NOT for the first time trainer Gordon Elliott has brought about huge improvement in a horse that he acquired for a mere pittance. Combining with Aidan O’Ryan, the pair paid £10,000 at last year’s Goffs UK Spring Sale for the then nine-year-old Dr Massini (Sadler’s Wells) gelding Doctor Phoenix.

The gelding originally won a point-to-point at Curraheen for his breeder John O’Donovan and two weeks later was sold for £40,000 to Favourites Racing and sent into training with David Dennis.

He won almost his full purchase price back for Favourites Racing when posting four wins, two each over hurdles and fences, before the decision to move him on was taken. He still had few miles on the clock, making just 16 starts in Britain in two and a half years.

Now running for the Nick Bradley Racing Club, Doctor Phoenix won more than €25,000 in his first two starts in Ireland, finishing second in a blacktype chase at Cork before winning back at the same venue. Last weekend, on just his fourth outing for Elliott, he scooped a pot of €59,000 when running away with the Grade A Bar One Racing Dan Moore Memorial Handicap Chase over two miles and a furlong.

A little like the story of Getabird elsewhere in this week’s column, Doctor Phoenix is the first foal of his dam and it was some years before she had another. Six years after Doctor Phoenix was born along came a son of Carlotamix (Linamix) and he is now a four-year-old. He is followed by a now two-year-old son of Sholokov (Sadler’s Wells) and Rathbarry Stud purchased him for €20,000 from John O’Donovan as a foal.

The dam of Doctor Phoenix is Lowroad Cross (Anshan) and to say that she had limited ability as a racemare would be an understatement. She was pulled-up on all of her three starts in point-to-points before optimistically having her attention turned to the racecourse proper. Her sole run in a bumper saw her finish 74 lengths behind the winner, while two further attempts saw her fall in a chase and finish 75 lengths behind the winner in a 12-furlong maiden at Tramore!

In spite of this hopeless record, she went to stud and has gone on to produce a son with some ability. Doctor Phoenix is by the former The Beeches Stud resident Dr Massini who was later sold to stand in England at Dunraven Stud where he remained until his death last year. An enigmatic racehorse, Dr Massini sired a number of smart winners, notably Massini’s Maguire, Sound Investment, Rocky Creek, Psycho and Clopf. Nonetheless, he failed to gain huge popularity with many.

One of the principal reasons Lowroad Cross was given a chance at stud was that she was a full-sister to a reasonably smart runner in Crooked Throw, born a year before her. He was somewhat unusual in that his first win was gained in a maiden hurdle as a five-year-old at Wexford under Davy Russell for trainer Charlie Swan. He then won five times on the flat between the ages of seven and 10, and as an eight-year-old finished second in the Listed Ruby Stakes at Tralee over a mile.

You have to trawl back a few generations further to find the next smart runners in the family. No Run (Deep Run), the fourth dam of Doctor Phoenix, bred the 1992 Morgiana Hurdle-third Harveysland (Beau Charmeur). She was an own-sister to Deep Moment, winner of the Charterhouse Mercantile Chase at Cheltenham and runner-up in the Tolworth Hurdle, and a half-sister to Harveystown (Bargello) who won the Findus Chase at Leopardstown and placed in both the Power Gold Cup at Fairyhouse and the Sun Alliance Novices’ Chase at Cheltenham.