ON no less than three occasions Sean Connolly of Hollymount House Stud sent the mare Augest Weekend (Dr Massini) to the sales and each time he brought her home. That was to prove fortunate as the foal she was carrying on the first two occasions she travelled to Fairyhouse was Total Recall, winner last weekend of the feature race at Newbury, the renamed Grade 3 Ladbrokes Trophy Chase.

The eight-year-old is by Westerner and that champion son of Danehill (Danzig) holds court at Castlehyde Stud, where this year he covered at a fee of €5,500. As a racehorse, Westerner came into his own with age and at four won both the 15-furlong Group 1 Prix Royal Oak and the two and a half-mile Group 1 Prix du Cadran.

Twelve months later and he had repeated the double in two of France’s best staying races, establishing himself as one of the best horses of his generation over a trip. Further glory came as a six-year-old when he travelled to Royal Ascot and won a thrilling Group 1 Gold Cup by a neck from Distinction, with Vinnie Roe third. That year he showed that he could also hold his own over the classic mile and a half and was runner-up to Hurricane Run in the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.

Westerner went to stud in 2006 and his oldest crop are now 10-year-olds. Last Saturday’s winner Total Recall is from his third crop and he previously won the Munster National at Limerick, having been trained by Dessie and Sandra Hughes until he joined Willie Mullins. Other noteworthy winners by Westerner are Cheltenham Festival heroes Cole Harden (Grade 1 World Hurdle), Western Warhorse (Grade 1 Arkle Chase), Solar Impulse (Grade 3 Grand Annual Chase) and Empire Of Dirt (Grade 3 chase), Grade 1 winners Captain Cutter and Gilgamboa, and Troytown Chase winner Champagne West, while his flat winners include Group 2 winner Never Forget.

Total Recall was sold as a foal to Weirside Farm at Tattersalls Ireland for €7,000. He is the third foal of his unraced dam and she is a half-sister to a horse bred for the flat but who turned out to be a high-class National Hunt performer. Bimsey (Horage) was the first offspring, and the best, for his unraced dam Cut It Out, a daughter of Cut Above (High Top). Bimsey gained his biggest career win at Liverpool when he won the Grade 1 Martell Aintree Hurdle for trainer Reg Akehurst and jockey Mick Fitzgerald. Among the vanquished was that year’s Champion Hurdle winner Make A Stand who was well-beaten in third.

Total Recall and Bimsey are both high-class winners over jumps from this female line, better known in the main for producing high-class sprinters and milers. Cut It Out is a half-sister to the Victoria Cup winner The Adrianstan (Sparkler) and they are out of the Group 2 Ribblesdale Stakes-placed Riberta, a daughter of the mighty Ribot (Tenerani). Riberta was born five years before her best known sibling, the champion Irish two-year-old Sea Break.

Trained by Stuart Murless, Sea Break (Sea Bird II) was the leading juvenile of 1974 in Ireland, though his best performance that year came in the Group 1 Observer Gold Cup at Doncaster (now the Racing Post Trophy) when he was runner-up to the French-trained Green Dancer. The owners of Sea Break turned down many offers for the colt, and the following year he won the Group 3 Vauxhall Trial Stakes at the Phoenix Park before disappointing, and he ended up as a sire in the French provinces.

Turtle Island (Fairy King), the Group 1 Irish 2000 Guineas winner 23 years ago, is the best flat runner in the first few removes of this pedigree, while a decade ago the smart hurdler and chaser Fair Along (Alkande) added further lustre to the family page.