too with an eye on a breeding career. She started at stud with Havana Gold (Teofilo), resulting in a daughter called Miss Rascal. She was talented, but sadly raced just three times at two for Paul and Olly Cole. Second time out she won an Ascot maiden by three lengths, and then was fifth in the 24-runner Group 2 Queen Mary Stakes.

This year, Litte Miss Rascal had a colt by Vandeek (Havana Grey), her third produce. She is due a tasty covering in 2026 when the time comes to choosing a mate. Zoffany (Dansili) mares have produced Group 1 winners such as this year’s Royal Ascot winner Mission Central, Tamfana and Breege.

Dr Rascal resulted from a May covering by Sottsass, and this was a chance mating of sorts. Litte Miss Rascal had been covered on three occasions by Gleneagles with no success, and it was a late call to cover her by another, Sottsass, before she returned to England. It has worked out very well, even if Sottsass’s career at stud has failed to sparkle. Maybe Dr Rascal will be the one to change that narrative a bit.

What cannot be denied is that Dr Rascal’s female family is hugely attractive. It will face testing in the marketplace at this year’s Goffs Orby Sale Part 1, when Kiltinan Castle Stud, through Glenvale Stud, send a Too Darn Hot (Dubawi) half-brother to Litte Miss Rascal for sale. They are out of the listed runner-up Hibiscus (Galileo), and two years ago her now three-year-old daughter Queen Of Hawaii (Kingman) sold in the same ring at Kill for €250,000.

She was a Group 3 winner at two last year up the Curragh, and won for a third time this year in the USA. Queen Of Hawaii and the group-placed Up And Under (Lope De Vega) are two of the three winners from Hibiscus.

A full-sister to the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner Line Of Duty and Group 1 Prix de l’Opera-placed and Group 3 winner Jackie Oh, both daughters of Galileo (Sadler’s Wells), Hibiscus is also a half-sister to a pair of blacktype horses by Dubawi (Dubai Millennium). They are dual listed winner Onassis and the Group 2 runner-up Secret State.

These are all among seven winners out of Jacqueline Quest (Rock Of Gibraltar). That €60,000 yearling won just once, at two, but she is remembered as the filly who lost the Group 1 1000 Guineas in the stewards’ room, being placed second behind Special Duty as a result of interference. It was an emotional time for her owner, Noel Martin, left a quadriplegic after an attack, and the filly was named after his late wife. At the end of her racing career, Jacqueline Quest was sold for 600,000gns.

Little-known sire makes a splash

A WINNER at Galway whose breeding perhaps left many scratching their heads was the Grade 3 Ballybrit Novices’ Chase hero Shadow Paddy. The six-year-old son of Shadow Gate (White Muzzle) was winning his third chase in a row since May, and is unbeaten over the larger obstacles. He is a four-time hurdle winner, among them a listed race at Limerick.

Shadow Paddy has the remarkable record of now having won half of his 14 starts, and been out of the first three on all of his other runs.

Bred by Dermot Condon, he sold as a foal for €3,000 at Goffs to Jeremy English, and for €8,000 as a store to his trainer Eoin McCarthy. He is the first winner for his dam Supreme Island (Heron Island), and she made two starts as a six-year-old, and that’s really all we can say about that!

Galway winner Shadow Paddy is her third produce, and only the second to be named. The other made two starts in point-to-points and showed nothing. Supreme Island raced for Neil Reid who paid €800 for her at a thoroughbred sale in Goresbridge as a four-year-old. Some years later, a full-brother to Supreme Island, Clondaw Knight (Heron Island), won three chases for Lucinda Russell who paid €140,000 for him as a winning point-to-pointer. He had won for Colin Bowe who gave just €6,500 for him as a store.

Shadow Paddy seems to be the only winner sired by Shadow Gate on the track. The stallion raced some 48 times, including in Ireland where he was a winner at Dundalk as a 10-year-old, and he was a dual Group 3 winner in Japan. He travelled outside that country for his biggest success, which came in the Group 1 Singapore International.