MULTIPLE champion sire Presenting (by Mtoto) added another blacktype winner to his tally when the Philip Hobbs-trained Dunraven Storm took the Grade 2 Racing Post Arkle Trophy Trial Novices’ Chase (registered as the November Novices’ Chase) over two miles at Cheltenham on Sunday.

His only previous outing over the larger obstacles was a winning one, at Exeter last month, and this unbeaten chase record adds to tallies of two out of three in bumpers, and four from 12 over hurdles.

He was bred by Violet Sweeney, and although his most long distance success came in a handicap hurdle over two miles, three and a half furlongs in April, he has a pedigree that could have led one to predict that it would be over three miles, or further, that his first graded victory might come.

Dunraven Storm is out of an unraced mare called Foxfire (by Lord Americo), and her sire’s best representatives often excelled at three miles and beyond.

TWO MILES

Her dam’s seven wins were all at two miles – three of them over hurdles and four over fences – and four attempts over further yielded two placings, including one over an extended two and a half miles.

That mare is M I Babe (by Celtic Cone), and in addition to being the dam of several winners, including the multiple two and three-quarter mile hurdles scorer Just Kate (by Bob’s Return), she is a half-sister to a long list of successful runners, including a Grand National hero.

M I Babe was born in 1985 and so was older than her most famous siblings, but younger than the multiple winners Tarahumara (by Soldier Rose) and Market Forces (by Soldier Rose), the latter a chase winner at up to three and a quarter miles.

When she was five years old, her dam Cover Your Money (by Precipice Wood) produced the first of three successful offspring by the Group 1 Eclipse Stakes winner Gunner B (by Royal Gunner), and that colt foal became the 2001 Grade 3 Grand National hero Red Marauder.

He won at up to three miles over hurdles and his other chase victories included a Grade 2 handicap over two miles, three and a half furlongs at Ascot.

Red Striker, born four years after Red Marauder, notched up a career total of 11 wins, with his sextet over fences including the Grade 2 ‘Dipper’ Novices Chase over two and a half miles at Newcastle and the Grade 2 Peter Marsh Chase over three miles at Haydock. He was only 12 when he died.

Between the pair was the unfortunate mare Anna Karnali who broke a leg in her second start over fences.

She had won both her bumpers by 11 lengths, one of her two hurdle wins was by a distance, and she also won by a distance when taking a three-mile novice chase at Kempton.

M I Babe also had a lightly-raced half-brother called Irish Banker (by Derrylin), a Grade 2-placed dual bumper scorer who was Grade 2 placed again in his second start over hurdles.

Three other results at stud also deserve a mention, and one of those was achieved by Tarahumara, as she became the dam of the talented and prolific Celtic Native (by Be My Native).

Like Dunraven Storm, Celtic Native was trained by Philip Hobbs, and following two runaway bumper wins, she was a dual graded placed six times winner over hurdles, and then took two from three over fences.

Those placings came in the Grade 1 Long Walk Hurdle and in the Grade 2 Long Distance Hurdle, and her four winning progeny include the three-mile chase scorer Ace High (by Kayf Tara), and also Celtic Abbey (by Overbury), who finished fourth in a two-mile novices’ handicap hurdle at Punchestown on Saturday.

No More Money (by Alflora), who is also a half-sister to M I Babe and Red Marauder, was only placed during her career on the track, but her son Skint (by King’s Theatre) has won five times, including a Grade 3 novices’ handicap hurdle at Sandown in 2011.

WINNING DAUGHTER

The third stud achievement to note is that of M I Babe’s winning daughter Just Kate.

Although that mare’s five-year-old The Govaness (by Kayf Tara) missed out on Grade 2 placing when fourth in the Grade 2 Sky Bet Supreme Trial Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham on Sunday, she won a listed mares’ bumper at the same venue 12 months before.