ATHY Angel won the Birdcatcher Nursery at Naas in 1978, a listed race, and this was one of three races she won in two seasons. She was group-placed at the Phoenix Park in the Mulcahy Stakes. At stud she had eight foals, seven of which ran and six of them won.

While none of her offspring earned blacktype, she has managed to ensure that her name remains prominent and mostly this is due to her only non-winning runner, the Double Form mare Twany Angel. She was placed as a juvenile in France and at stud she bred no fewer than nine winners, three of them stakes horses.

The best of the group was the Group 1 Prix de la Foret winner Mount Abu, a son of Foxhound who was trained during his career by at least four different handlers, but his principal success was gained during his time with John Gosden. This was not his only piece of form at the highest level and he was runner-up to Nuclear Debate in the Haydock Sprint Cup.

FAMILY SUCCESS

This is a family with which Gerry Callanan in Monasterevin has enjoyed great success on the racecourse and in the sales ring. He retained Mount Abu’s half-sister Angelic Sounds, a daughter of The Noble Player, and sent her to be trained by Declan Gillespie. She won one of her three starts as a two-year-old and that was enough to guarantee her place in the breeding shed.

Eight winners from nine runners is her record at stud and her best were the King’s Best colt Army Of Angels and the Pips Pride filly Seraphina. The first named was her sole stakes winner, while Seraphina was denied a Group 2 victory in the Lowther Stakes by a neck, and she was placed in listed races behind such luminaries as Cassandra Go and Pipalong.

A number of Angelic Sounds’ daughters have gone on to produce winners, but none as successfully as the Cape Cross mare Zameyla. This €150,000 yearling purchase by John Ferguson some years ago won a couple of times but at stud her offspring are headed by Serious Attitude, a daughter of Mtoto who won the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes at two and ended her career on a high with victory in the Grade 1 Nearctic Stakes in Canada.

Gerry Callanan sold a Shamardal daughter of Angelic Sounds as a foal to Blandford Bloodstock for €100,000 and she was purchased on behalf of James, David and Mercedes Egan’s Corduff Stud. The same agents signed for her again as a yearling but at the seriously discounted price of €40,000 and she reappeared the following spring at the breeze up sale in Newmarket, Mark Johnston acquiring her for 85,000gns.

Named Dulcian, she never raced and was sold at the end of her two-year-old year at Arqana for €62,000, making her way back to Corduff and joining their broodmare band.

The investment paid off when her first foal, a filly by Acclamation, sold to John Warren for €175,000 as a yearling and went into training with Luca Cumani. Named Handbell, she won last year as a three-year-old and she was covered this year, her first at stud, by Dutch Art.

Dulcian’s second foal is a now two-year-old son of Acclamation named Chessman and he made his debut this week for John Gosden and ran out a very convincing winner of a seven-furlong maiden at Kempton.

He is a horse to watch for next season. Meanwhile the Egans have a Dark Angel filly foal from Dulcian on the ground and the mare was one of the first to visit Free Eagle at the Irish National Stud this year.