I BELIEVE this is the first time that a winner has come under two of our banners, being one to watch and also coming in as a bargain of the week.

Bred by Michael and Fiona O’Connor at their Glenbeg House, Irish Lace (Crystal Ocean) sold as a foal at Goffs in 2022 for just €4,000. This was half her sire’s advertised fee – which has never varied once in his seven years at stud - and the couple’s reaction to that transaction must have been pure disappointment, especially when she sold to such a good judge as Warren Ewing.

The filly was reoffered in Part 2 of the Tattersalls Ireland Derby Sale last year, from The Glebe Farm, and led out unsold at €15,000. She made her way to the stables of Stuart Crawford, was named Irish Lace, and made her racecourse debut recently at Downpatrick in the colours of Ewing. She was the only four-year-old in a field of eight for the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Mares INH Flat Race, and it only required a hands and heels ride from Stephen Connor to land the prize.

This is the first winner for Irish Lace’s unraced dam Kayosee (Flemensfirth), and came with her fourth foal. Two of her previous offspring ran, while the other was not named. She has a three-year-old full-sister to Irish Lace, and a yearling filly by Old Persian (Dubawi).

Orwell Stud

Michael and Fiona O’Connor bought into the family in 1997 when they paid IR£6,200 for a foal at the Tattersalls Ireland November Sale. A daughter of Be My Native (Our Native), bred by Mrs Margaret Sweeney at Orwell Stud, she was named Native Design. Michael trained her to win second time out in a Navan bumper, with Tony Martin in the saddle. She won by eight lengths, with the favourite in second place. He was the subsequent Grand National winner Numbersixvalverde. She had talent.

At stud, Native Design bred six winners. Kayosee’s full-brothers The Happy Chappy (Flemensfirth) and The Reaping Race were both hurdle winners, but The Happy Chappy also landed three chases and a pair of point-to-points.

This was a family that Margaret Sweeney and her husband Phil had enormous success with over many years, and it traces back to a mare who was born 65 years ago, Artiste Gaye (Artist’s Son). She never ran but was an outstanding success at stud, and bred no fewer than 12 winners under National Hunt rules. Five of them were well above average, and readers of a certain age will recognise them.

Artiste Gaye was a National Hunt ‘blue hen’ of sorts, with three of her offspring successful in races that would today carry Grade 1 status. Artistic Prince (Indigenous) won the John Jameson Cup at Punchestown and was runner-up at Fairyhouse in the Power Gold Cup. Breeding this horse alone, who was sired by a record-breaking five-furlong speedster, would have been an achievement in itself, but Artiste Gaye was to go on to forge an even greater sire connection.

Gaye Chance

At the age of 14, she has a colt who would be named Gaye Chance (Lucky Brief), and as a gelding he went into training with Fred Rimell. He won 18 times, four over fences, but it was over hurdles that he made his name. He twice won at the Cheltenham Festival, taking the Sun Alliance Hurdle as a six-year-old, and the Stayers’ Hurdle three years later.

When Artiste Gaye was 16, Gaye Chance’s full-brother Gaye Brief was born at Orwell Stud, and he was the last horse that Fred Rimell bought before his death. He was a contemporary of his sibling, and Gaye Brief too would be a Cheltenham Festival winner, taking the Champion Hurdle in 1983, one of his 17 successes over hurdles. His trainer Mercy Rimell made history as the first woman to train the winner of that Cheltenham feature.

Artiste Gaye’s record as a dam of winners was hard to match, though through her daughters she spawned a wide range of winners over jumps. None matched the prowess of her own offspring. Freewheelin Dylan (Curtain Time) won the Irish Grand National, while Cheltenham Festival winner Oulart (Sabrehill) was runner-up in the Fairyhouse centrepiece. Afistfullofdollars (Be My Native), Simon (Overbury), Silver Hallmark (Shirocco), Slievedaragh (King’s Theatre), Kingsmark (Roselier) and Hometown Boy (Curtain Time) were all graded hurdle or chase winners who trace back to Artiste Gaye. Will Irish Lace join them in time?

Second crop

Irish Lace is from the second crop by Crystal Ocean (Sea The Stars), and the first includes three blacktype winners. Golden Thunder is a classic winner in India, Saint Crystal is a listed hurdle winner in France, while Even Tho was one of Willie Mullins’ winners at the Punchestown Festival in April. She is unbeaten in two bumper starts, one of them being the Grade 3 Weatherbys Bumper. Maybe Mullins and Harold Kirk already have Irish Lace on their radar, as she shares an important pedigree element with Even Tho, both being out of Flemensfirth (Alleged) mares.

Another likely star of the future is Crystal Ocean’s four-year-old daughter Highland Crystal. She is from the same crop as Irish Lace, won her first three starts for Robcour and Gordon Elliott, including a listed race at Newbury, and she was a little over five lengths seventh in the Grade 1 Triumph Hurdle this year.