WHAT a week it has been for Camelot (Montjeu), and also for the female family of his second top-level winner Athena. Last weekend the Aidan O’Brien-trained three-year-old filly showed her class and toughness when she produced a career-best performance to win the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks Invitational Stakes, days after finishing third in the Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes at the Curragh.

This was only Athena’s second win in 10 starts, two of which saw her fail to make the first three as a juvenile. This year her eight runs have come in a three-month period and she gained a minor stakes place in England from two runs there.

Five days after Athena brought further glory to one of the best pedigrees in the stud book, her two-year-old own-sister, the wonderfully named Goddess, slammed her rivals to win a maiden at Leopardstown and go into many notebooks as a leading classic hope for 2019. It would be no surprise if this was to happen, given the female line to which she belongs.

Athena is the best of five winners for her dam Cherry Hinton (Green Desert), and the second Group or Grade 1 winner for that mare. Both of Cherry Hinton’s previous stakes winners are daughters of Camelot’s sire Montjeu (Sadler’s Wells) and the best of the pair is the Group 1 Irish Oaks winner Bracelet. The other is the Group 2 Rockfel Stakes winner Wading, a very smart juvenile.

Cherry Hinton never managed to win a race but her stakes placings included being runner-up in the Group 3 Blue Wind Stakes as a three-year-old. Had she even been useless as a racemare, her place at stud was assured as she was a half-sister to Galileo (Sadler’s Wells), and ultimately could claim to be a sibling to four Group or Grade 1 winners. They are all offspring of the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Urban Sea (Miswaki).

In addition to being the dam of Galileo, Urban Sea bred the European Horse of the Year and champion three-year-old colt Sea The Stars (Cape Cross), the Irish and Italian Group 1 winner and now deceased Black Sam Bellamy (Sadler’s Wells), and the Grade 1 Diana Handicap heroine and sale record price setter My Typhoon (Giant’s Causeway).

As if that was not enough, Urban Sea produced a further three progeny who were runners-up in major classics; Born To Sea (Invincible Spirit) in the Irish Derby, All Too Beautiful (Sadler’s Wells) in the Oaks at Epsom, and Melikah (Lammtara) in the Irish Oaks. For good measure, the last named mare is the third dam of this year’s Group 1 Investec Derby winner Masar (New Approach).

This is a family simply oozing class and there is little doubt that it will only grow further in stature in the future. In 2018 Cherry Hinton foaled a filly by the Triple Crown winner American Pharoah (Pioneerof The Nile) and one can only surmise what she might turn out to be when she hits the racecourse.

Camelot is, of course, sire of the Group 1 Irish Derby winner Latrobe, the Belmont heroine Athena and seven other stakes winners – all bar one which are from his first crop.