NAAS was a fruitful ground for Darley stallions, past and present, and the feature race on the card was the Group 3 Lodge Park EBF Park Express Stakes. It was won by Lemista, bred by Drumlin Bloodstock at the Motherway’s Yellowford Farm and sold as a foal to Gaelic Bloodstock for €16,000. Also a winner at two, this daughter of Raven’s Pass (Elusive Quality) could well be a classic hope.

It would seem that Raven’s Pass is really getting into his stride as a stallion, and he may not continue to be available at his current fee of €10,000, a quarter of what he started out at when he retired to stud. Recent years have seen the emergence of three Group 1 winners, while Lemista, his first group winner in Ireland, is one of 14 such winners.

Lemista is the second foal from her Arcano (Oasis Dream) dam Shortmile Lady. The first was a colt by Dandy Man (Mozart) who died as a yearling, while Mummy Bear (Kodi Bear) is a two-year-old filly who was snapped up by Peter and Ross Doyle for £40,000 last year. The yearling out of Shortmile Lady is a colt by Australia (Galileo) who sold to JC Bloodstock for 58,000gns at Tattersalls in December. Last year she visited Zoffany (Dansili).

Shortmile Lady is a half-sister to Group 3 Prix de Meautry winner Indian Maiden (Indian Ridge) and her numerous winners at stud are headed by the Group 3 winner Maid In India (Bated Breath) and dual French listed winner Love Spirit (Elusive City).

There is a spattering of blacktype winners and placed horses under Lemista’s third dam Minifah (Nureyev), but she was a half-sister to an outstanding winner in Winning Colors (Caro), one of only three fillies ever to win the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby. Unbeaten on both her juvenile starts, in the spring of 1988, she beat the colts in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby, winning by 7½ lengths. Sent to Churchill Downs for the Kentucky Derby, she was up against colts of the calibre of Risen Star, Seeking The Gold, Forty Niner, Regal Classic and Private Terms. As was her habit, Winning Colors broke fast and held on tenaciously to deny Forty Niner by a neck.

In the Grade 1 Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the Triple Crown, Winning Colors finished third to Risen Star, and he went on to win the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes by 15 lengths, while Winning Colors finished out of the money.

While she never bred anything approaching her own standard at stud, Winning Colors is the grandam of the Grade 1 Alabama Stakes winner Eskimo Kisses (To Honor and Serve) and she is now in Japan following her sale last November at Keeneland for $2,300,000 to Shadai Farm.