BARRONSTOWN Stud-bred Kew Gardens (Galileo) gained the most important of his four victories to date on Sunday at ParisLongchamp when he led home an Aidan O’Brien 1-2-3 in the Group 1 Juddmonte Grand Prix de Paris, pushing his career earnings to approaching half a million pounds. In so doing he also emulated his dam Chelsea Rose who was herself a Group 1 winner in her racing days.

With this win at the weekend Galileo can now lay claim to 72 Group or Grade 1 winners on the flat around the world, just one less that his own sire Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer). This week I visited Coolmore and looked at the mouth-watering list of top-flight winning sons and daughters of the legendary stallion, and it is truly remarkable. When the final tally for Galileo is eventually compiled it will however leave his own sire a furlong behind.

Kew Gardens joins Imperial Monarch and Scorpion as Aidan O’Brien winners of the Grand Prix de Paris and the improving three-year-old may not yet have hit the heights he is capable of. After his disappointing run in the Epsom Derby he was stepped up in trip and ran out an easy winner of the Group 2 Queen’s Vase at Royal Ascot. Brought back to a mile and a half he has shown that he possesses plenty of class over the classic trip.

Kew Gardens is the most important of Chelsea Rose’s four winners, the best of the rest being the Tamayuz (Nayef) filly Thawaany. She won the Group 3 Prix de Ris-Orangis over six furlongs and was runner-up in the Group 1 Prix Maurice de Gheest over half a furlong longer. Kew Gardens has run and won over further than any of his siblings.

Chelsea Rose, dam of Kew Gardens, sold at Goffs. Photo Goffs

Chelsea Rose is a daughter of Desert King (Danehill) and he had the honour of being the first Group 1 winner trained by Aidan O’Brien. The Irish National Stud-bred colt won the National Stakes at two and the following year returned to the Curragh to capture both the Irish Derby and 2000 Guineas. Chelsea Rose is one of his very best offspring, though she was eclipsed by the great Australian racemare Makybe Diva, the three-time Group 1 Melbourne Cup heroine. Desert King’s leading sons in Europe included both Darsalam and Mr Dinos.

Daughters of Desert King have produced 25 stakes winners, a dozen of them at group or graded level. They include the Group 1 Oakleigh Plate winner Eagle Falls (Hussonet), one of three group winners from his dam; the Group 2 Kilboy Estate Stakes winner Mango Diva (Holy Roman Emperor); and another winner of the same Curragh Group 2 race in Bocca Baciata (Big Bad Bob) who was also runner-up in the Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes. Chelsea Rose was trained by Con Collins and she had her greatest success at two when she won the seven-furlong Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes. At three she stretched in trip to win a listed race at Leopardstown over a mile and a half and she was runner-up in the Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes. She proved to be some bargain buy as a yearling, having cost just 38,000gns and she was later sold carrying Thawaany at the Goffs November Breeding Stock Sale in 2012 by Airlie Stud to BBA Ireland for a sale-topping price of €450,000.

Bred at Airlie Stud, Chelsea Rose heads the list of 10 winning offspring of Cinnamon Rose (Trempolino) and that filly won a Roscommon maiden 21 years ago in the colours of Anthony Rogers and trained by Gerry Cusack. At stud Cinnamon Rose bred a second stakes winner in the colt European (Great Commotion).

Some of the best of Cinnamon Rose’s siblings were the Group 2 Prix Eugene Adam winner River Warden (Riverman) who was also second in the Grade 1 San Juan Capistrano Invitational Handicap; and Sweettuc (Spectacular Bid), a Grade 3 winner in the USA.

The grandam of Cinnamon Rose was Servilia (Aureole) and she was a half-sister to the Group 1 Prix de la Foret winner Snob (Mourne), a leading sire and broodmare sire in France.

I was privileged to see Galileo on Monday at Coolmore, a picture of health at the age of 20 and after a busy season. With excellent fertility and looking as fresh as he does, it is hard to imagine where his tally of Group 1 winning offspring will finish up. He will eclipse Sadler’s Wells shortly.