WHAT an exciting two-year-old Jessica Harrington has in her care. Alpha Centauri impressed on her debut and followed up at Naas on Sunday when winning the Listed Coolmore Stud Irish EBF Fillies’ Sprint Stakes over six furlongs. She is a filly that one can see improving with time and the sky is the limit for her. What are the odds of Jessica welcoming in a Royal Ascot winner next month?

Owned and bred by the Niarchos Family, Alpha Centauri (named after the closest star system to the sun) is by the Danehill Dancer stallion Mastercraftsman, the best two-year-old in Europe in 2008 and a classic winner at three. He won both the Group 1 National and Phoenix Stakes as a juvenile and the following year added the Irish 2000 Guineas and the St James’s Palace Stakes. He found just Sea The Stars too good for him in a memorable renewal of the Juddmonte International.

The Coolmore stallion’s oldest offspring are six and his first three European crops included three Group 1 winners – the Racing Post Trophy and St Leger winner Kingston Hill, the French Derby and Irish Champion Stakes winner The Grey Gatsby, and the dual Group 1 winning mare Amazing Maria. He is also sire of the New Zealand Group 1 winners Valley Girl and Thee Auld Floozie.

On the dam side Alpha Centauri is the third winner from three runners for her unraced dam Alpha Lupi, a daughter of Rahy who is the broodmare sire of Giant’s Causeway and Declaration Of War, among a list of more than 150 stakes winners out of his daughters. Alpha Lupi did not race but her three winners are all representatives of the Danehill sire line.

Her first foal, Tenth Star, was a son of Dansili and he showed all his best form at two, breaking his maiden in the Listed Golden Fleece Stakes and being runner-up in the Group 2 Royal Lodge Stakes. He was followed by the winning Danehill Dancer filly Elitiste who won in France and is now a broodmare. Alpha Centauri, a granddaughter of Danehill Dancer, is her third winner. Alpha Lupi has a three-year-old filly named Galileo Gal by Galileo and a yearling filly by So You Think.

The fact that Alpha Centauri is so talented is hardly a surprise given her female line. Her third dam is the celebrated Miesque, a daughter of Nureyev, who was multiple champion in France, England and the USA. Seven of her nine wins in France (from 12 starts) were in Group 1 races, including the Prix Marcel Boussac, the French 1000 Guineas and the Prix Jacques Le Marois twice. In England she raced twice, winning the 1000 Guineas and finishing second in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. In the USA she won the Breeders’ Cup Mile twice, her only starts stateside.

Miesque was an outstanding racemare and is an outstanding broodmare. Her six winning progeny include five stakes winners. Kingmambo (Mr Prospector) won the French 2000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes and has been hugely successful as a sire. His own-brother Miesque’s Son was a Group 3 winner and runner-up in the Group 1 Prix Maurice de Gheest and Prix de la Foret. A third son, the A P Indy colt Mingun won the Group 3 Meld Stakes.

Miesque’s stakes-winning daughters are Moon Is Up and East Of The Moon. The former is a daughter of Woodman and she won a listed race in France. Her Pivotal daughter Amanee, foaled in Australia, was a Group 1 winner in South Africa. However, East Of The Moon outshone all of her female siblings on the track, winning both the French 1000 Guineas and Oaks, as well as the Group 1 Prix Jacques Le Marois. She is the dam of a group winner, and grandam of Alpha Centauri, Group 3 Horris Hill Stakes winner Evasie and the multiple Group 2-placed stakes winner Ibn Malik.

It is worth mentioning one of Miesque’s non-winning daughters here. Monevassia was placed at two and is a full-sister to Kingmambo. Her failure to win on the track has been forgotten now that she is dam of the champion two-year-old and dual Group 1 winning filly Rumpelstiltskin, a daughter of Danehill. Is Alpha Centauri her heiress apparent?