A SECOND stakes success at Hannover for an Irish-bred was recorded when the four-year-old filly Jin Jin (Canford Cliffs), bred at Gerry and Bernie Callanan’s Nanallac Stud near Monasterevin, made her fourth victory an important one, nabbing the Listed Grosser Hannoversche Ftutenmeile.

A full-sister to a hurdle winner and one of three winners from the Okawango (Kingmambo) mare Josphiel, Jin Jin was sold as a yearling for just €4,000 at the Goffs Open Yearling Sale. Josphiel started her racing career in Ireland for Gerry Callanan, who bred her. Trained by Sheena Collins, on her second start at two she was fifth in a maiden of 18 runners behind Halfway To Heaven at Leopardstown. The winner went on to win three more races, all Group 1s.

After her second season racing Josphiel changed stables and joined Alan Berry for whom, at the age of four, she was placed a few times in England. At stud she had five offspring, three winners and the multiple-placed Bounty Girl (Bushranger). The latter raced 10 times at two from Tim Easterby’s yard, finishing in the money, yet failing to win, on eight occasions. Despite her consistency, she went from being a €20,000 yearling to a 4,500gns juvenile when she was sold for export.

Josphiel was unusual as a non-winning daughter of the unraced Indian Honey (Indian King), because seven of that mare’s offspring were winners, and six of them on more than one occasion. Best of them all was Good Girl (College Chapel) who won the Listed Hilary Needler Trophy at Beverley before running a fine third, dividing Sophisticat and Lahinch, in the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes, though they were all seven lengths and more behind the runaway winner Queen’s Logic.

Breeding multiple winners is a feature of this family. Indian Honey was just one of a pair of 11 offspring from Rhein Honey (Rheingold) not to run. Seven of the nine who did managed to win and the stakes-placed Paix D’Irlande (Great Commotion) was the best of them. Rhein Honey herself was runner-up in a listed nursery at the Phoenix Park before going on to win three times in her second season racing.

If you think breeding seven winners is a fair achievement, think again. Rhein Honey’s dam Honey Bend (Never Bend) earned blacktype for being fourth in the Group 3 Athasi Stakes before the criteria changed to just the first three doing so. At stud she produced 13 winners, including stakes winners in Italy and the USA. Her influence spread further as her grandsons and granddaughters won stakes races in Ireland, England, Norway, Sweden and France.

Canford Cliffs was an outstanding miler, recording five wins at Group 1 level. At three he landed the 2000 Guineas, St James’s Palace Stakes and Sussex Stakes, and the following season added the Queen Anne Stakes at Royal Ascot and the Lockinge Stakes. He was denied a second Sussex Stakes by none other than Frankel.

The outstanding son of Tagula (Taufan) who is still hale and hearty at Rathbarry Stud at the age of 27, Canford Cliffs stood initially at Coolmore, shuttled to Australia, and then was sold to South Africa to stand at the Highlands Stud there. He has yet to sire a Group 1 winner, though two of his Australian progeny, La Falasie and Cliff’s Edge, and the Irish-bred Railway Stakes winner Painted Cliffs have won at Group 2 level. Jin Jin is his 17th stakes winner.