THERE were great scenes in the parade ring at Punchestown on Tuesday when Zabana landed a well-deserved Grade 1 success in the Growise Champion Novice Chase. Carrying the colours of Chris Jones and trained by Andy Lynch, the seven-year-old son of Halling was the second Grade 1 winner on the day that had been selected and purchased as a young horse by Kevin Ross Bloodstock.

Kevin and his wife Anna Moore are a formidable team of experts when it comes to bloodstock and they both possess blue-blood pedigrees themselves. To have sourced two Grade 1 winners on the same day at a major festival meeting must surely rank as one of their best days at the races. They then went one better on Wednesday when Blow By Blow captured the Grade 1 Attheraces.com Champion INH Flat Race (see separate story).

Zabana was bred by Denis and Catherine O’Flynn’s Old Carhue Stud and Graeng Bloodstock and among the good horses they have been responsible for previously was the Group 1 winning filly Rosdhu Queen. When offered for sale as a yearling at Tattersalls, the Halling colt Zabana was led out with no takers at 9,000gns.

He went into training with Ken Condon and won for him before he next appeared in the sale ring as a three-year-old in the Goffs Horses In Training Sale and this time he generated plenty of interest, being sold by Ridge Manor Stables for €31,000. He is now the winner of four hurdle races and a pair of chases for his present connections.

Gandia, the dam of Zabana, is a daughter of Danehill and she won as a three-year-old in France. She was sold the following year, in foal to Medicean, for 150,000gns and part of her attraction was the fact that she was a full-sister to the stakes-placed juvenile Amalie Bay. He was sold for €540,000 as a yearling and only raced four times for Michael Tabor when trained at Ballydoyle.

SANGSTER

Gandia’s Spectrum half-sister Quinta Special went to New Zealand where, among her successful offspring, she bred the multiple Group 1 winner Sangster. That gelded son of Savabeel won more than AUS$2 million and his victories included the Victoria Derby and the Auckland Cup.

Quinta Special and Gandia were two of the four winners, all her foals, produced from Al Galop, a winning daughter of Affirmed. Al Galop had 10 winning siblings and the best of these was the dual Grade 1 winner Both Ends Burning and he was the outsanding runner among the many stakes winners in the USA that descended from Zabana’s third dam Star Game.

The pedigree of Grade 1 winning chaser Zabana is far removed from that of the second Kevin Ross Bloodstock buy God’s Own. The eight-year-old son of Oscar was sold three times and by three different sales companies.

Tattersalls Ireland had first claim on him as the Caroline O’Driscoll-bred colt realised €8,800 as a foal back in 2008 when consigned from Miltown Park Stud.

Three years later he was back at the Goffs Land Rover Sale and it was here that Kevin Ross spotted his potential, giving €17,000 for the three-year-old who was sent to the sale by Rathurtin Stud. Just less than a year later, this time from Silverfort Stud, he was back at the Brightwells Cheltenham Sale where Tom George, his current trainer, paid £62,000 for him.

God’s Own is out of the unraced Phardante mare Dantes Own and the mating with that son of Sadler’s Wells had worked previously when producing Working Title, a six-time winner on the racecourse and a multiple point-to-point winner too with at least eight successes between the flags to his credit. He was also placed in a Grade 2 hurdle race.

BEST TO DATE

God’s Own is now a three-time Grade 1 winner and he added to a Punchestown success at that level two years ago with another this year in the Boylesports Champion Chase, following up his win in the Melling Chase at Aintree. He and Working Title are the best of the winners to date from Dantes Term and their own-brother, a colt foal by Oscar, sold to Richard Frisby for €40,000 last November at Tattersalls Ireland.

Dantes Term is a half-sister to the graded-placed hurdler Moonshine Lad, by Milan, and their dam Parsons Term, a daughter of The Parson, won three times over hurdles. She was one of four winning produce of Zozimus and her winning half-sister Tyrone Typhoon bred Blitzkreig. Among his 11 successes were races of the calibre of the Power Gold Cup at Fairyhouse, the Victor Chandler Chase at Ascot and the Dennys Gold Medal Novice Chase at Leopardstown.