WILLIE Mullins saddled the first of his two graded winners at Limerick on Sunday when Kate Appleby Shoes took the honours in the Grade 3 Kerry Group EBF Shannon Spray Mares Novice Hurdle. The daughter of Flemensfirth was bred at the McCarthy’s The Beeches Stud and she is out of Gotta Goa, an unraced daughter of the Kris S stallion Publisher.

This is a female line that has spawned many good winners. Gotta Goa is a half-sister to six winners, the best of them being the Rashar gelding Spirit Of Park and the Durgam mare Stoned Imaculate. The former won the Grade 2 Wensleydale Juvenile Hurdle at Wetherby, a race in which his half-sister Stoned Imaculate was placed. Spirit Of Park was also Grade 1 placed.

Their dam Rose Deer was by Whistling Deer out of the six-time winner Rose Of Castile, a daughter of Fighting Don. Five of those six wins were over hurdles and at stud Rose Of Castile bred the Power Gold Cup placed Tarquin’s Rose.

Interestingly she never won over fences, instead earning nine of her 10 victories over hurdles. Rose Of Castile is the grandam of the Troytown Chase winner River Tarquin who was placed in the Irish Grand National.

The next generation of the family throws up more success. Kate Appleby Shoes’ fourth dam was Rose O’Meath and she was placed in a Galway Hurdle. Her four winning progeny included Study In Scarlet who won a big jumps race at Aqueduct in the USA.

She is also fourth dam, through another branch of the family, of the Grade 1 winning bumper and hurdle mare Refinement, the Grade 3 chase winner Jacks Craic, and the listed bumper winner Manners.