CHARM Spirit will stand at Tweenhills Stud next year and, apart from his fee being set at a reasonable £8,500 (about €10,000), breeders who use him and produce a stakes winner can return to him for free.

One of 18 Group 1 winners by Invincible Spirit (Green Desert), Charm Spirit was only once out of the money in nine starts, and went to stud as a three-time Group 1 winning miler.

He showed the first real signs of his ability at two when, on his third outing, he ran third to subsequent French classic winner and Breeders’ Cup Mile victor Karakontie. That ability exploded into reality at three when he accounted for such as Night Of Thunder. Toormore, Kingsbarns and Integral when capturing the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, the Prix du Moulin and the Prix Jean Prat.

His first European crop raced in 2018 and included a pair of Group 3 winning juveniles. While that was a laudable start, it has been nothing compared to the record of his first southern hemisphere runners. His initial crop, conceived at Windsor Park Stud, now numbers a pair of Group 2 winning fillies in Aretha and Fascino, while that year’s progeny also includes a pair of Group 3 winners, the most recent being Lilikoi who won last weekend’s Eulogy Stakes in New Zealand.

This victory was good news for Pencarrow Stud in Cambridge who, on January 26th, will offer a half-brother to Lilikoi at the Karaka Yearling Sale. That colt is a son of Vadamos (Monsun) who will have his first runners in 2020 and is set to cover next spring at Tally-Ho Stud for €6,000.

The Vadamos colt is the sixth offspring of the Giant’s Causeway (Storm Cat) mare Barbadine. She cost BBA Ireland $270,000 as a yearling at Keeneland in 2008 and raced in Ireland for Sir Peter Vela, being trained by David Wachman. Having won at Gowran Park and Dundalk, she was shipped to New Zealand and added a further victory there. Despite persistent attempts, she failed to earn any blacktype.

Nonetheless she was assured a place in the breeding shed as her younger sibling, Requinto (Dansili), emerged as a leading juvenile in 2011, his four wins that year including the Group 2 Flying Childers Stakes and the Group 3 Molecomb Stakes. He stood at Coolmore but now moves for next season to Italy.

Requinto is the best runner to date from 10 foals of racing age out of the champion Damson (Entrepreneur). Six are winners, while the current two-year-old Holy Roman Empress (American Pharoah) will hopefully add to that tally next year. This month Damson’s winning daughter L’Explora (War Front) was sold carrying to Caravaggio (Scat Daddy) for €300,000 at Arqana.

Damson, like her daughter Barbadine, was trained by David Wachman who bought her as a yearling at Goffs for €160,000. She was the second best juvenile filly in Europe, the best in Ireland, and she won the Group 2 Queen Mary Stakes before stepping up and beating the boys in the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes.