RATHASKER Stud stallion Fast Company (by Danehill Dancer) made an eye-catching start as a freshman in 2014 when his son Baitha Alga won the Group 2 Norfolk Stakes at Royal Ascot, shortly after taking the Listed Woodcote Stakes at Epsom.

Those first juveniles also included the Group 3 Molecomb Stakes runner-up Fast Act, and Devonshire, a filly who achieved a mark of 87 when winning over seven furlongs at the Curragh on the last of five starts.

This year, that Willie McCreery-trained filly has shot up the rankings, carrying the Godolphin colours into second place in a pair of Group 3 contests at Leopardstown before an outstanding effort in the Group 1 Irish 1000 Guineas in May.

Pleascach beat Found by half a length, and Devonshire, who was a length and a half behind, beat Jack Naylor by a nose for third place.

She lost by a neck in an eight and a half furlong listed contest at Killarney last month, but 10 days ago she trounced Alive Alive Oh by four and a half lengths in the Listed Edmund & Josie Whelan Memorial Listowel Stakes over nine furlongs in heavy ground.

Devonshire, who is a €100,000 Goffs Orby Sale graduate, was bred by Patrick Burns, and she is a half-sister to the listed sprint winner Hurryupharriet (by Camacho).

Her dam Nova Tor (by Trans Island), whom Burns’ Newlands House Stud also bred, won six times over the minimum trip, three of them on the artificial tracks, and she made just 1,000gns in Newmarket at the end of her racing career.

Her two-year-old, Escalate, is an unraced full-sister to Devonshire, and their yearling full-brother is catalogued as Lot 317 in Wednesday’s session of the Goffs Orby Sale.

SIBLINGS

Nova Tor’s siblings include the nine-times scorers Yungaburra (by Fath) and Kisella (by Mujadil), and also Titian Saga (by Titus Livius) whose daughter Hay Chewed (by Camacho) is yet another of note for the stud.

She notched up two easy wins for the Peter Chapple-Hyam stable as a juvenile, joined the Conrad Allen team the following spring, and won the Listed Land O’Burns Fillies Stakes at Ayr one week after failing by a neck to take a listed contest at Sandown, all over five furlongs.

Devonshire’s grandam Nordic Living (by Nordico), who was unplaced, has had eight winners from 10 foals, and she was one of only two foals for the dual winner To Die For (by Diesis).

That mare, dam of the winning two-year-old Long Beach (by Imperial Frontier), was, in turn, one of six from 12 for the Grade 3-placed listed scorer Bally Knockan (by Exclusive Native), and she was a half-sister to the Grade 1-placed Grade 3 Laurel Futurity winner River Traffic (by Irish River).

If you go back another generation then you find that the fifth dam of Devonshire is the Grade 3 scorer Ferly (by Traffic Judge), a nine-times winner whose half-sister Sweety Kid (by Olympia) would become the third dam of a US Horse of the Year, the great Lady’s Secret (by Secretariat).

Devonshire’s relationship to that hugely popular champion is remote, but she is a classic-placed stakes winner who is closely related to two blacktype sprinters, and she has the potential to become a broodmare of note whenever her racing days come to an end.