ITALIAN racing is in the doldrums, and its diminished status is best exemplified by the achievements of Anda Muchacho this year. The name might not immediately strike you, yet he has won a pair of races in 2017, including a classic, that not so long ago would have credited him with being a dual Group 1 winner. Instead he is now the classic winner of the Group 3 Premio Parioli (Italian 2000 Guineas) and last weekend he added the Group 2 Premio Roma to his haul.

The only time he has tasted defeat in six starts this year was when he finished third in the now Group 2 Derby Italiano.

Anda Muchacho is a son of Helmet (Exceed And Excel) and is from the first northern hemisphere crop of his sire. That crop includes the dual Group 1 winner Thunder Snow. An earlier southern hemisphere-born crop also includes a number of group winners. Helmet sees his fee at Dalham Hall rise from £10,000 to £12,000 in 2018.

Tom Hassett at Monkland Stables landed himself quite a bargain when he paid 4,500gns for the Shamardal (Giant’s Causeway) filly Montefino at the Tattersalls February Sale in 2011. The just turned three-year-old did not run but had been in training with John Gosden. She was purchased as a yearling for 62,000gns.

Sent straight to stud she produced a filly as her first foal, Parsley (Zebedee), and she won three times as a two-year-old and was group and listed placed for Richard Hannon. This was quite a start for Montefino, in spite of her first offspring realising just £17,000 as a yearling at Doncaster. Parsley is now a broodmare at Lynn Lodge Stud and her first produce, a yearling colt by War Command (War Front), sold for £75,000 this year.

Next up from Montefino was a colt, the now four-year-old Teruntum Lad (Lilbourne Lad), and he sold for 58,000gns as a yearling but has not raced. Ando Muchacho did not leave Tom Hassett with much profit, selling for 18,000gns as a yearling at Tattersalls but making a few euro profit when trading on as a breeze-up horse at Goresbridge for €26,000, selling to Marco Bozzi. What a bargain he has proven to be and he has now won more than £190,000.

This year Tom brought a full-sister to Parsley to market and she sold for 160,000gns to SackvilleDonald, while waiting in the wings is a filly foal by one of the hottest sires with his first crop on sale this autumn, Gutaifan (Dark Angel). All of this is making that initial 4,500gns investment look like an inspired decision.

Montefino is out of Monturani, a daughter of Indian Ridge (Ahonoora) who won the Group 2 Irish National Stud Blandford Stakes and a couple of other listed races. She is dam of a pair of minor winners but her sixth produce is just a yearling of 2017, a filly by Intello (Galileo), so perhaps there is more to come from her.

Monturani is one of three stakes winners from the Group 1 Epsom Oaks placed Mezzogiorno (Unfuwain) and the others are Mill Springs (Shirocco) who won a listed race at Ascot in 2015, and the dual stakes winner Monnavanna (Machiavellian).