GODOLPHIN’S five-year-old Japanese home-bred Fine Needle confirmed his status as the leading sprinter in that country with his last gasp victory in Sunday’s six-furlong, Group 1 Sprinters Stakes at Nakayama.

The win earned him an automatic berth in the upcoming Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint through the international Breeders’ Cup Challenge.

Fine Needle joins Disco Partner, who won the Grade 2 Jaipur Invitational at Belmont Park, and Havana Grey who captured the upgraded Group 1 Derrinstown Stud Flying Five at Leopardstown as the other Turf Sprint “Win and You’re In” contenders. Hopefully some will take up the challenge.

A son of Admire Moon (End Sweep), Fine Needle was winning his fourth group race in five starts this year. A few weeks earlier he came back after a four-month layoff to score an impressive repeat victory in the Group 2 Centaur Stakes. He began 2018 by winning the Group 3 Silk Road Stakes in January and returned in March to take the Group 1 Takamatsumomiya Kinen. His only defeat this year was in Hong Kong where he finished fourth in the Group 1 Chairman’s Prize.

Fine Needle is the best of five winners from the Mark Of Esteem (Darshaan) mare Needlecraft and she was trained in France where she carried the maroon and white silks of Sheikh Mohammed. She travelled a bit to race and won the Group 3 Prix Chloe at Chantilly and Group 3 Premio Sergio Cumani at Milan, while she was runner-up in a Group 2 race in Cologne, Germany.

Needlecraft is a daughter of Sharp Point (Royal Academy) and that filly was bought as a yearling by Dermot Weld for 75,000gns at the 1993 Houghton Sale (equivalent of today’s Book 1). She was the sixth highest priced yearling filly by her sire that year and the Houghton Sale average 25 years ago (when just three of the 299 lots offered were unsold!) was just over 61,000gns.

Sharp Point carried the colours of Walter Haefner’s Moyglare Stud and she was runner-up in the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes before going on to win the Listed Tipperary Sprint. At stud she bred eight winners, Needlecraft being only overshadowed by the Group 2 Prix Dollar success of her half-brother Fractional (Manduro).

Sharp Point’s dam Nice Point (Sharpen Up) was a half-sister to the dual Group 1 2000 Guineas winner Tirol (Thatching) and the group-placed Lady Donna (Dominion), the latter becoming the dam of Group 1 Phoenix Stakes winner Lavery (Royal Academy), a close relation to Sharp Point.

Admire Moon was the best older horse in Japan as a four-year-old when he won the Group 1 Japan Cup and the Group 1 Takarazuka Kinen. That year he also travelled to Dubai and annexed the Group 1 Dubai Duty Free Stakes at Nad Al Sheba.

Though he has eight crops of racing age, Admire Moon only sired his first Group 1 winner when Seiun Kosei won last year’s Takamatsunomiya, and Fine Needle, who hails from the same crop, is now his second top-level winner.

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