I AM indebted to Olive Gallagher for the reminder about how much of an Irish success story the 2016 Kentucky Derby was. Nyquist remains unbeaten in eight starts following the premier classic race in the US and his career earnings are just a sales bid short of $5 million now.

The champion two-year-old last year when he went through the year undefeated in five starts, his victories included the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, FrontRunner Stakes and Del Mar Futurity, all Grade 1 races. A fourth stakes win was achieved in the Grade 2 Best Pal Stakes.

This year he preceded his Kentucky Derby triumph with victories in the Grade 2 San Vincente Stakes and the Grade 1 Florida Derby. With plenty of racing ahead of him he is already the most desirable stallion prospect in America, if not the world.

He is a son of the Ashford Stud sire Uncle Mo whose racing career was restricted to eight starts, five of which he won. He too was the champion colt of his generation and, like his son, he also won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Nyquist is from his first crop and is one of a baker’s dozen of stakes winners for Uncle Mo, and this collection also includes the Grade 1 Wood Memorial Stakes winner Outwork and the Grade 1 winning juvenile Gomo. Uncle Mo is a son of Indian Charlie.

Nyquist is the first foal and runner for her dam Seeking Gabrielle, a winning daughter of the Storm Cat sire Forestry, and he was bred by Tim Hyde junior at his Summerhill Farm in Kentucky. He sold the colt as a foal at Keeneland for $180,000 through Pat Costello’s Paramount Sales. The colt was then pin hooked as a yearling from Gerry Dilger’s Dromoland Farm, in partnership with Ted Campion, and sold for a profit, realising $230,000.

He was not finished however with the sale ring and in March 2015 he was sent to the Florida Two-Year-Old sale through Niall Brennan (who employed the riding skills of Charles Weld among others to prepare him) and once more he turned a profit when selling to Dennis O’Neill for $400,000. His record on the racecourse now values him at many multiples of his sale price.

His two-year-old Blame half-sister was purchased last September by Bridlewood Farm for $330,000, sold by Hinkle Farm who purchased her in utero for a mere $100,000 from Paramount Sales. Bridlewood Farm is owned by John and Leslie Malone who purchased both Ballylinch Stud and Castlemartin in recent years.

SOLID FAMILY

Seeking Gabrielle does not have a yearling on the ground, having been barren to Curlin, and earlier this year she foaled a colt by Flatter. She was covered this year by War Front. While she has bred the outstanding runner of recent times in her family, she comes from a solid stakes-producing family. Indeed, her own first three dams were stakes winners. Foaled in 2007, Seeking Gabrielle is out of the Grade 2 winning juvenile Seeking Regina, successful in the Adirondack Stakes.

Seeking Regina bred nine winners at stud, the only stakes winner among them being the Storm Cat filly Seeking The Sky. A winner at Grade 3 level, she has since gone on to breed the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap winner Sahara Sky, and that son of Pleasant Tap has won well in excess of $1 million and he was runner-up in the Grade 1 Carter Handicap.

Seeking Regina is one of a trio of stakes-winning offspring of Fulbright Scholar. The others are her full-sister Oxford Scholar and she bred a pair of stakes winners at stud, while the Forty Niner mare Tutorial bred the graded stakes-winning juvenile Dixie Band. Their sibling Liberty School, a minor stakes-placed winner by Pine Bluff, has been represented by the Grade 2 Molly Pitcher Stakes winner Just Jenda.

Fulbright Scholar is a daughter of Cox’s Ridge and the stakes winner Matriculation, by Arts And Letters. Matriculation is another mare to breed nine winners, the best of the rest being Bachelor Beau whose 11 victories were headlined by his success in the Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes.