WHAT have Foxes Tales and Create Belief got in common? Both are Group 3 winners in the past week, having graduated from landing handicaps at this year’s Royal Ascot meeting. Both are three-year-olds, bred in Ireland.

Where they differ widely is in their yearling value. Foxes Tales sold in Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale for 400,000gns to SackvilleDonald, acting for King Power Racing. Create Belief sold earlier that same year at the Tattersalls Ireland September Sale for just €12,000. What was the cause of the huge disparity in their sale prices?

Well, at the time that the Manister House Stud-bred Foxes Tales sold he was a half-brother to seven winners, three of them at stakes level. The best of these was La Collina (Strategic Prince), winner of the Group 1 Keeneland Phoenix Stakes at two (see page 20 this week) and later to add the Group 1 Matron Stakes to her tally of victories.

Significantly, SackvilleDonald had previously paid 450,000gns for another offspring of the unraced Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) mare Starfish, and that was for a son of Kingman (Invincible Spirit). Named Fox Chairman, he won twice, including a listed race, and was placed a number of times in group races. King Power Racing and trainer Andrew Balding obviously were impressed enough to want to buy his half-brother. They still have Fox Chairman.

Starfish was a wonderful servant to the Barrys, having been purchased privately as a broodmare prospect. She was from the first crop of Galileo, and what foresight Frank and Liz Barry displayed when they purchased Starfish from her breeder Tommy Stack.

Foxes Tales is still unexposed, having just run six times. He has won three, been runner-up twice, and his victory last weekend came in the Group 3 Rose of Lancaster Stakes at Haydock. During the summer he landed the Golden Gates Handicap at the royal meeting. Now connections are talking about the possibility of a tilt at the Group 1 Champion Stakes in the autumn.

Last foal

Meanwhile, Luke Barry in Limerick welcomed a filly foal this year out of Starfish, a daughter of Kingman and a full-sister to Fox Chairman. She is the 10th and, very sadly, last foal from her dam, and all nine previous progeny are winners.

Just four of these 10 are fillies – La Collina, the stakes winner Entsar (Fastnet Rock), the stakes-placed Astadash (Zoffany) and the foal on the ground.

Astadash, an own-sister to Foxes Tales, was retained by Manister House and races in the colours of Liz Barry and her daughter-in-law Rebecca. On Wednesday, at Gowran Park, she came within half a length of winning the Listed Hurry Harriet Stakes, and what a victory that would have been. Earlier this year, in search of a stakes win, she was sent to Ayr and, again, ran second in a listed race.

The late Frank, his wife Liz and their son Luke have developed this branch of a family that traces back to Foxes Tales’ fourth dam Sorbus (Busted). She won a single race, though she was also first past the post in the Group 1 Irish Oaks, only to be put down to second place, a position she also occupied in the Irish 1000 Guineas, the Irish St Leger and the Yorkshire Oaks. Gerald Jennings’ Sorbus bred eight winners, five stakes winners, and through her daughters has become one of the most influential broodmares of the last half a century.

Worldwide

How do you gauge that influence? Well, consider this. In alphabetical order, she is the taproot of the following Group 1 winners around the world, in addition to the aforementioned La Collina; Beat Hollow (Sadler’s Wells), Dariana (Redoute’s Choice), Kingman (Invincible Spirit), New Bay (Dubawi), Oasis Dream (Green Desert), Reefscape (Linamix), Wemyss Bight (Dancing Brave) and Zenda (Zamindar). What a legacy and what a mare.

Hopefully Astadash can step up to winning a stakes race. It would be fully deserved and, in time, perhaps she will continue to honour a family that has been remarkably successful for her Croom-based breeders.