JOHN Brophy bred the Aintree Grand National winner Royal Athlete and also successfully owned and bred good winners on the flat and over jumps. As an owner he won the Irish Grand National with the Paddy Mullins trained Luska.Felix Yonger is another good horse that he bred and that nine-year-old son of Oscar recently won his 11th race, taking the Grade 2 Hilly Way Chase for the second time. The first time he won it at Cork, but this year the race was transferred to Navan. A Grade 2 winner also over hurdles, Felix Yonger has gone one better over fences and his Grade 1 success came at Punchestown in the Drogheda Champion Chase.

A hugely consistent sort who has won half of his 22 starts and only been out of the first four twice, Felix Yonger has amassed earnings of more than £300,000 to date. John Brophy bred Felix Yonger from the Be My Native mare Marble Sound and her third dam Alcidette carried Brophy’s colours to a listed race success and a placing in the Blandford Stakes at the Curragh.

Alcidette only had two foals at stud and both of them won. The better of the pair was Allorette, a daughter of Ballymore, and she too raced for Brophy, winning three times and being group-placed. Six of her foals raced and all of them won. Her son Classic Venture was a stakes winner in France on the flat, while daughter Gan Ainm was stakes-placed in Ireland.

Gan Ainm is the dam of the smart Shantou gelding All Hell Let Loose, runner-up in the Grade 1 Royal Bond Novice Hurdle, and she is the grandam of the Grade 2 Winning Fair Juvenile Hurdle winner Burrenbridge Lodge, a son of Ivan Denisovich.

Allorette’s daughter Corvally is the grandam of Felix Yonger and his half-sister My Valley who was an eight-time winner and runner-up in a Grade 3 hurdle at Down Royal. Corvally is also the grandam, through another daughter, of Strawberry who won a listed mares’ chase at Newbury. Gerry Griffin bought a three-year-old Dubai Destination half-brother to Felix Yonger for €16,000 at the Tattersalls Ireland August Sale this year.