IT goes without saying that breeding a Group 1 winner is an awesome achievement. Few breeders ever manage the feat. When Margot Did (Exceed And Excel) won the Group 1 Coolmore Nunthorpe Stakes at York exactly 10 years ago, Nicky and Catherine Hartery might well have felt that the pinnacle had been achieved.

The couple own Caherass Stud in Croom, a fertile district when it comes to breeding and raising winners at the highest level in racing. Caherass is one of a select group of farms in the area that has bred a Group 1 winner. The farm was acquired in 1985,

Well, the story of success had only just begun for Caherass, and this year, a decade on from that first Group 1, Horse Racing Ireland chairman Nicky Hartery is credited as the breeder of two winners at racing’s highest table – from a small 2018 crop of foals.

Laws Of Indices (Power) started the ball rolling when he won the seven-furlong, Group 1 Prix Jean Prat at Deauville, and last weekend he was joined by Going Global (Mehmas) as she added the nine-furlong Grade 1 Del Mar Oaks to her curriculum vitae, her fifth and most important win stateside. All her previous stakes successes, three at Grade 3 level, were gained at Santa Anita.

What is even more fascinating from this writer’s point of view is that Hartery only managed to get the colt into the Goffs Autumn Sale, where he sold for €8,000 to Dermot Farrington, while Going Global, from her sire’s first crop, got a place in the Goffs Sportsman’s Sale, selling for €15,500 to Pioneer Racing.

This year it is a very different story, and the yearling siblings to both winners are heading to the Goffs Orby Sale, part of the draft from The Castlebridge Consignment. Going Global’s U S Navy Flag (War Front) half-sister will be on everyone’s list of yearlings to see, while Laws Of Indices has a half-brother on offer by Starspangledbanner, a no less desirable proposition.

Fascinating story

The story of Going Global is a fascinating one, and 2021 is an annus mirabilis for her dam Wrood (Invasor), as Nicky Hartery told me this week. In addition to the Mehmas (Acclamation) filly thriving in the USA, Nicky himself races Going Global’s year-older half-brother Finans Bay (Kodiac). He too has blossomed in the past year, and was recently placed in the Group 3 Royal Whip Stakes.

Last year, on Irish Champions Weekend at the Curragh, Nicky and trainer Michael Halford sent Finans Bay to contest the Northfields Premier Handicap. He finished second, beaten fair and square by Sonnyboyliston, while a length and a half back in third was Helvic Dream. The latter won the Group 1 Tattersalls Gold Cup this year, and Sonnyboyliston collected a winners’ purse of £300,000 for his victory in Saturday’s Ebor Handicap.

As if having two stakes horses with her first two foals was not enough, Wrood’s third offspring is the two-year-old Mitbaahy (Profitable). Trained by Roger Varian, he won on the first of this month and, on Saturday, in the listed race following the Ebor, he looked the winner until caught in the final 100 yards and finished third. Look at the race and tell me you don’t see a stakes winner in waiting.

With Wrood’s yearling due to meet with the Goffs auctioneers next month, it is possible that the mare will have no more offspring to sell for a couple of years. Nicky welcomed a filly foal this year by Saxon Warrior (Deep Impact), and – no surprise – is delighted to report that she is safely in foal to Mehmas. The Saxon Warrior looks like a keeper for the next generation in Croom.

No inbreeding

Going Global possesses no inbreeding to five generations, and the purchase of Wrood as a broodmare prospect was an easy decision for Nicky Hartery. Having spent a long period of his working career on the west coast of America, he was familiar with racing at Santa Anita, Del Mar, Hollywood Park and Bay Meadows. He also studied US bloodlines and when the opportunity to purchase a smart winning daughter of Invasor (Candy Stripes) presented itself he struck, paying 55,000gns for Wrood.

Kodiac and Mehmas were chosen as her first two mates to give the mare the best opportunity to get up and running. Nicky was especially keen on Mehmas as he is a son of Acclamation (Royal Applause), was a sharp two-year-old and is from a family rich in juvenile success. Kodiac was an obvious choice as Tiggy Wiggy appears on the pedigree page of Wrood.

