ARMORY landed his third stakes success when he won the Group 3 The Irish Field Celebrating 150 Years Royal Whip Stakes at the Curragh, adding to a pair of group wins as a juvenile last year. These included the Group 2 Galileo Irish EBF Futurity Stakes also at headquarters.

Runner-up to Pinatubo in the Group 1 Goffs Vincent O’Brien National Stakes, he was also third to Victor Ludorum in the Group 1 Qatar Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere at ParisLongchamp on Arc weekend.

An own-brother to a winner, Armory (Galileo) is the second foal and winner for his dam After (Danehill Dancer) and he could soon be joined in the winners’ circle by his two-year-old full-brother Hms Seahorse (Galileo) who made a promising debut a month ago. After’s first filly is a yearling by Galileo (Sadler’s Wells).

After was bred by Old Carhue Stud and sold, through Grove Stud, for €240,000 at Arqana as a yearling to Demi O’Byrne. She was winner of a Curragh maiden at two, at the third time of asking, before going on to run second in a couple of Group 3 races at two and three. She and her half-brother, the French stakes winner Temps Au Temps (Invincible Spirit), are two stakes performers among the five winning progeny of Noahs Ark (Charnwood Forest) who was a three-time winner for owner Denis O’Flynn and trainer Dermot Weld. Runner-up in a listed race at the Curragh, Weld boldly sent Noahs Ark to the USA to contest the Grade 1 Garden City Breeders’ Cup Stakes at Belmont Park where she was two lengths off the winner, finishing a highly creditable third.

Jock Whitney

Armory is the current star in a branch of a family that has its roots in Kentucky and which served Jock Whitney well. Armory’s fourth dam Da Stael (Nijinsky) was a winning full-sister to Peacetime and Quiet Fling, the latter winner of the 1976 Group 1 Coronation Cup. Da Stael bred nine winners, four of them stakes winners, and the list is headed by the three-time Grade 1 winning mare Wandesta (Nashwan).

Da Stael features, via another branch of the family, even closer up in the pedigree of another weekend stakes winner. She is the third dam of Saint Lawrence who won for the second time, capturing the Listed Denford Stakes over seven furlongs at Newbury. He is the second consecutive stakes winner, after Daahyeh, from the mare Affluent (Oasis Dream) who was bought by Oakgrove Stud for 35,000gns in 2016.

Daahyeh was bred at the Deer family’s Oakgrove Stud, on the former site of Chepstow racecourse, though she was actually bought in utero for the Deers by their former manager Tim Lane, now the National Stud’s chief executive, from the Juddmonte draft at the Tattersalls December Mares Sale. The investment was recouped with profit when Daahyeh sold for £75,000 as a yearling to Oliver St Lawrence at the Goffs UK Premier Sale.

Daahyeh has won more than £230,000 after victories in the Group 2 Rockfel Stakes and Group 3 Albany Stakes, the latter at Royal Ascot, while she twice came close to top-level success, running second in both the Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes and the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Santa Anita.

Al Kazeem

Affluent’s latest stakes winner, Saint Lawrence, is a son of Oakgrove’s Al Kazeem (Dubawi) and the mare has a yearling colt by Ribchester (Iffraaj), while this year she foaled an own-brother to last weekend’s stakes-winning juvenile. Affluent is a half-sister to three stakes winners in Group 2 Flying Five hero Deportivo (Night Shift), juvenile stakes winner Irish Vale (Wolfhound) and Group 3 winner and Group 1 runner-up So Beloved (Dansili).

Al Kazeem was a top-class runner and, at the age of five, won three Group 1 races, the Tattersalls Gold Cup, the Prince of Wales’s Stakes and the Eclipse Stakes. He went to stud in 2014 but after proving to be sub-fertile, returned to racing and later that same year won a Group 3 and was runner-up in the Group 1 Red Mills Irish Champion Stakes.

In 2015 he won a second Group 1 Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh and the Group 2 Prix d’Harcourt, finishing second in the Group 1 Prix Ganay. He was back at stud in 2016 and, while covering relatively small books of mares, Al Kazeem’s fertility since is in or about 80%. Furthermore, that first crop of just 23 foals includes the Group 1 Preis von Europa winner Aspeter. His second crop, now three-year-olds, also numbers 23 and is headed by stakes winner Usak and the stakes-placed Golden Spell, while Al Kazeem’s current two-year-old crop has 28 progeny.