BALLYLINCH Stud announced the fees for its stallions during the week and their star Lope De Vega sees his increase from €50,000 to €60,000. This is on the back of both an explosive start to his stud career, and an exceptional year in 2017.

The current year has already yielded no less than four Group 1 winners, the juvenile and Morrin-bred Capla Temptress, and three members of the sire’s first crops in Europe and Australia, Vega Magic, Santa Ana Lane and The Right Man. They are joined as winners at the highest level by Kildangan Stud’s Belardo and Jemayel.

The Right Man won the Group 1 Al Quoz Sprint back in March and has earnings now approaching €800,000. These were boosted during the week when he won the Group 3 Prix de Seine-Et-Oise at Maisons-Laffitte for the second year running. What a sale bargain he has proven to be, costing just €32,000 as a yearling at the 2013 Arqana Yearling Sale. He is now the winner of half of his 20 races.

The Right Man was bred by Anita Wigan, wife of James, and he is the best of the winners produced from the Warning (Known Fact) mare Three Owls, a winner and placed from three starts when trained by Luca Cumani. Anita bred and raced Three Owls who is now the dam of six winners. That list also includes Three Moons (Montjeu) who was runner-up in the Listed Pretty Polly Stakes at Newmarket and the best of her offspring to date is the stakes winner Tashaar (Sea The Stars).

Three Owls is one of eight winners from the winning mare Three Terns (Arctic Tern) and her siblings are headed by the stakes winners Thames (Fabulous Dancer) and Three Wrens (Second Empire).

It is appropriate that a Group 1 winner should have emerged in this family, as The Right Man’s third dam was none other than the brilliant Three Troikas. That daughter of Lyphard (Northern Dancer) was purchased by Alec Head and raced in the colours of his wife Ghislaine. She was trained by their daughter Criquette and ridden by the trainer’s brother Freddy.

Three Troikas was a champion at three and four in France. In her second season she beat Le Marmot and Troy to win the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, having earlier landed the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches (French 1000 Guineas), Prix Saint-Alary and Prix Vermeille. She narrowly missed out when second to Dunette in the Group 1 Prix de Diane (French Oaks).

She had an interrupted campaign at four due to injury, but nonetheless added the Group 2 Prix d’Harcourt to her tally and ran fourth in the Arc. She won seven races in all and the best of her four winners was the Group 3 winning juvenile Three Angels (Halo) who came close to emulating her dam when she ran second in the Group 1 Prix Saint-Alary.

On the same card at Maisons-Laffitte, the other group race also fell to a stallion owned by Ballylinch, though Dream Ahead is now based in France at Haras de Grandchamp. He too has been a Group 1 sire in 2017, the three-year-old Al Wukair being successful in the Prix Jacques Le Marois. Al Wukair is a member of Dream Ahead’s second crop, while the third crop features three stakes-winning two-year-olds, headed by this week’s Group 3 Prix Miesque winner Sweet Dream.

Bred by Aleyrion Bloodstock, Sweet Dream is another to graduate from Arqana’s October Yearling Sale, costing €30,000 when sold from Haras de Grandchamp to Agence FIPS. That investment has paid off handsomely, and the Pascal Bary-trained filly is now the best of three winners from Excellent Girl, a daughter of Exceed And Excel (Danehill).

Excellent Girl ran third in the Group 3 Prix Cleopatre and her half-brother Fastnet Tempest (Fastnet Rock) joins her as a stakes performer after his runner-up effort in the Listed Ladbrokes Sale Cup in Australia this year. They are both out of Dame Blanche (Be My Guest) and she in turn is a half-sister to Luas Line (Danehill) and the Group 2 winner Lost In The Moment (Danehill Dancer).

Luas Line was trained by David Wachman and gained her biggest success when sent to the USA to contest and win the Grade 1 Garden city Breeders’ Cup Stakes at Belmont Park. She was placed in the Group 1 Irish 1000 Guineas and carried the colours of Evie Stockwell, John Magnier’s mother, to four victories.