PATIENCE is a virtue. Just ask the team at Oghill House Stud. It is home to four-time winner By The Edge (Shinko Forest) and her unraced nine-year-old daughter No Edge (Bertolini). The second foal from By The Edge was born some years after No Edge, and this is the three-year-old Astro Jakk, a son of Zoffany (Dansili). He had been sold as a foal for €42,000 and made his racecourse debut last weekend winning a six-furlong novice event at Southwell in the style of a horse who can go on to do better.

Bred by Paul Hyland and Christopher and James McHale, Astro Jakk’s dam was barren the year he was foaled to Zoffany and then visited Kodi Bear (Kodiac) and produced a colt last year. By The Edge is due to foal to Profitable (Invincible Spirit) this year and returns to him.

No Edge meanwhile has a yearling filly by Sir Prancealot (Tamayuz), her first produce, and a colt foal by Markaz (Dark Angel). As of this week connections had not decided on a covering sire for her.

Mating By The Edge with Zoffany was an obvious route to go. After all, she is a full-sister to the listed-placed, seven-time winner How’s She Cuttin’ (Shinko Forest) and that mare is now a member of the broodmare band at David and Diane Nagle’s Barronstown Stud after they purchased her for 260,000gns in 2016. She has a yearling colt by Galileo (Sadler’s Wells).

Crossing How’s She Cuttin’ with the world’s greatest sire was easy, given that she is already the dam of the smart Washington DC, a Royal Ascot winning juvenile and a multiple Group 1-placed runner. DC was bred by the same trio responsible for Astro Jakk and raised at Oghill House.

Every generation of this family breeds a good horse and among the standouts further back, but not remotely so, are the champion two- and three-year-old Grand Lodge (Chief’s Crown), Group 1 Canterbury Guineas winner Fine Society (Marscay), Group 2 South African Derby winner Silverpoint (Woodman), and champion Australian filly English (Encosta De Lago).