YOU’RESOTHRILLING is standing on the edge of greatness. Indeed, a shade over two lengths is all that has so far denied her an elusive place among the greats of international breeding. It may just be a matter of time before she has her named carved in the pantheon of the most successful broodmares of all time.

There are many measures of greatness, but one is that only eight mares have ever produced four or more Group/Grade 1 winning offspring. Two have produced five such offspring, while half a dozen have bred four. The list is worth producing.

  • EIGHT CARAT – dam of Kaapstad, Marquise, Mouawad, Octagonal and Our Diamond Lover
  • HASILI – dam of Banks Hill, Cacique, Champs Elysees, Heat Haze and Intercontinental
  • DAHLIA – dam of Dahar, Dahlia’s Dreamer, Delegant and Rivlia
  • DARARA – dam of Darazari, Dar Re Mi, Diaghilev (River Dancer) and Rewilding
  • EBAZIYA – dam of Ebadiyla, Edabiya, Enzeli and Estimate
  • FALL ASPEN – dam of Fort Wood, Hamas, Northern Aspen and Timber Country
  • TOUSSAUD – dam of Chester House, Chiselling, Empire Maker and Honest Lady
  • URBAN SEA – dam of Black Sam Bellamy, Galileo, Sea The Stars and My Typhoon

    • The list is highly impressive and it is a group with a very exclusive membership. There are many mares who have gone close, but Urban Sea is the last to have joined this elite category.

    One outstanding feature among this list of eight broodmares is that seven of them were stakes winners in their own right, and no fewer than five won at Group or Grade 1 level. You’resothrilling has the profile to be a most worthy future member of this group as she too was a stakes winner. Indeed, both of her juvenile wins were in group races, landing the Group 3 Swordlestown Stud Sprint Stakes at Naas before adding the Group 2 Irish Thoroughbred Marketing Cherry Hinton at Newmarket.

    You’resothrilling had the distinction of only ever racing in stakes company. She was runner-up on her debut in the Listed Isabel Morris Marble Hill EBF Stakes at the Curragh and she also occupied that same spot at Royal Ascot in the Group 3 Albany Stakes. At three she was fourth in the Group 1 Matron Stakes and retired to stud after just seven starts.

    Being a group-winning daughter of Storm Cat (Storm Bird) and a full-sister to the brilliant Giant’s Causeway, it was a no-brainer that she would keep company with Galileo (Sadler’s Wells). The pair have been faithful ever since and it has proven to be a very fruitful union. Marvellous, Gleneagles and last weekend’s Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes winner Happily, as well as the Group 1 placed duo, Coolmore and Taj Mahal, are the mare’s first five progeny, while her sixth, born this year, is a Galileo colt.

    Marvellous, a maiden winner at two at Navan, set the ball rolling when she landed the Irish 1000 Guineas in the hands of Ryan Moore, the second-choice of the Aidan O’Brien runners in that year’s classic. She is now at stud where she has a yearling filly and colt foal, both by War Front (Danzig).

    Gleneagles was next and he proved to be outstanding at two and three years, successful on seven of his 11 starts. He won the Group 1 Goffs Vincent O’Brien National Stakes at two before adding the holy trinity of mile races the next season, the English and Irish 2000 Guineas and the St James’s Palace Stakes. His first foals will be on offer this autumn and are the result of covering 150 mares in his first season at stud.

    The third foal from You’resothrilling is Coolmore, and she was given the weighty responsibility of carrying the name of the great organisation itself on the racecourse. Beaten at odds-on in two maidens, she made amends on her third start when she won the Group 3 CL and MF Weld Park Stakes at the Curragh. She ran well in Group 1 company on a number of subsequent starts and earned some Group 1 form when third in the Belmont Oaks after being sent stateside in search of that Holy Grail.

    Taj Mahal was the fourth runner for his dam and he could yet be the horse who will catapult her into a piece of history. He has yet to actually win a stakes race, but that must surely come and last weekend he was fifth in the Group 1 QIPCO Irish Champion Stakes. This followed his second-place finish, beaten by that frustrating two lengths I mentioned at the start, in the Grade 1 Secretariat Stakes at Arlington over 10 furlongs.

    Now along comes Happily and she was winning for the third time in five starts when capturing the Moyglare last weekend. She also won the Group 3 Turkey Jockey Club Silver Flash Stakes at Leopardstown and was Group 2 placed. Her upward career curve could surely bring further success at the highest level.

    This pedigree got a further boost at the weekend when the family’s current star Decorated Knight, another by the amazing Galileo, won his third Group 1 of the year. He added the Irish Champion Stakes to previous victories in the Tattersalls Gold Cup over 10 furlongs and the Jebel Hatta at Meydan over a furlong less.

    Decorated Knight is the first foal out of Giant’s Causeway’s and You’resothrilling’s full-sister Pearling. That mare did not win, managing to be placed in Canada at three, but she has more than repaid the 1,300,000gns Tony Nerses gave for her at the 2011 Tattersalls December Sale when she sold from Highclere Stud. Nerses paid that price just three weeks after Pearling’s three-year-old Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer) half-sister Love Me Only realised $2,100,000 at Keeneland.

    The unraced Love Me Only was carrying her first foal, a colt by Galileo’s half-brother Sea The Stars (Cape Cross), and he turned out to be Storm The Stars, winner of the Group 2 Great Voltigeur Stakes and placed in three Group 1s, finishing second in the Irish Derby and third in the Epsom equivalent and the Grand Prix de Paris. On Tuesday Love Me Only’s yearling colt by Speightstown (Gone West), her fourth produce, sold at Keeneland on Tuesday.

    Two years ago John Ferguson spent 2,700,000gns to acquire just the third daughter of Mariah’s Storm (Rahy) to be sold at public auction and that was the Group 3 placed Hanky Panky, a daughter of Galileo and carrying her first foal by Dubawi (Dubai Millennium). That offspring is now a yearling and the mare had another colt this year by the Darley star stallion.

    Mariah’s Storm won 10 of her 16 starts and they included a pair of Grade 2 wins, four Grade 3s and a further couple of listed wins. She ran third in the Grade 1 Spinster Stakes at Keeneland at four. Eleven of his 13 foals ran and eight of them have won. Giant’s Causeway and You’resothrilling are her two stakes winners, while Freud (Storm Cat), Tumblebrutus (Storm Cat), Tiger Dance (Storm Cat), Hanky Panky, Roar Of The Tiger (Storm Cat) and Butterflies (Galileo) have all been stakes-placed.

    Butterflies is the last of Mariah’s Storm’s 13 offspring and she placed as a juvenile last year in the Group 3 Flame Of Tara Stakes and this year was beaten a neck when runner-up in the Group 3 Munster Oaks in June.

    Given that the only two of Mariah’s Storm’s daughters who have offspring of racing age are responsible for Group 1 horses, there is so much more to come.

    from this family.