MANY may be surprised to learn that there is a listed race run at Carlisle, but the Eternal Stakes on Wednesday will live long in the memory for owner David Kelly and trainer Ken Condon. They won it with the three-year-old Elusive Beauty, bred by Peter McCutcheon, and she is the first of her dam Lost Icon’s seven winners to land a stakes race.

Bought for €27,000 at the Goffs Sportsman’s Sale in 2015, Elusive Beauty was group-placed at two and now becomes the first stakes winner, from the second crop, of the Irish National Stud’s Elusive Pimpernel. Standing for just €1,000, this son of Elusive Quality is closely related to Snow Fairy and Big Bad Bob and was a very smart juvenile.

He had Poet’s Voice among the beaten horses when he captured both the Group 3 Acomb Stakes and his maiden at two, and on his only other start that year he was runner-up to St Nicholas Abbey in the Group 1 Racing Post Trophy. He made just a pair of starts at three, winning the Group 3 Craven Stakes, while he was group and listed-placed at four. This landmark first stakes winner will surely not be the last and his offspring are with many of the leading trainers.

Elusive Beauty is an own-sister to the four-year-old La Grande Bellezza (translates as The Great Beauty) and he has won no fewer than seven races already in Italy. He still has a little way to go to catch up on his Diamond Green half-brother Futuro Anteriore who is stakes-placed in Italy and winner of about 14 races there.

Lost Icon is by Intikhab and she won in France before being acquired by McCutcheon. She is one of eight winners from Luminosity, a juvenile winning daughter of Sillery. The others include the Grade 2 Night Shift winner Little Treasure (herself dam of the Grade 2 winner and Grade 1 runner-up More Chocolate) and last year’s stakes winning two-year-old in the USA, Keep Quiet. He is trained by Mark Casse and is by Elusive City who, like Elusive Pimpernel, is a son of Elusive Quality.

Breeders, stallion masters and readers are invited to contact Leo Powell at leopowell@theirishfield.ie with news and updates for the column, and to visit our website www.theirishfield.ie for daily breeding news