SLIPPING under the radar a little was yet another fine training effort by Gavin Cromwell.

On Tuesday, he saddled the five-year-old mare Dha Leath to win the Listed Pipalong Stakes at Pontefract on her 27th start, but her first in a stakes race. The daughter of Mehmas (Acclamation) races for a partnership that includes Garvan Donnelly, and it was he who trained the mare for the first couple of seasons in which she ran, finally coaxing a victory out of her at Navan after a few near misses.

A change of scenery and maturity have worked the oracle with Dha Leath (the Irish for bipartite), and her five wins since have seen her travel around Ireland, winning at Limerick, Gowran Park, Roscommon and Naas, and now taking her earnings to more than €85,000 with her second trip to England. All of this has been achieved somewhat against the odds.

Bred by Bernie Cooke at Bryanstown House Stud, Dha Leath is from the first crop of Mehmas, and she is the 22nd stakes winner by that Tally-Ho Stud stallion. She was sent to the sales as a foal, the first offspring of her unraced Observatory (Distant View) dam Tarried, making a fruitless trip to Newmarket where she proved to be friendless, and failed to sell for a mere 1,500gns in the ring.

Having produced another filly, the unraced Panda Wag (Dragon Pulse), and been put in foal to Free Eagle (High Chaparral), Tarried was sent to the 2020 Goffs February Sale, and there she was ‘given away’ for €1,000 to the German purchaser Frank Fuhrmann. He now trains the resulting colt, named Tell Me Fast, but he has shown nothing in five starts this year, all within a two month period.

Celebrated

That said, Dha Leath does come from a family that is one of the most celebrated in the stud book. Tarried was purchased through the BBA Ireland for 12,000gns as a two-year-old, and she was something of a gamble, given that her dam’s only runner at the time was Quietude (Three Valleys), and he had won twice that year as a five-year-old in Germany. He was to later add three more victories.

Since then, Tarried’s dam Ataraxy (Zamindar), has added to her success rate at stud, and now is responsible for four winners, and they have been successful in Germany, Spain, England and Japan. The more recent winners have all been bred at Bryanstown House Stud, as Ataraxy was acquired by Bernie Cooke two year before he bought her daughter, again at Tattersalls and she cost him 25,000gns. Ataraxy’s appeal was more apparent.

From a celebrated Juddmonte family, Ataraxy was sold carrying Aljunood (Bated Breath) and what a jackpot Cooke hit when he sold that colt for 130,000gns as a foal, five times the dam’s purchase price 12 month earlier. Last year, Ataraxy’s seventh produce, the now two-year-old Scott Valley (Churchill), realised 25,000gns. Interestingly, Tarried is the only filly produced to date by Ataraxy.

Bahamian

I will conclude with a short summation of the rest of this family, as it is well-known to you all. Ataraxy is the only offspring of the listed winner and group-placed Bahamian (Mill Reef) not to race. Her nine runners resulted in seven winners, the best of which was the champion and Group 1 Irish Oaks winner Wemyss Bight (Dancing Brave). That mare went on to breed a top-class runner in Beat Hollow (Sadler’s Wells).

In all, five daughters of Bahamian became dams of stakes winners, but two others are worth mentioning. The stakes-placed Trellis Bay (Sadler’s Wells) bred Reefscape (Linamix) Coastal Path (Halling) and Martaline (Linamix), all group winners and successful National Hunt stallions, but pride of place goes to a once-raced full-sister to Wemyss Bight, Hope (Dancing Brave). She bred two Group 1 winners, the hugely successful sire Oasis Dream (Green Desert), and the classic winner Zenda (Zamindar). In turn, Zenda is the dam of one of the stars of the Juddmonte stallion roster, Kingman (Invincible Spirit).