SWEETMANS Bloodstock is the registered breeder of the Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby winner Latrobe, and behind that name lies the Magnier family of Grange Stud. While David and Geraldine have been the mainstays for many years, now to the fore are their children Andrew and Catherine, today’s face of Sweetmans Bloodstock.

How they must have enjoyed seeing the Camelot (Montjeu) three-year-old stepping up from a maiden success over the same course and distance to land his first stakes, group and Group 1 win and bagging some €855,000 for owners Lloyd and Nick Williams. This was some way ahead of the €8,008 he netted for his maiden win. Prior to opening his account he was runner-up in the Group 3 Airlie Stud Gallinule Stakes.

Latrobe’s dam Question Times is a daughter of Shamardal (Giant’s Causeway) and she raced from the stables of Peter Chapple-Hyam. She was, like her son would become, stakes-placed before she won a race on any kind. On her third and final juvenile outing she was runner-up in the six-furlong Listed Bosra Sham Fillies’ Stakes, and the following year she ran on three more occasions, finally winning on her last start at Wolverhampton. She then sold at the Tattersalls Horses In Training Sale to BBA Ireland for 50,000gns.

Her first two years at stud were spent visiting Fastnet Rock (Danehill) and the offspring, a filly and a colt, both went on to be sold as yearlings and become winners.

Diamond Fields, the first born, sold from Joe Hernon’s Castletown Stud to Form Bloodstock for €55,000 and raced for Tommy and Fozzy Stack. Last year she won the Group 3 Gladness Stakes and was graded stakes-placed in the USA a couple of times.

The Fastnet Rock colt that followed her, Entangling, made €380,000 as a yearling and he came up from Ciaran Conroy’s Glenvale Stud and sold to Suzanne Roberts. Put in training with Chris Wall, he raced seven times last year, winning at Yarmouth and Kempton over 10 and 12 furlongs.

Latrobe was next and he was sold through Castletown as a foal for €88,000, Mags O’Toole purchasing for Eddie O’Leary. The Lynn Lodge Stud owner sold him the following autumn but there was no paper profit after Joseph O’Brien spent 65,000gns on the colt. Undeterred, O’Leary and O’Toole combined again seven weeks later and splashed out 115,000gns on a Camelot full-sister to Latrobe, and that investment reaped a reward when MV Magnier, Peter and Ross Doyle and others paid €380,000 for her as a yearling. She is named Pink Dogwood and is unraced.

Following on the heels for these four is a yearling colt by Zoffany (Dansili) and his pedigree page will read exceptionally well when he hits the sale ring this autumn. Question Times is one of four winners from the So Factual (Known Fact) mare Forever Times, herself a winner of six races from an amazing 51 starts, all but one of which were on the turf in England. She was in the first three on 20 occasions.

Bred and raced by Times of Wigan, at stud she bred four winners in Question Times, Udontdou (Fastnet Rock), Russian Reward (Iffraaj) and Sunday Times (Holy Roman Emperor). The latter was not as prolific as her half-brothers, but she did capture the Group 3 Sceptre Stakes and was runner-up in the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes. Now a broodmare herself, she is responsible for the listed winner Classical Times (Lawman).

Simply Times, the third dam of Latrobe, was unplaced on both her starts but she was very successful as a matron, breeding 10 winners and a pair of these were stakes winners. Best by some way was the Group 2 winner Welsh Emperor (Emperor Jones) and he was twice unlucky to find one better than himself in the Group 1 Prix de la Foret.

It was only last Saturday in this column that I was musing about the possibility that a Group 1 winner for Camelot was perhaps just around the corner. I did not realise it would come later that day! Winner himself of the 2012 Irish Derby, in addition to the Derby at Epsom and the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket, Camelot may be deemed to have been unfortunate to finish second in the St Leger at Doncaster to Encke and denied the Triple Crown.

Even at this stage it is fair to predict that Camelot will likely become the best sire son of Montjeu. That son of Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer) won the Irish Derby in 1999 and his sons include Pour Moi (sire of the 2017 Derby winner Wings Of Eagles), Hurricane Run, Authorized (multiple Group 1 sire), Motivator (sire of Treve) and Tavistock (multiple Group 1 sire).

Leading Light, Scorpion, Fame And Glory, Montmartre, Walk In The Park and Jukebox Jury are just some of his other sons.