SOMETIMES blacktype can skip one generation in a pedigree and re-establish itself. Such is the case with the family of last weekend’s £200,000 Tattersalls Millions race at Newmarket winner Zhui Feng and this son of Invincible Spirit looks well on his way to stepping up further in class.

He is the fourth winning produce of the mare Es Que and what a bargain she has proven to be since the Burns’ Rathasker Stud purchased her in foal to Cacique for just 25,000gns in 2007 when she was carrying her first foal. It took a few years for the investment to reveal itself as a bargain though, and consideration was given at one time to sell the mare. Thankfully the Burns family stuck with her and she has been a star since.

That first foal was Dominant and he was a champion in Hong Kong where his victories included the Group 1 Hong Kong Vase at the international meeting in Sha Tin. He was also successful in a valuable Tattersalls Millions race.

He was followed by a son of the Rathasker stallion Clodovil who was named Es Que Love. Winner of the Group 2 Lennox Stakes he has just completed his first season standing alongside his sire.

Next up was the only non-winning offspring to date but she was sold as a four-year-old last December, in foal to Al Kazeem, for 125,000gns. The three-year-old Fast Company colt Stoked was next and he won last year, while the current potential star Zhui Feng was foal number five. He was officially bred by the Es Que Syndicate and the Irish National Stud and sold through Jockey Hall Stud as a foal for 235,000gns. This brave piece of pinhooking was rewarded when Corduff Stud sold him on as a yearling for 340,000gns to Peter and Ross Doyle Bloodstock.

Es Que has a yearling filly by Sea The Stars and she was also sold through Jockey Hall Stud for 310,000gns last year to John McCormack Bloodstock on behalf of George Strawbridge who bred and raced the dam. She is at Ballylinch Stud ahead of a racing career starting next year.

Es Que is now a member of the broodmare band at Moyglare Stud following her sale this spring and she has a Galileo filly foal at foot and is in foal to Oasis Dream. You can imagine this success story blossoming even more into the future.

However the sale of Es Que does not sever the Rathasker connection with the family and at the Goffs Orby Sale they are offering what Madeline Burns calls “a three-parts brother in blood”, to use an old-fashioned term. That son of Clodovil will come under the hammer about an hour into the sale.

The family resurgence has continued in other branches too and George Strawbridge won the Group 1 Prix de l’Opera last year with We Are, a daughter of Dansili, while Nick and Alice Nugent have nurtured Noyelles who is the dam of Lily’s Angel and Zurigha, stakes winners in recent years.