BARON Edouard de Rothschild is president of France Galop and he was on hand last weekend for the official inauguration of the newly revamped ParisLongchamp. Four days later he had the pleasure of seeing his four-year-old home-bred Nathaniel (Galileo) filly Palombe gain a significant stakes win in the Listed Prix Gold River over a mile and six furlongs at the track. The filly is trained by Andre Fabre.

In so doing she further enhances an already top-class female line, while also giving her sire his first stakes winner of 2018. She is one of half a dozen stakes winners now for the Newsells Park Stud stallion, and four of these are females. Heading the list, by some distance, is the brilliant Enable, winner of more than €4.4 million and successful in all but one of her eight starts.

A triple Group 1 Oaks winner (if you include the Yorkshire version), Enable also won last year’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and rounded off a memorable season with victory in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

Palombe is one of a pair of winners for her Boreal (Java Gold) dam Grey Lily, a minor winner as a thee-year-old and purchased by the Baron in 2010 for €95,000 at the Arqana December Sale. Her sire Boreal won the Group 1 German Derby and the Coronation Cup at Epsom but has been a huge disappointment at stud. Grey Lily was the first foal from the Group 1 Prix du Moulin winner Grey Lilas (Danehill) and that mare’s second offspring, by no less than Galileo (Sadler’s Wells), was the French 1000 Guineas and Oaks winner Golden Lilac.

Grey Lilas was herself placed in both those French classics, and her four career wins included a pair of Group 3 races also. Her first six foals have run and won and they also number the listed mile and a half winner Golden Guepard (Hurricane Run) and the group-placed Australian runner Grey Lion (Galileo) among them. Grey Lilas has a yearling colt by Gleneagles (Galileo) who is in Germany, while her foal in 2018 is a filly by Australia (Galileo).

Grey Lilas and her daughter Golden Lilac were trained, as is Palombe, by Andre Fabre. Grey Lilas is one of eight foals and seven winners for her dam Kenmist (Kenmare). She is the best of that septet, with the Sir Henry Cecil trained Kandahar Run (Rock Of Gibraltar) being another standout.

Kenmist was trained in Newmarket by Luca Cumani and she won a listed race over a mile at Ascot and was group-placed in Italy. Her half-brother Jar (Niniski) was a multiple listed winner over staying distances in Italy, and also won a listed hurdle race there.

They were out of a filly called Mistral’s Colette (Simply Great) who was group-placed in Ireland at two before heading to Italy to continue her racing career. She was a listed winner in her adopted country and placed in group races.