THE Grade 3 The Ladbroke (a handicap hurdle) is one of the most valuable and competitive events of the first half of the season and it was won at Ascot on Saturday by the Gordon Elliott-trained gelding Bayan.

A son of the now retired Coolmore Stud classic sire Danehill Dancer (by Danehill), the five-year-old has won just two of his 14 starts on the flat but he is a high-class performer over obstacles where his five wins also include the Grade C Lartigue Hurdle at Listowel, which he won last year.

His first appearance in the auction ring was as a yearling when his breeder Floors Farming sold him for 210,000gns in Newmarket. Two years later he made just 14,000gns at that same venue, and it was after that sale that he joined Elliott’s team.

Bayan is out of Kindling (by Dr Fong), a useful stayer who won a listed contest over two miles at Musselburgh, and three other contests from nine to 12 furlongs, and it is a family which goes back to a two-year-old Group 1 winner of 1989.

His half-brother Investment Expert (by Tamayuz) has won twice over a mile, and his half-sister Dry Your Eyes (by Shamardal) won a 12-furlong Beverley handicap by five lengths in May.

As these are three of the first four foals produced by Kindling, she has made a promising start to her broodmare career, although she has some way to go yet to match the record of her dam Isle Of Flame (by Shirley Heights).

Her Galileo (by Sadler’s Wells) two-year-old Mootacadim made €260,000 as a yearling, she does not have a yearling, and she was in foal to Power (by Oasis Dream) when sold, for 32,000gns, in Newmarket last year.

Kindling is one of 11 winners from 14 foals out of Isle Of Flame, and those siblings include the pattern-placed French stakes winner Thattinger (by Salse) and the Group 3 Chester Vase third Chink Of Light (by Dr Fong).

Her grandam Burning Issue (by Persian Bold) was Group 3-placed at Phoenix Park and later a dual stakes winner in the USA, and that mare, who had just two foals, was one of four stakes winners for the four times flat scorer Coven (by Sassafras).

Coven’s daughters Blasted Heath (by Thatching) and Tribal Rite (by Be My Native) were precocious juveniles, winning the Listed Marble Hill Stakes and the Listed Silver Flash Stakes respectively, but it was their half-brother Balla Cove (by Ballad Rock) who was most successful, and the best of his four wins came in the Group 1 Middle Park Stakes.

Tribal Rite became the dam of the stakes-winning filly Silent Tribute (by Lion Cavern), and Coven’s non-winning daughter Local Custom (by Be My Native) also did her bit for the family by becoming the dam of the Listed Albany Stakes scorer Duty Paid (by Barathea).

Bayan represents an emerging stamina-oriented branch of what was a family associated with speed and precocity, and he appears to have found his forte as a hurdler.