ANA O’Brien paid €11,500 at the Goffs November Sale last year for a four-time winning daughter of Holy Roman Emperor (Danehill). She is by the broodmare sire of a trio of Group or Grade 1 winning two-year-olds in Newspaperofrecord (Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies’ Turf), Verbal Dexterity (National Stakes) and Johannes Vermeer (Criterium International).

Too Precious, the now five-year-old that O’Brien bought, is a half-sister to six-time winner Song Of Love (Fastnet Rock), but more importantly is a full-sister to Numerian (Holy Roman Emperor). At the time of the sale he was group and listed-placed at Dundalk, but he made the perfect start to the new turf season with victory in the Listed Devoy Stakes at Naas.

Numerian was bred by Aidan and Annemarie O’Brien’s Whisperview Trading and he is out of an unraced High Chaparral (Sadler’s Wells) mare Delicate Charm. She had just one winning sibling who was Grade 3-placed over hurdles, but things pick up again in the third remove. That third dam, Kalata (Assert), bred by the Aga Khan Studs, produced just a single winner in Kithanga (Darshaan). She won the Group 3 St Simon Stakes and Listed Galtres Stakes and was placed third in the Group 1 Irish St Leger.

At stud Kithanga bred another winner of the St Simon Stakes in Koora (Pivotal), but that performance was eclipsed by those of her sibling Milan (Sadler’s Wells), winner of the 2001 Group 1 St Leger, runner-up in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf and now a leading National Hunt sire under the Coolmore banner.

Fourth dam Kalkeen (Sheshoon), a stakes winner in France, has spawned a host of Group 1 and Grade 1 winners on the flat and over jumps, including such as dual Derby winner Kahyasi (Ile De Bourbon), The Irish Field St Leger winner Kastoria (Selkirk), Yorkshire Oaks heroine Key Change (Darshaan), and Grade 1 juvenile hurdle winners Pittoni (Peintre Celebre) and Sunray (Spectrum).