BLUE Hen. You will see this term used regularly to describe broodmares of exceptional quality, but it is also in danger of being overused. For me, I prefer to retain it as a description for any broodmare who breeds four or more Group or Grade 1 winners on the flat.

Using that metric, you will find just eight mares in the world, and they are Eight Carat (dam of five Group 1 winners in Kaapstad, Marquise, Mouawad, Octagonal and Our Diamond Lover), Hasili (the only other mare to breed five Grade 1 winners in Banks Hill, Cacique, Champs Elysees, Heat Haze and Intercontinental), Dahlia (dam of Dahar, Dahlia’s Dreamer, Delegant and Rivlia), Darara (dam of Darazari, Dar Re Mi, Diaghilev (also known as River Dancer) and Rewilding), Ebaziya (dam of Ebadiyla, Edabiya, Enzeli and Estimate), Fall Aspen (dam of Fort Wood, Hamas, Northern Aspen and Timber Country), Toussaud (dam of Chester House, Chiselling, Empire Maker and Honest Lady) and finally Urban Sea (dam of Black Sam Bellamy, Galileo, Sea The Stars and My Typhoon).

There are obviously a greater number of mares with three Group or Grade 1 winners, and the latest to join them is Holy Moon who, but for the travails of the Italian racing and breeding sectors, would now be among that elite. Her daughter Sea Of Class lived up to her name when she won the Group 1 Darley Irish Oaks on Saturday and the dream is on. Could she become a winner of the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, thus emulating her sire?

Foaled in Ireland and bred by the Botti family’s Razza Del Velino, Sea Of Class sold as a yearling through Old Buckenham Stud at Tattersalls for 170,000gns as a yearling. A daughter of Sea The Stars (Cape Cross), she was bought by McKeever Bloodstock on behalf of Sunderland Holding Inc, the racing and breeding name of the Tsui family who raced her sire.

Sea Of Class is the ninth foal, ninth runner and ninth winner for her stakes-winning dam Holy Moon, and each is by a different sire. Holy Moon, a daughter of Hernando (Niniski), won five times in Italy, her most significant victory coming at three in the Listed Premio EBF Terme di Merano over 11 furlongs. Stretched to a mile and a half she was runner-up in the Listed Premio Giovanni Falck at Milan.

Holy Moon was bred by Stall E O S, a Norwegian entity, and sold as a yearling at Goffs to Alessandro Botti for a mere IR2,600gns through Barnane Stud. She was raced by his father Giuseppe and uncle Alduino under their racing title of Dioscuri SRL and trained by Alduino.

Five of her winners, most recently Sea Of Class herself, are stakes winners. The other four include no fewer than three successive winners of the Group 2 Oaks d’Italia (Group 1 until 2006) – something of a racing and breeding record surely.

Cherry Collect (Oratorio) started that sequence in 2012, the year she also captured the Group 3 Premio Regina Elena (1000 Guineas). She narrowly failed to land the Group 1 Premio Lydia Tesio, a race that two of her classic winning siblings did win. Cherry Collect is now a broodmare in Japan at Northern Farm where her first foal is a three-year-old daughter of Deep Impact (Sunday Silence) named Danon Grace, a winner last year.

Cherry Collect was bought as a yearling by Milanese insurance broker Felice Villa at Italy’s SGA Yearling Sale for €65,000. She raced under the banner of Villa’s Scuderia Effevi. For €70,000 Villa also acquired Charity Line (Manduro) and she became a Group 1 winner at three of the Premio Lydia Tesio.

Both Charity Line and Cherry Collect were sold on a broodmares to different branches of the Yoshida family. Charity Line’s oldest offspring is a Shadai Farm-bred two-year-old son of Orfevre (Stay Gold).

The next filly in the sequence was Final Score (Dylan Thomas) and she was bought privately by Villa. Like Cherry Collect, she was rated the champion three-year-old filly of her generation in Italy, an accolade that evaded Charity Line. She too won the Group 1 Premio Lydia Tesio.

Holy Moon’s other stakes winner is Wordless (Rock Of Gibraltar) and she landed a pair of listed races as a four-year-old. The fillies out of Holy Moon have been appreciably better than her colts, though Back On Board (Nathaniel) was runner-up last year in the Group 2 Italian Derby. The 10th foal out of Holy Moon is a yearling son of Oasis Dream (Green Desert) who sold for 55,000gns last year and in 2018 she had a colt foal by Golden Horn (Cape Cross), bred on similar lines to the weekend’s classic winner.

Sea Of Class is one of 47 stakes winner for Sea The Stars, all coming from his first five crops of racing age. No less than 27 of these are group/graded winners and nine of these have now won at Group 1 level. The Gilltown Stud resident stands alongside his dual Derby winning son Harzand, while his other winners of the highest order are Cloth Of Gold, his leading money earner with €2.3 million, Taghrooda, Stradivarius, Sea The Moon, Zelzal, Mekhtaal and Vazira.

Could Crystal Ocean become his 10th top level winner this afternoon at Ascot?