AS the build up to Cheltenham continued, some racing results in Ireland, Britain and France seemed to go a little under the radar. As a consequence, a notable achievement at Auteuil missed getting the headlines it deserved.

On the same card, Device won the Grade 3 Prix Juigne Hurdle, while his year older full-brother scored in the Prix Jean Doumen. Both are sons of the Sadler’s Wells stallion Poliglote and they are the first two foals out of the Grade 3 winning chaser Westonne, a daughter of Mansonnien. She is from a family that has produced no end of good winners in France and a Grade 1 winning hurdler and chaser in Ireland.

Device and So French were bred by veterinary surgeons Benoit and Marie-Christine Gabeur, are trained by champion trainer Guillaume Macaire and race for Magalen Bryant. Last year in France Mrs Bryant cheered home 63 winners over jumps, earning her some €2.9 million in prizemoney. This placed her second to Mrs Patrick Papot who had 77 victories which amassed almost €3.6 million. Staggering figures.

Guillaume Macaire’s runners earned a mouth-watering €8.25 million over jumps in 2016, nearly double that of his nearest challenger. That came from sending out 248 winners, compared to 127 for the runner-up Francois Nicolle. James Reveley, who rode the two winners at Auteuil, was champion jockey in France last year.

The Gabeurs earned the title of top breeders, based on premiums, last year in France. A total of 13 horses bred by them raced 70 times, winning 23 races and being placed on 36 occasions. Only 11 times did they fail to make the frame! These performances rewarded the breeders with €232,000 in premiums. This is a figure that breeders in Ireland and Britain can only dream about. The five-year-old Device has now won 12 of his 16 starts, eight of them graded races. He has yet to win a Grade 1, looking likely to do so on his penultimate start when he fell two out. It is only a matter of time before he does though. He has finished third in a Grade 1 three-year-old hurdle and he was beaten a whisker by Footpad on one of the few times he suffered a reversal in fortune.

His full-brother So French has won a pair of Grade 1 races, the Grand Steeplechase de Paris last year and the Prix Maurice Gillois Chase for four-year-olds in 2015. He has not been as prolific as his younger brother, though he can claim a win on the flat as a three-year-old also, something missing from Device’s curriculum vitae.

Westonne has made an exceptional start at stud, her first three foals now being winners. So French and Device have been joined by the Kapgarde gelding West Cap and he won a couple of races over jumps as a three-year-old in 2016. Westonne won five races herself and earned £170,000 during her racing career. Having made an exceptional start at stud, Westonne has gone one better than her own dam by producing a Grade 1 winner. Westonne is out of the Dom Pasquini mare Fassonwest, twice a winner and the dam of six winners from seven foals, all of which raced.

Four of the six were blacktype winners over jumps and they also included Grade 3 winner Off By Heart (by Kapgarde), and the listed winning own-brothers Westos and Nagging, both by Nikos.

Fassonwest was one of six winners from the Crystal Palace mare Feuille D’Automne, and the best of them all was the Nikos horse Nononito, a top-class winner on the flat and over hurdles, his biggest success coming in the Group 1 Prix du Cadran. He is best known at stud as the sire of Princesse D’Anjou.

Racegoers here will be familiar with the produce of Nononito’s full-sister Silaoce. Though limited in ability on the racecourse where she failed to trouble the judge on the flat and over jumps, she went on to breed the Flemensfirth gelding Muirhead, winner of the Grade 1 Bar One Racing Royal Bond Novice Hurdle at Fairyhouse and the ladbrokes.com Munster National at Limerick for Noel Meade’s yard.

Poliglote, a Group 1 winning juvenile and runner-up in the French Derby, has sired winners at the highest level on the flat and over jumps. On the flat he got the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Solemia and is a hugely successful sire in Argentina where all his other Group 1 winners were conceived. So French and Device are among his best winners over jumps.