SATURDAY’S card at ParisLongchamp featured a pair of Group 1s, and pride of place goes to Anapurna, winner of the Prix de Royallieu and gaining a second win at that level for her owner breeders, Meon Valley Stud. Her victory will have been some consolation for the defeat 24 hours later of Enable, ensuring John Gosden and Frankie Dettori were on the scoresheet for the weekend.

The brilliant Frankel (Galileo), unbeaten in 14 career starts, is the sire of Anapurna who in the summer captured the Group 1 Investec Oaks. The filly is the best of the winners from Dash To The Top, a listed winner by Montjeu (Sadler’s Wells), who was runner-up in the Group 1 Yorkshire Oaks at three, having been placed a year earlier in the Group 1 Fillies’ Mile Stakes at Ascot.

Dash To The Top’s first foal, Dynasty (Danehill Dancer), was sold to Demi O’Byrne for 300,000gns as a yearling and went on to become group-placed, though his career was short with just six starts. He was followed the next year by Deep South (Red Ransom) who cost John Ferguson 320,000gns as a yearling, winning at two before adding three successes in Saudi Arabia at five.

A third successive colt was Seagull Star (Sea The Stars), and he won at two after costing connections 190,000gns as a yearling. Next up was Very Dashing (Dansili), and she earned blacktype at three. Dash To The Top has not had a live foal since Anapurna was born and was barren again this year. The year before Anapurna was born Dash To The Top has a filly, Fly To The Top (Mastercraftsman), and she is due to be sold at Tattersalls in December covered by Mukhadram (Shamardal).

Dash To The Top is a half-sister to Dash To The Front (Diktat), a listed winner at Warwick who, like her sibling, is now the dam of a Group 1 winner. In fact, her winner at the highest level did so twice, Speedy Boarding (Shamardal) winning the Group 1 Prix de l’Opera at Chantilly and the Group 1 Prix Jean Romanet at Deauville. Dash To The Front is in foal this year to Dubawi (Dubai Millennium) and her grandson Dashing Willoughby (Nathaniel) won this year’s Group 2 Queen’s Vase at Royal Ascot.

On the same card, the popular seven-year-old gelding Holdthasigreen (Hold That Tiger) added the Group 1 Prix du Cadran to a victory last year in the Group 1 Prix Royal-Oak. Owned and bred by Jean Gilbert and Claude le Lay, the 14-time winner is by some way the best horse ever produced in his family. If you go back to his fifth dam you will find the 1963 Desmond Stakes winner Wily Trout (Le Sage), later to enjoy some success as a stallion.