Sadly, the dam of Laws Of Indices, Sampers, is not in foal. The mare was bred by Nicky and is by a sire that has served him well, Exceed And Excel (Danehill). Named after Nicky’s and Catherine’s son-in-law’s family, Sampers was a Dundalk specialist, gaining all her three victories there. Four of her first five runners are winners, none winning fewer than three times.

Nicky was perhaps a little disappointed when Sampers had a colt this year by Tamayuz (Nayef), not that there is anything wrong with having a fine foal by the sire of four Group 1 winners. One senses that, again with an eye on the future, a filly would have been most welcome, ensuring the continuation of the line at Caherass.

Upgrading

With a broodmare band of just a dozen, having the dams of two Group 1 winners among them would be enough for most people. However, Nicky decided a couple of years ago to concentrate on upgrading his stock, and the other 10 mares include a number of gems.

Pride of place must go to Eleanor Powell, named in honour of one of the most famous dancers in movie history. This unraced five-year-old is a full-sister to Margot Did, and that mare’s start at stud has been exciting. The Nunthorpe heroine is the dam of two Group 1 performers by Galileo (Sadler’s Wells), the Grade 1 Belmont Oaks winner and Group 1 Prix Saint-Alary runner-up Magic Attitude, and the Group 2 Prix Sandringham heroine Mission Impassible, also placed in the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac.

This is a branch of a successful Aga Khan family, Margot Did’s dam Special Dancer (Shareef Dancer), being purchased with the assistance of Maurice Burns for €36,000 some 20 years ago. The mare’s last foal is a yearling full-brother to Margot Did in Book 2 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale.

Meanwhile Eleanor Powell has had her first foal, a filly by Sea The Stars (Cape Cross), and she is in foal to first season sire Ghaiyyath (Dubawi).

French winner

Duchess Of Danzig (Sea The Stars) won twice for Nicky Hartery in France and was runner-up in a listed race at Saint-Cloud. She is carrying her first foal by the brilliantly fast Blue Point (Shamardal), while a mention must be made of another mare purchased with the help of Maurice Burns. Big Boned is a daughter of the leading sire Street Sense (Street Cry) and she was bought for just €27,000.

Her first foal was K Club (Kodiac), and his four victories include a Group 3 in Germany. He is followed by Back To Brussels (Starspangledbanner), a dual winner and multiple stakes-placed. The mare’s third foal, and current three-year-old, is the four-time winner Cedric Morris (Fast Company).

It is short odds that the best is yet to come. Big Boned’s two-year-old filly Wish For Me (Mehmas) sold for £330,000 last year and is in training with Joseph O’Brien, while Nicky Hartery sold her now yearling colt by Acclamation for €195,000 last year at Goffs, and he returns there for the Orby Sale from Kilminfoyle House Stud.

The last mare to mention is the now 18-year-old Smoken Rosa. This daughter of Smoke Glacken (Two Punch), from an excellent distaff family, was relatively successful, breeding four winners for Hartery. Then, last year, her pedigree went up a couple of notches, thanks to two of her winning daughters. Refusetolisten (Clodovil) bred Stormy Girl (Night Of Thunder), a listed winner who sold for 310,000gns at the December Sale. Better still, Miss Phillyjinks (Zoffany) bred the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac winner Tiger Tanaka (Clodovil).

Planning

Nicky Hartery is a man who spends time on matings, buys with opportunity in mind, and plans everything, as befits a man with an engineering and science background, with damage limitation in the forefront, acknowledging all the while that breeding is an inexact science.

A trawl through his broodmare band and their pedigrees, a look at his matings, and measuring his success would suggest a great deal of effort goes into his stud operation. Oh, and he says that you also need a good dollop of luck!

Maybe though it is worth quoting The Boss, Bruce Springsteen, on that. He said: “When it comes to luck you make your own.”