WHILE it is always a disappointment to have to bring a horse home unsold from the sales, there are times when it becomes a blessing in disguise. Such is presumably the case with recent two-year-old winner Another Story. The daughter of Rip Van Winkle won on her debut over six-furlongs at Dundalk last Friday in a field of 14 runners.

Bred by Sheila Lavery, she is trained by her breeder for the Spyglass Syndicate having been retained at €44,000 as a yearling. She is held in very high regard by Sheila and it will be interesting to see where she goes in the spring when she reappears. Her value has multiplied many times now that she is a winner and she has the added value of being from a well-known Juddmonte family.

Sold by Juddmonte as an unraced two-year-old at the December Sale in 2007, she was bought for 17,000gns. Sent to be covered the following spring by Hurricane Run, she produced a colt that was sold for 45,000gns as a foal. Named Unex Modigliani, he is still a maiden but keeps knocking at the door and a victory is certainly long overdue.

He was followed by a Dylan Thomas filly and she is named Diletta Tommasa. To date she is the winner of six races and again she is close to adding to that total. The next foal was never named and Another Story is foal number four. Also on the ground is a yearling colt by Tagula.

Another Story is out of Chronicle, a daughter of Observatory and a half-sister to six winners from eight runners produced by Quota. Best of this sextet is the listed winning juvenile Protectress, a daughter of Hector Protector. Quota is likely to add further winners to her record as she has a two-year-old filly by Rail Link in training.

By Rainbow Quest, the stakes-placed Quota is a full-sister to the Group 1 Racing Post Trophy winner Armiger and the following year he was runner-up in the St Leger to Bob’s Return and in the Prix Lupin to Hernando.

Rip Van Winkle is a son of Galileo and won three times in Group 1 company, namely the Sussex Stakes, Juddmonte International and the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. His first two crops have hit the track running and he is among the top 10 second-season sires in Europe. His son Dick Whittington won the Group 1 Keeneland Phoenix Stakes last year and is the best of his four European stakes winners to date. His daughter Magic Dancer is a group-winning juvenile in New Zealand.