LAST Sunday in the USA three graded stakes winners were Irish-bred.

Platinum Warrior (Galileo) won the Grade 2 San Marcos Stakes at Santa Anita for owner Zhang Yueshang and breeders Triermore Stud. The €200,000 yearling buy was previously successful in the Group 3 Gallinule Stakes at the Curragh.

The six-year-old Hawksmoor (Azamour) is surely deserving of a Grade 1 victory. A Group 3 winner in England at two, she won the Group 2 German 1000 Guineas the following year and is now a three-time graded stakes winner in the USA, adding the weekend’s Grade 3 Endeavour Stakes to previous victories in the Grade 2 New York Stakes and Grade 3 Beaugay Stakes.

The third Irish-bred winner was True Valour, bred by Pat O’Rourke at his Belmont Stud in Wexford. This five-year-old son of Kodiac (Danehill) was sold by Pat as a foal for 19,000gns to Tally-Ho Stud who sold him on as a two-year-old at Goresbridge for €100,000 to David Redvers. He won the Group 3 Ballycorus Stakes at Leopardstown and the Listed Dubai Duty Free Celebration Stakes at the Curragh, and last weekend added the Grade 3 Thunder Road Stakes at Santa Anita.

Pat sold the dam of True Valour, Sutton Veny (Acclamation), for 80,000gns in early 2015 to David Redvers in foal to Lope De Vega (Shamardal) and she soon afterwards foaled a filly. Redvers put her in foal to his own stallion Havana Gold (Teofilo) and put her back in the sales that December, getting a mere 15,000gbs in a private transaction from Joe Murphy.

Two years later she reappeared, carrying to Kodiac, and this time her value soared to 240,000gns and she was bought by BBA Ireland on behalf of Camas Park Stud. They retained her subsequent offspring last December – a wise decision in light of last weekend’s development.