I CAN only imagine how proud a man Jay Leahy, who breeds horses in Ballincurrig, Co Cork, must be this weekend. He is the man responsible for Elegant Escape, the hugely impressive winner of the Grade 3 Welsh Grand National during the week.

The six-year-old Elegant Escape, trained by Colin Tizzard, made the best possible start to this season at Sandown when victorious in the Listed Future Stars Intermediate Chase. He was then runner-up to Sizing Tennessee before recording the most valuable success of his career to date at Chepstow,

A two-time hurdle winner, he was successful last season in a Grade 2 novice chase at Newbury, runner-up in a Grade 1 at Kempton and then ran third in the Grade 1 RSA Insurance Novices’ Chase at Cheltenham (to Presenting Percy) and the Grade 1 Mildmay Novices’ Chase at Aintree.

Sold for just €5,000 as a foal through Rathbarry Stud at Goffs, he made a tidy profit for John Quinlan when purchased by Aidan O’Ryan and Eoin Donnelly for €32,000 as a three-year-old at the Goffs Land Rover Sale. Ten months later and the same sales company sold him for a third time, this time at Punchestown for €150,000 to his present trainer and owner John Romans. His increased value was due to having finished second on his only point-to-point start to a talking horse, Samcro.

Elegant Escape was bred by Jay from Graineuaile (Orchestra), a mare he purchased for just IR£400 at Tattersalls Ireland nearly 20 years ago. A point-to-point winner, she went on to capture a mares’ chase at Clonmel before retiring to the breeding shed. Elegant Escape is easily her best runner and he is a full-brother to a winner and half-brother to two more.

One of his half-sisters is Cailleach Annie (Blueprint), winner of a point-to-point, a hurdle race and a chase and now safely in foal to Sans Frontieres (Galileo) and expecting her first foal in the spring. Unusually perhaps in the current climate, Jay is hoping for a filly to ensure the continuation of the family line.

You have to go back to Elegant Escape’s fourth dam Irish Beauty (Even Money) to find the next blacktype performers. She bred five winners, including the 10-time winning mare Small Run (Deep Run), a listed-placed chaser, and she is the grandam of The Screamer (Insan) who won a listed handicap hurdle at Listowel, and third dam of Lotomore Lad (Good Thyne), a Grade 3 novice handicap chase winning mare.

Elegant Escape is from the second crop by Dubai Destination (Kingmambo) produced after his move to Glenview Stud, part of the Rathbarry group. That crop also included this year’s Punchestown Grade 1 winner Next Destination, arguably the best runner over jumps for the former Dalham Hall sire. While he made an impressive start to his stud career with a Group 1 winning juvenile in his first crop thanks to Ibn Khaldun, Dubai Destination’s star waned and he went to Glenview as a dual-purpose stallion.

In the meanwhile he has also made a name for himself as a broodmare sire on the flat and is the dam sire of Group 1 stars Golden Horn and Postponed, among others. On the flat he sired a total of 14 group winners, including a couple of Italian classic winners, and moved to Glenview Stud in 2010. His final Irish crop are three-year-olds and he was sold to Saudi Arabia in the winter of 2014.

Breeders, stallion masters and readers are invited to contact Leo Powell at leopowell@theirishfield.ie with news and updates for the column, and to visit our website www.theirishfield.ie for daily breeding news