WITH the recent strong demand for well-performed mares in the sale ring, one wonders what Magic Of Light would realise were she to be offered at auction? The seven-year-old daughter of Flemensfirth (Alleged) added the Listed TBA Mares’ Novices’ Chase at Newbury to a prior victory in the Grade 2 Glencarrig Lady Mares Chase at Punchestown, while she has also placed in a number of graded races over hurdles and fences.

She is certainly worth a lot more than the £75,000 Stroud Coleman bloodstock agency gave for her at the 2017 Goffs UK Spring Horses In Training Sale, and this was a sizeable profit on the €20,000 she originally brought when Steve Kemble bought her for at the 2015 Goffs Land Rover Sale.

Bred by Baronrath and Colbinstown Studs, Magic Of Light is from one of the best female families in the stud book, one that has been far more used to producing top-class runners on the flat. However, Magic Of Light’s dam Quest Of Passion (Saumarez) has established a high-class National Hunt branch of her own.

Quest Of Passion was bought by Philip and Jane Myerscough’s Ballysheehan Stud for 110,000gns as a three-year-old when she had been placed a few times in France. They tried to sell her five years later at the same venue but instead brought her home after she reached 150,000gns in the sale ring. In her early years at stud she visited the likes of Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer) and Danehill (Danzig) and bred a couple of winners.

The best of these early winners was Mughas (Sadler’s Wells) and he sold to Shadwell Estate for IR380,000gns at the Goffs Orby Sale in 2000, but his valued plummeted to 30,000gns two years later when he only manged to place a few times on the flat. Alan King won five hurdle races with him and he was runner-up in a Grade 2 juvenile hurdle and placed in a listed hurdle race at Aintree.

The Myerscoughs, with co-breeder Charles O’Brien, later turned Quest Of Passion’s attention to dual-purpose and National Hunt sires with considerable success.

Matings with Definite Article (Indian Ridge) produced Sizing Platinum who was placed in a number of graded chases, and then went one better with Pingshou who won the Grade 1 novices’ hurdle at the Aintree Grand National meeting.

In the meanwhile, an unplaced daughter of Quest Of Passion, Prairie Bell (Sadler’s Wells) bred the Grade 2 Gowran Champion Chase winner Cailin Annamh (Definite Article).

What made Quest Of Passion so valuable when she was originally purchased by the Myerscoughs? She was a full-sister to a listed winner in France and Germany, Supreme Commander (Saumarez), and a half-sister to four other stakes winners. Two of these, Fair Of The Furze (Ela-Mana-Mou) and Majestic Role (Theatrical) are deserving of special mention.

Fair Of The Furze won the Group 2 (now Group 1) Tattersalls Rogers Gold Cup and the best of her winners was the Group 1 Italian Derby winner White Muzzle (Dancing Brave). He was twice runner-up in the Group 1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes and in the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. Through her listed winning daughter Elfaslah (Green Desert) she is grandam of the Group 1 Dubai Gold Cup and Group 1 Prix Jean Prat winner Almutawakel (Machiavellian).

Majestic Role’s sole success was in the Listed Tyros Stakes at two and she is grandam, through different daughters, of the Group 1 winners Mekhtaal (Sea The Stars) and Germance (Silver Hawk). The latter won the Prix Saint-Alary, while Mekhtaal was successful in the Prix d’Ispahan.

Winner of the Group 1 Prix Lupin as a three-year-old and the Group 1 Premio Roma the following year, Flemensfirth has enjoyed a stellar career at stud. He retired to stallion duties 20 years ago and is set to cover in 2019, at the age of 27, for €15,000. This year he covered a select book of 113 mares.

His roll of honour of Grade 1 winners includes Relegate (filly), Tornado Flyer, Waiting Patiently, Poetic Rhythm, Abolitionist, One Track Mind, Coney Island, Flemenstar, Foxrock, Prince Of Scars, Defy Logic, Farrells Fancy, Tidal Bay, Like Your Style, Muirhead, Backspin, Imperial Commander, Pandorama, Equus Maximus, Joe Lively, Ponmeoath and Total Enjoyment (filly).