WHAT a start to the season for the Irish National Stud’s now veteran Invincible Spirit. Last weekend his son Grecia Magna kick-started Aidan O’Brien’s annual hunt for Group 1 wins with victory at Newmarket in the QIPCO 2000 Guineas.

When he won the Group 1 Vertem Futurity Trophy Stakes at Doncaster last year, 24 hours before another of Invincible Spirit’s sons, Royal Meeting, landed the Group 1 Criterium International at Chantilly, Magna Grecia had the distinction of being the 150th individual Group 1 flat winner trained by the Ballydoyle master O’Brien.

In 2002 Invincible Spirit, a son of Green Desert (Danzig), landed the most important of his seven wins, all over six furlongs, when he was successful in the Group 1 Sprint Cup at Sandown Park. He was then a five-year-old and was adding to a win in the Group 3 Duke Of York Stakes the same season. A listed winner at Ripon at two, he drew a blank in a curtailed second season before travelling to Ireland at four to win a Group 3 at the Curragh.

Invincible Spirit retired to stud at Tully where his fee for four seasons was €10,000, the lowest it ever was. His first crop included the Group 1 French Derby winner Lawman and in 2008 his fee rose to €75,000, before the dip in the market led to a couple of years of decreases. Consistently strong results led to a steady rise to a current peak of €120,000, his fee for the past four years.

The current crop of two-year-olds are his 14th of racing age, and his tally of Group 1 winners stands at 18. With the exception of the triple Group 1 Australian heroine Yosei, all Invincible Spirit’s Group 1 winners have been in Europe. Moonlight Cloud won six times at the highest level, while the successful 2018 first season sire Kingman won four Group 1s in an eight-race career that saw him defeated just once.

In addition to his influence as a sire, Invincible Spirit’s sons and daughters are now playing their part in ensuring that he creates a legacy at stud. Dual Group 1 winner Lawman, now in France, is the sire of five winners at the same level, while the Group 3 winner I Am Invincible, champion sire down under, has overtaken him with seven Group 1 winners to date. Other sons with stakes winning offspring include Charm Spirit, Mayson, Vale Of York and Zebedee.

Before Magna Grecia’s big race win at two, his dam and a half-sister were both catalogued to be sold at the Tattersalls December Sale in Newmarket. No doubt the disappointment of the sales company at the withdrawal of both has been countered by the elation of the owners of both in keeping them.

Magna Grecia is the best of three winners from the first five foals and runners out of Cabaret, and she was once in the ownership of the Coolmore team. Bought by John Magnier for €300,000 as a yearling from Denis Brosnan, the Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) filly Cabaret was trained by Aidan O’Brien. She was runner-up to the subsequent Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes winner Termagant before winning her maiden at the Curragh and adding the Group 3 Silver Flash Stakes at Leopardstown. She sold as a four-year-old, in foal to Danehill Dancer (Danehill), for 600,000gns to BBA (Ireland).

The foal she was carrying recouped most of her cost when sold as a yearling from Highclere Stud for 525,000gns to Flaxman Holdings. Named Prance, she failed to win and was purchased subsequently by John and Jake Warren for 170,000gns for Floors Farming and Newbyth Stud. Her first offspring is a yearling filly by Invincible Spirit’s three-parts brother Kodiac (Danehill).

Cabaret is a half-sister to the Group 3 Solario Stakes winner Drumfire (Danehill Dancer) and to Ho Choi (Pivotal), a listed winner at four in Hong Kong who was runner-up in the Group 2 Gimcrack Stakes. They are some of the nine winners produced from Witch Of Fife (Lear Fan), a stakes-placed dual winner at two and the best of seven winners from the stakes-placed Fife (Lomond). Fife is also grandam of the Group 1 C L Weld Park Stakes winner and Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes runner-up Ugo Fire (Bluebird). The latter was one of many inspired purchases by the late Frank Barry who picked her up for just €21,000 as a yearling.

Magna Grecia is one of five stakes winners already this year for Invincible Spirit, and last weekend was memorable as the sire’s three-year-old son Digital Age, unraced at two, made it three wins in three starts with victory in the Grade 2 American Turf Stakes at Churchill Downs. He had previously won the Columbia Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs and is trained by Chad Brown.

This improving colt was bought as a yearling at Tattersalls October Sale Book 1 for 325,000gns. Bred by Craig Bennett’s Merry Fox Stud, Digital Age is the first foal from the unraced Lemon Drop Kid (Kingmambo) mare Willow View. Advised by Gary Hadden, Bennett sent the mare for three successive years to Invincible Spirit and she has a two-year-old filly, Charming Spirit, in training with Roger Varian, and a yearling filly on the ground. Covered last year by Siyouni (Pivotal), Willow View was due to visit Frankel (Galileo) this year.

Willow View is a daughter of Time Control, a daughter of Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer). She was purchased as a yearling for 1,200,000gns in the year that her full-sister Time On (Sadler’s Wells) won the Listed Cheshire Oaks and the Group 2 Prix de Malleret, in between times running sixth to Alexandrova in the Oaks. A year after her daughter Cursory Glance (Distorted Humor) won the Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes, Time Control was sent to the December Sale but retained by Merry Fox Stud at 1,400,000gns.

Time Control made the trip this year to Gilltown Stud to visit Sea The Stars (Cape Cross), while Cursory Glance was due to return to visit Frankel (Galileo). The cross that was so successful in producing Cursory Glance has been repeated by the Barnetts who own Time On. She was sent to visit Distorted Humor (Forty Niner) and the result, the now three-year-old filly Mot Juste, won the Group 3 Oh So Sharp Stakes last year and was runner-up in the Group 3 Nell Gwyn Stakes on her seasonal debut this year.