Aidan & Annemarie O’Brien,
Whisperview Trading Ltd
Precise (Ire), 2023 f. by Starspangledbanner out of Way To My Heart, by Galileo
AIDAN and Annemarie O’Brien’s Whisperview Trading is a regular nominee for these awards, and they have previously won the coveted Breeder of the Year award. They are back this month for last year’s Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes and Fillies’ Mile winner Precise, who added the Group 1 Tattersalls Irish 1000 Guineas to her tally of wins.
Precise has now won five of her seven starts, and is one of 10 top-flight winners for her sire. She joins Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf hero Gstaad, Prix Morny winner The Wow Signal and the Cheveley Park Stakes winner Millisle as juvenile Group/Grade 1 winners sired by Starspangledbanner, while multiple winners at this level are State Of Rest (four times) and California Spangle (three wins).
The triple Group 1 winner Precise is the third progeny of Way To My Heart to win, the others doing so in the USA and Sweden. Precise has the great Nureyev filly Sonic Lady as her fourth dam.
The O’Brien couple are no strangers to this family, as Annemarie gave €25,000 for the third dam of Precise, Rainbow Quest’s daughter Lady Icarus in 2004. Four of her five winners won stakes races, two were Group 1 classic-placed, and a couple of daughters bred Group 1 performers, all by Galileo. They are Kingfisher (second in the Ascot Gold Cup and Irish Derby), High Definition (runner-up in the Tattersalls Gold Cup), and Innisfree, second in the Vertem Trophy.
John Magnier, Coolmore
True Love (Ire), 2023 f. by No Nay Never out of Alluringly, by Fastnet Rock
TRUE Love made her breakthrough at the highest level, winning the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes at two. She has now doubled that total after her win in the Group 1 1000 Guineas, before losing out to a stablemate in the Irish equivalent. Her five wins have all come in pattern races.
True Love is a full-sister to Group 2 winner Truly Enchanting, and one of three pattern winners for her dam. The third is another Group 2 winner, Lily Pond. True Love’s achievements enhance one of the best families in the stud book. Her dam Alluringly is a stakes winner, was beaten by Enable in the Listed Cheshire Oaks, and finished third to the same filly in the Group 1 Oaks.
True Love’s third dam is All Too Beautiful, the Group 1 Oaks second and Group 3 winner whose siblings include full-brothers Galileo and Black Sam Bellemy, half-brother Sea The Stars, and half-sister My Typhoon – all Group/Grade 1 winners. Their dam Urban Sea won the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.
All Too Beautiful, bought for 1,100,000gns as a foal in 2001, bred three winners, all of whom earned blacktype. Her daughter Wonder Of Wonders won the Listed Cheshire Oaks, and placed in three Group 1 races, the Oaks at Epsom, its Irish equivalent, and the Yorkshire version. Wonder Of Wonders’ half-sister Sparrow is dam of the Group 1 Cox Plate and Tancred Stakes hero Sir Dragonet.
Barbara Facchino, Barouche Stud
Caballo De Mar (Ire), 2022 c. by Phoenix Of Spain out of Oberyn, by Holy Roman Emperor
THERE was a great moment in October last year when a young sire got his first Group 1 winner in his first crop of three-year-olds. The sire in question was the Irish National Stud’s Phoenix Of Spain, and he got that winner just as his own sire, Lope De Vega, sired his 25th. The landmark win was delivered by Goffs foal and Tattersalls Ireland yearling graduate, Caballo De Mar, who in the blink of an eye went from earning his first piece of blacktype a couple of weeks earlier in the Group 3 German St Leger to annexing the Group 1 Prix du Cardan at ParisLongchamp. That was the tough performers’ eighth win, and now he is back with another Group 1 win in the Prix Vicomtesse Vigier.
Barbara Facchino’s Barouche Stud, who bred Caballo De Mar, purchased his listed-placed grandam Daraliya for 57,000gns as a four-year-old, and she did well for the farm, producing eight winners. This is a branch of an Aga Khan family, and while none of Daraliya’s winners were stars, they included a German stakes winner and two stakes-placed winners.
Daraliya’s daughter Oberyn won twice for Barbara Facchino at three and only had two foals, both winners. Caballo De Mar, a €21,000 Goffs foal buy by Melchior Bloodstock, and €33,000 Tattersalls Ireland yearling purchase by Billy Jackson-Stops and George Scott, has amassed winnings of over €800,000.
Princess Zahra Aga Khan, Aga Khan Studs
Rayif (Ire), 2023 c. by Sea The Moon out of Rayisa, by Holy Roman Emperor
RAYIF, on just his fourth career start, and his first of 2026, continued an amazing run of success for the Aga Khan Studs when he strode to an impressive win in the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Poulains, the French 2000 Guineas.
The colt had shown at two that he was talented, being successful in a Group 3 sponsored by the Aga Khan Studs and finishing third in the Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere on Arc weekend. Now all eyes are on the Group 1 St James’ Palace Stakes where he will hopefully line up for a vintage renewal of that race against Bow Echo and Gstaad.
Rayisa won a mile maiden at Gowran Park at two after being beaten a neck in Galway by another Aga Khan runner. Third in a listed contest at the Curragh, she went into winter quarters but failed to add another win at three, though she put up her best performance when beaten half a length in the Listed Corrib Stakes at Galway over seven furlongs.
Five of Rayisa’s first six foals are winners, and among them is the Blue Point four-year-old Rayevka. Last year less than a length covered the first three home in Royal Ascot’s Group 1 Commonwealth Cup, Rayevka running third behind Time For Sandals and Arizona Blaze. She won the five-furlong Group 3 Prix de Saint-Georges on the same card as Rayif’s classic success, and she will go to Ascot and attempt to being off a great family double.