AT the end of the year in which he covered Siskin’s dam Bird Flown at Juddmonte Farm in Kentucky, Grade 1 winner First Defence was sold to continue his stud career at Haif Stud in Saudi Arabia. A son of Unbridled’s Song (Unbridled), he was trained by Bobby Frankel on behalf of Juddmonte Farms. He went to stud in 2009 at a fee of $20,000, but this had dropped to $7,500 by 2016.

First Defence won six of 14 starts and was a top-class sprinter who was effective on both dirt and turf. He won the Grade 3 Jaipur Handicap at Belmont Park before turning in a brilliant performance to run out a near seven-length winner of the Grade 1 Forego Stakes at Saratoga. He also won the Long Branch Breeders’ Cup Stakes at Monmouth Park and ran second in the Grade 1 King’s Bishop Stakes and Grade 2 Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap.

At stud First Defence hit the ground running and his initial crop contained multiple Grade 1 winner Close Hatches and the smart British juvenile Dundonnell, winner of the Group 3 Acomb Stakes. Close Hatches was crowned the champion older mare of 2014 after capturing the Grade 1 Apple Blossom Handicap, Grade 1 Ogden Phipps Stakes and Grade 1 Personal Ensign Stakes.

These were among her nine career wins and now Close Hatches has started her breeding career with a bang. Her first foal is Khalid Abdullah’s Tacitus (Tapit), a dual Group 2 winner last year who was runner-up in both the Grade 1 Belmont and Grade 1 Travers Stakes, and third in the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby. He also ran in the inaugural Saudi Cup this year. Close Hatches and Tacitus are also from the female side of Siskin’s family.

Stakes winners followed for First Defence, including a second Grade 1 winner with another filly, Antonoe, but when Siskin, a home-bred of Prince Khalid Abdullah’s Juddmonte Farms, extended his unbeaten record to four last year at two with victory in the Group 1 Keeneland Phoenix Stakes it brought to three the number of top-level winners.

Siskin is one of 12 stakes winners by First Defence who himself comes from a famed Juddmonte female line.

Juddmonte's Prince Khalid Abdullah \ Healy Racing

Toussaud dynasty

His grandam is the great Toussaud (El Gran Senor). That broodmare of the year was a Grade 1 winner of the Gamely Handicap. She had 10 foals, five of each sex, seven runners, six winners and four Grade 1 winners. Two of these, Chester House (Mr Prospector) and Empire Maker (Unbridled), went on to be Grade 1 sires.

Siskin is closely related to two of First Defence’s best runners, the aforementioned Close Hatches and her full-sister Lockdown, a stakes winner who was placed in the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks. They are out of the French winner Rising Tornado (Storm Cat), a half-sister to Siskin’s dam Bird Flown (Oasis Dream). That mare won at two in France and Siskin, her second foal, is her first winner. She also has a two-year-old filly Talacre (Flintshire), and a yearling filly by Frankel’s own-brother Noble Mission (Galileo).

Siskin comes from an outstanding female line, his third dam being the leading race filly Monroe (Sir Ivor), later to become a successful broodmare. Her progeny included the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes winner and sire Xaar (Zafonic) and her descendants have dual Grade 1 winner Senure (Nureyev), Group 1 Dubai Duty Free Stakes winner Cityscape (Selkirk), and leading sprinter and successful sire Bated Breath (Dansili) among their number.

Monroe is a full-sister to champion Irish juvenile Malinowski (Sir Ivor) and Group 2 Champagne Stakes winner Gielgud (Sir Ivor) and a half-sister to Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks winner Blush With Pride (Blushing Groom). Their dam, the stakes-winner Best In Show (Traffic Judge) had a total of nine winners, but to date at least 40 Group or Grade 1 winners descend from her, and they include some of the best known international racing stars.

Peaceful and Seamus Heffernan before the Tattersalls Irish 1000 Guineas \ carolinenorris.ie

1000 Guineas

Peaceful became the 85th Group 1 winner for Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) when she added the Tattersalls Irish 1000 Guineas to her only other success, a seven-length romp in a mile maiden at Thurles as a two-year-old. Unplaced on her debut, her only other outing was when beaten a neck in a listed race at Newmarket.

The best offspring of Missvinski (Stravinsky), Peaceful has three winning siblings, all by Galileo. Missvinski twice was sold at Keeneland, just over five years apart, but what a difference there was in the outcomes. Federico Barberini paid just $8,000 to secure her as a foal, the first offspring of her twice-raced dam Miss U Fran (Brocco). Eleven months later, through Rathbarry Stud as agents, she resold for 36,000gns as a yearling at Tattersalls.

Sent into training in France with Jean-Claude Rouget, Missvinski developed into a smart racemare and two of her four victories were in listed races. She was denied a Group 1 success by Darjina, the verdict being only half a length, and she was later sold to race in the USA where her form tapered off.

This was not enough to dissuade the Coolmore team and at the 2010 Keeneland January Sale Missvinski sold for $400,000 and was shipped to Ireland and a mating with Galileo.

In addition to Peaceful, the four winners from Missvinski include Easter (Galileo) who was sold for 800,000gns last year to Eaton Bloodstock. A stakes winner and group-placed, she now looks even better value as a full-sister to a classic winner. Apart from Missvinski and her two daughters, you have to go back to Peaceful’s fourth dam, the stakes-placed Careless Notion (Jester) to find more blacktype winners.

Cacoethes

Careless Notion had six winning progeny and two were successful at the highest level. In this part of the world we are more familiar with the 1989 Group 2 King Edward VII Stakes winner Cacoethes (Alydar) who was coming into that race off a third-place finish in the Derby. The Guy Harwood-trained colt was seven lengths behind Nashwan at Epsom but he later ran him to a neck in the Group 1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. At four he got the Grade 1 win he deserved when he travelled to Belmont Park and annexed the Turf Classic. He went to stud in Japan, siring two Group 1 winners.

Cacoethes was born six years after his half-sister Fabulous Notion (Somethingfabulous) and the best of her nine victories was in the Grade 1 Santa Susana Stakes at Santa Anita. She has further enhanced her reputation at stud, being the dam of Grade 1 Test Stakes winner Fabulously Fast (Deputy Minister) and the grandam of City Of Light (Quality Road).

The latter went to stud in 2019 at Lane’s End after an 11-race career that never saw him out of the first three. Four of his six wins were at Grade 1 level, earning him almost $5.7 million, and they were the Malibu Stakes at three, the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile and Triple Bend Stakes at four, and the Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes last year at five.