I PONDERED recently about the possibility of Make A Challenge stepping up successfully to Group 1 class and providing the Irish National Stud’s Invincible Spirit (Green Desert) with his 20th individual Group or Grade 1 winner. Well, he has been beaten to it because last weekend, in the USA, Digital Age captured the Grade 1 Turf Classic Stakes at Churchill Down, thus crediting his sire with this landmark victory.

Bred by Craig Bennett’s Merry Fox Stud, and from a mating recommended by Irishman Gary Hadden, Digital Age is the second top level winner in his family bred by the group. Indeed, Merry Fox Stud can lay claim to having produced four Group or Grade 1 winners, in the USA, Ireland, England and Germany, from just over 40 runners in the last six years. One in every 10 runners has been a top-level winner.

Victory for Digital Age was most timely as his Siyouni (Pivotal) half-sister is due under the hammer in Book 1 of the upcoming Tattersalls October Yearling Sale. She is three lots from the end of that sale, but no doubt patience will be rewarded as she has lots of appeal. In addition to being a half-sister now to a Grade 1 winner, she is by the sire of outstanding fillies Laurens, Ervedya and this year’s French 1000 Guineas winner Dream And Do.

Digital Age is the first foal of her unraced Lemon Drop Kid (Kingmambo) dam Willow View. He was purchased as a yearling by Klaravich Stables (Seth Klarman) at Tattersalls in 2017 for 325,000gns. He was one of six yearlings bought at the sale and the group also included the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf winner Newspaperofrecord. Two others from that group also earned blacktype. Willow View was sent back twice more to Invincible Spirit and produced a pair of fillies. The three-year-old Charming Spirit won in July on her most recent start for Craig Bennett, while the two-year-old Cheshire Plain is as yet unraced. The latter was retained last year. The sales-bound Siyouni is just the fourth offspring of Willow View.

Digital Age is out of a half-sister to Cursory Glance (Distorted Humor), a filly that was not only bred by Merry Fox Stud, but also carried their distinctive colours to success in the 2014 Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes at the Curragh. Trained by Roger Varian, she made just four starts, all at two, and her Group 1 victory proved to be her swansong. She also won the Group 3 Albany Stakes at Royal Ascot and suffered her only defeat when second to Tiggy Wiggy in the Group 2 Lowther Stakes.

Outstanding

Cursory Glance is the outstanding winner from Time Control, a daughter of Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer) who was purchased for Craig Bennett as a yearling in 2006 for 1,200,000gns. She was trained by Luca Cumani and won at three from only a handful of starts. Bennett did offer her at the 2015 December Sale and retained her at 1,400,000gns. She is still active and this year had a filly by Sea The Stars (Cape Cross).

Time Control’s yearling price was the second highest in Europe for a filly in 2006, only eclipsed by another daughter of Sadler’s Wells sold at Goffs. Her 1,200,000gns value matched that of the best colt of that year. Time Control was bred in partnership by Robert Barnett and she sold in the year that her full-sister Time On (Sadler’s Wells) won both the Group 2 Prix de Malleret and the Listed Cheshire Oaks. Time On has since produced the Group 3 winner Mot Juste, also by Cursory Glance’s sire Distorted Humor (Forty Niner).

This is still a very young and active family. Digital Age’s fourth dam Not Before Time (Polish Precedent) bred seven winners, among them his third dam Time Away (Darshaan) and her half-sister Time Ahead (Spectrum). The latter was runner-up in the Group 1 Prix de Diane-French Oaks, a race in which Time Away was also placed. Time Away won the Group 3 Tattersalls Musidora Stakes.

Three of Time Away’s siblings have produced recent stakes winners worldwide. Incantation (Sinister Minister) gained five of his nine wins at Group 3 level in Japan and he also ran second and third in the Group 1 February Stakes. Last October Chief Ironside (Lawman, by Invincible Spirit)) won the Group 2 Schweppes Crystal Mile in Australia, while last month the two-year-old Cairn Gorm (Bated Breath) won the Group 3 Prix de Cabourg at Deauville.

Digital Age brought his career earnings to over $1.2 million with his weekend’s success, adding to a pair of stakes wins last year at three, headed by another success at Churchill Downs in the Grade 2 American Turf Stakes. He must surely now be on the potential stallion list for many farms given Invincible Spirit’s growing reputation as a sire of sires.

Frankel’s landmark

When the Wertheimer-bred Kalahara won the Group 3 Prix d’Arenberg at ParisLongchamp, she became the 40th northern hemisphere-bred group winner for her sire Frankel (Galileo). It was appropriate that Kalahara won the five-furlong contest in record time, while Frankel reached this landmark achievement almost a year faster than Dubawi, the previous holder of the record.

Kalahara is from Frankel’s fifth crop and the first stakes winner from the foal crop of 2018. Her sire, unbeaten in 14 starts and winner of 10 Group 1 races, is already sire of 10 Group 1 winners and four of these, including Cracksman, emerged in his first crop.

In the same year that Kalahara was foaled, her winning dam Desertiste (Green Desert) sold at the Arqana December Sale for €355,000 to Jeremy Brummitt. Kalahara is her seventh foal and fourth winner, while a couple of the others were placed. Neither of Desertiste’s first two offspring won, though both are now winner producers. Her third produce Sasparella (Shamardal), like Kalahara, was a Group 3 winner at two when she won the Prix Eclipse at Chantilly.

Desertiste is a full-sister to dual Group 3 winner Only Answer (Green Desert) and a half-sister to three other stakes winners. One of these, Mondeliste (Galileo), has his first yearlings in 2020 and he was a Grade 1 winner in the USA and Canada, as well as running second in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile. He was born the same year as Intello (Galileo) who is out of Mondeliste’s Group 2-winning half-sister Impressionnante (Danehill), and she was runner-up in the Group 1 French 1000 Guineas.

Successful branch

This is the most successful branch of a family that descends from Fall Aspen (Pretense), Grade 1 winner of the Matron Stakes who compiled an outstanding record at stud, producing 14 foals, 13 runners, 13 winners, nine stakes winners and four Group 1 winners. The latter quartet comprises Northern Aspen (Northern Dancer), Hamas (Danzig), champion sire Fort Wood (Sadler’s Wells) and champion and Group 1 sire Timber Country (Woodman).

Fall Aspen’s daughter and Kalahara’s fourth dam Elle Seule (Exclusive Native) was a Group 2 winner in France and is dam of Group 1 winners Mehthaaf (Nureyev) and Elnadim (Danzig), grandam of Kalahara’s grandam, the Group 1 winner Occupandiste (Kaldoun), and the 2020 Group 1 winner Matterhorn (Raven’s Pass), and is third dam of Group 1 winner Ribchester (Iffraaj).