TWO six-year-old sons of Invincible Spirit landed the pair of listed races run at Lingfield on the all-weather last Saturday. The six-furlong Cleves Stakes was won by Rivellino, bred by Castlemartin Stud and Skymarc Farm, while the 10-furlong Winter Derby Trial Stakes went to the Irish-bred Grendisar for the second year running. He was bred by Old Carhue Stud and Graeng Bloodstock.

Grendisar has a fondness for artificial surfaces and this was his fourth listed win on them. All of his eight career successes are on all-weather and he has now amassed some £225,000 from those triumphs. He is a son of the Irish National Stud’s prize equine asset Invincible Spirit who has a dozen Group 1 winners among his many excellent offspring.

That dozen are led by the classic-winning colt Kingman and the multiple Group 1 winning filly Moonlight Cloud. Charm Spirit, last year’s top-class juvenile and 2016 classic hope Shalaa, the classic winner and classic-winning sire Lawman, and stallions Mayson and Vale Of York are also among that elite group, while Invincible Spirit’s sire sons include leading first season sires in two hemispheres, I Am Invincible in Australia and Zebedee in Europe.

Grendisar is much the better of the three winners produced by Remarkable Story, a daughter of Mark Of Esteem. Bred at Meon Valley Stud, she failed to sell as a yearling for 220,000gns and was put in training, making a single start at three and finishing down the field. She was put up for sale again and realised exactly that same amount at the Tattersalls December Sale.

attraction

Part of her attraction the second time around was that she was a half-sister to Necklace who was the best filly of her generation in Ireland as a juvenile, winning the Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes and the Group 3 Robert H Griffin Debutante Stakes. The following year she was placed in the Grade 1 Beverly D Stakes.

Grendisar’s third dam is the Irish Oaks winner Colorspin and three of her seven winners won at Group 1 level. Kayf Tara won both the Ascot Gold Cup and the Irish St Leger twice and is a leading National Hunt stallion. Opera House won three Group 1 races, namely the Coronation Cup, Eclipse Stakes and the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes.

The last of the trio of Group 1 winners was the Prix de l’Opera heroine Zee Zee Top and her daughters include the dual Group 1 winner and classic-placed Izzi Top, and the 2015 Group 2 winner Jazzi Top who was narrowly denied a Group 1 success by Covert Love at Longchamp last October.