FRENCH-BREDS were very much to the fore at this latest Punchestown Festival and won seven Grade 1 races. Apple’s Jade is mentioned elsewhere, while the other half dozen were Bacardys, Bapaume, Cilaos Emery, Disko, Fox Norton and Great Field.

The dual Grade 1 winner Bacardys is the best produce of his dam Oasice and she is by the Rathbarry Stud stallion Robin Des Champs who sired Punchestown winner Woodland Opera. Bacardys added the Tattersalls Ireland Champion Novice Hurdle to an earlier Grade 1 success in the Deloitte Novice Hurdle at Leopardstown. He was bred by trainer Eric Vagne and Jose de Silva.

Bacardys is also the headline act for his young sire Coastal Path. That son of Halling was trained by Andre Fabre for Khalid Abdullah and won a couple of Group 2 races in France and was placed in the Ascot Gold Cup. He is a half-brother to the Linamix stallion Martaline, also a Group 2 winner and now one of the best National Hunt stallions in France.

Martaline’s importance as a stallion is exemplified most clearly by the fact that his 2017 fee is €15,000. He was on the mark at Punchestown when his son Disko confirmed himself as an outstanding novice this season with his win in the Growise Champion Novice Chase. The six-year-old was bred at Haras du Luy. Disko is out of a mare by Nikos, an influential broodmare sire who is also the sire of Apple’s Jade’s dam.

What a year it has been for Boardsmill Stud’s Califet. Already well established as a sire of high-class runners in France he is doing the same here and in Britain and rounded off the season with a Grade 1 winner when Cilaos Emery captured the Herald Novice Hurdle. The five-year-old was bred by Haras du Bois Emery and Joel Poitou. Cilaos Emery adds lustre to a pedigree that has been producing winners, but nothing of this quality in recent times. However if you go back a couple of generations to his fourth dam Deesse IV you will discover that she is ancestress to a host of blacktype winners in Ireland, England and France. Two of those winners are familiar here, namely the Grade 2 Red Mills Hurdle winner So Young and the listed chase winner Urano.

WELL TRAVELLED

Fox Norton is a real pan-European horse. The Grade 1 BoyleSports Champion Chase winner was bred by the Italian-based Scuderia Del Bargello, foaled in France, sired by the very successful German stallion Lando, is trained in England and earned his biggest success in Ireland.

Natt Musik, the dam of Fox Norton, raced in France where she was placed 15 times on the flat and never won. None of these placings were in blacktype races but she nonetheless earned a remarkable €63,000! She is by Kendor and out of Blue Mandolin, a daughter of The Minstrel who was placed for Sir Michael Stoute before being transferred to John Oxx for whom she won at Dundalk as a three-year-old. She was one of six winners out of Godetia, winner of both the Irish 1000 Guineas and Oaks.

The JP McManus owned six-year-old Great Field is a French-bred son of Great Pretender and he continued his rise up the chasing ranks with victory in the Ryanair Novice Chase. Dominique Clayeux is the breeder of this son of Great Pretender and the Definite Article mare Eaton Lass. The dam was bred at Philip Hore’s Mount Eaton Stud and she is very well-connected.

Great Field is the star offspring of his unraced dam and she is a daughter of the now Group 1 Rogers Gold Cup winner Cockney Lass. That daughter of Camden Town is a full-sister to the Grade 1 winner Cockney Lad.

Finally, Bapaume, bred by Maurice Rohaut-Leger, won the Grade 1 AES Champion Four Year Old Hurdle. This son of Turtle Bowl and the American Post mare Brouhaha is from a top-class flat family, one that has produced the likes of Anabaa. His sire Turtle Bowl is now in Japan but is responsible for the French 2000 Guineas winner Lucayan and the Group 1 winning juvenile French Fifteen.