BRYAN Murphy and his family are best known as the owners of the renowned Dunraven Arms Hotel in Adare, Co Limerick. This favourite hotel and watering hole of countless hunting and racing enthusiasts is one of the main reasons why people are attracted to the pretty village in which it is situated.

Bryan is also a noted horseman and judge of horseflesh and one of his sale picks, Acey Milan, was victorious in a listed bumper at Cheltenham on the first day of the New Year. Bought for €11,500 as a foal at Tattersalls Ireland in November 2014, the gelding won a three-year-old bumper previously and was successful at Cheltenham on the day he officially turned four – though he was actually born in early April. He is a precocious sort and is the only horse in the first three generations of his family to win a blacktype race.

Acey Milan is actually the last of 10 foals from his dam Strong Wishes (Strong Gale) and was born when she was 22. While plenty of experts will tell you to keep away from the progeny of old mares, Bryan Murphy is not one to be taken in by that mantra and he has already been rewarded for his judgement. Acey Milan is now one of five racecourse winners and a successful point-to-pointer to come from his dam and she herself was unlucky not to be a winner, being placed six times in bumpers and over hurdles.

At the time that she retired from racing you might have questioned the viability of going to stud with Strong Wishes. She was one of 12 foals from her dam Totsiens (Three Wishes) and seven of these raced. Just one of them won and Strong Wishes was the only other one to reach the frame in a race of any kind! The one winner was Dagwood (Al-Barek) and he was a four-time winner who scraped together a piece of blacktype when third in a listed chase. Furthermore, Totsiens was the only named foal from two progeny from her dam Slave Herbert (Sir Herbert).

However, if you can overlook and forgive one weak generation in a pedigree, you would have given Strong Wishes her chance at stud. Her grandam Slave Herbert had a rather famous half-brother called Buck House (Royal Buck). He provided trainer Mouse Morris with his first Cheltenham Festival winner three years after he took out a trainers’ licence. He won the 1983 Supreme Novices’ Hurdle and then went on to take the Queen Mother Champion Chase in 1986. Buck House won a host of other top races and famously took on Dawn Run in a match at Punchestown in 1986. He later died of colic.

Buck House was the best of the offspring of the unraced Slave De (Arctic Slave) and she is ancestress now of a number of smart performers, notably Jessies Dream (Presenting), winner of the Grade 1 Drinmore Novice Chase, Dare To Doubt (King’s Theatre), winner of the Grade 2 Johnstown Novice Hurdle, and Gus McCrae (Accordion), successful in the Listed Byrne Group Chase at Ascot.

Milan is based at Grange Stud, under the banner of the Coolmore National Hunt sires, and this year his fee is €8,000. His top performers include eight-time Grade 1 winning hurdles Jezki (won the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham), Martello Tower (won the Grade 1 Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle at Cheltenham), dual Grade 1 winning novice chaser Apache Stronghold, Beat That who won Grade 1 races at Aintree and Punchestown, Grade 1 Christmas Hurdle winner Darlan, and Sizing Granite, winner of the Grade 1 Maghull Novices’ Chase at Aintree.

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