THERE was no dream result for the Kentucky Derby winner when he tackled the second leg of the Triple Crown last Saturday, victory instead going to Cloud Computing, winning only his second race in four starts and his first stakes race.

Unraced at two, he was placed in both the Grade 2 Wood Memorial Stakes and the Grade 3 Gotham Stakes. His winner’s purse at the weekend means he is now a racing millionaire.

Just like Always Dreaming, the Kentucky Derby winner, the latest Preakness Stakes winner is from the first crop of his sire. In this case the stallion is Maclean’s Music, the once-raced son of Distorted Humor who was himself a Grade 2 winning grandson of Mr Prospector. Distorted Hunor went on to be a hugely successful sire and grandsire.

Maclean’s Music only raced once but what a debut is was. He won by seven and a half lengths over six furlongs at Santa Anita as a three-year-old and did so posting amazing fractions. He was hailed by jockey Mike Smith, who knows a thing or two about good racehorses, as something special. While he did not get a chance to prove it further, he was given an opportunity at stud and breeders this year have used him at a fee of €8,500. He stands at Hill ‘n’ Dale.

On the dam side of the pedigree, Cloud Computing comes from a solid if not spectacular line. Catalogued as a yearling on day six of the September Yearling Sale, he was picked out by Irishman and bloodstock agent Mike Ryan. A half-brother to two minor winners at the time, he impressed Ryan physically and was bought for €200,000, the joint 10th best price of the session. That investment has been well and truly rewarded now.

Cloud Computing is now the best of four winning offspring of Quick Temper, a four-time winner by A P Indy and she was runner-up in the Grade 2 Silverbulletday Stakes. She in turn is out of Halo America, winner for John Franks of the Grade 1 Apple Blossom Stakes and seven other stakes races in a career that yielded 15 victories. She raced until the age of seven. At stud she is dam of seven winners, the best of which ran in Ireland.

He was Marino Marini, a son of Storm Cat, who raced from Ballydoyle and won the Listed Marble Hill Stakes on his second start. Runner-up to Spartacus in the Phoenix Stakes, he later went to race for Doug O’Neill in the USA and very narrowly missed out on a Grade 1 win when second in the Malibu Stakes. He stands in the USA where he has had moderate success.

Now 15 years of age, Cloud Computing’s dam Quick Temper was bought last November at Keeneland for only $6,000 by Hill ‘n’ Dale. This was after she failed to go in foal to Maclean’s Music and she has a yearling full-brother to Cloud Computing on the ground. Who says you can’t buy value at the sales?