JAMES Waldron bred the Dark Angel three-year-old Easton Angel and she won her second listed race of the year when landing the Scurry Stakes at Sandown recently. Last year she was unlucky to come across Acapulco who was the only one to finish in front of her in the Group 2 Queen Mary Stakes at Royal Ascot.

Michael Dods knows a thing or two about training daughters of Dark Angel – he won the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes last year with Mecca’s Angel – and he will presumably now chance Easton Angel in group company. Perhaps she will show the same improvement that her paternal half-sister did!

Waldron breeds near Naas and he has been involved with the family of Easton Angel for a number of years now. Having sold her dam Staceymac for 6,500gns as a yearling, he later bought her back for 10,000gns as a four-year-old. By that time she had won and been put in foal to Lucky Story. He did not have a whole lot of luck with her earlier progeny, but now that Easton Angel has started to perform with credit, that tide has turned.

Staceymac was bred by Waldron with his partner Mick McGinn and they had a great deal of success with the offspring of her dam Neat Shilling. She was an unraced daughter of Bob Back and was acquired through Peter Kelly for IR£14,000 as a three-year-old. At stud she went on to breed five winners from six runners, with the best of them being the Trans Island gelding Kalahari Gold.

He won 10 times in all, including a listed race, and was placed in a number of group races in Dubai. Having won his listed race as a three-year-old he was sold to Shadwell for 370,000gns at the Newmarket Horses In Training Sale and went on to score six times in Sheikh Hamdan’s colours.

Waldron consigns under Drumachon Stud and Easton Angel was sold for 18,000gns as a foal to Yeomanstown Stud. They reoffered her at the DBS Yearling Sale the following August when Ritchie Fiddes, who owns her in partnership with Al Shaqab Racing, purchased her for £30,000. She has now won more than £110,000. It is possible she will come back to the country of her birth as she holds a Group 2 entry at the Curragh in mid-July.