THE nature of the National Hunt industry is such that there are times when a stallion’s worth does not become fully apparent until he is in his late teens, or sometimes not until after his death, and it is this year that the loss of Voix Du Nord (by Valanour) has really been highlighted.

A middle-distance Group 1 winner who stood at Haras National de Cercy La Tour in France, the grandson of Lomond died last year at the age of 12.

In 2014 his representatives include the Grade 1 winners Taquin Du Seuil and Vibrato Valtat, last month’s listed French chase scorer Vieux Morvan, and also last Sunday’s Cork Grade 3 winner Vroum Vroum Mag.

The latter is a five-year-old trained by Willie Mullins, she carries the famous Ricci colours, and she was bred, in France, by Count Antoine-Audoin Maggiar and Antonia Maggiar.

She won a bumper and a hurdle race in France, made her Irish debut with a nine-length success in a two miles, three furlong novice chase at Wexford, and then followed up with an odds-on victory in the Grade 3 Kerry Group European Breeders Fund Mares Novice Chase over two furlongs shorter at Cork.

Vroum Vroum Mag is the first foal out of the winning French chaser Naiade Mag (by Kadalko), and last week was a good one for the family as that mare’s third foal Brise Vendeenne (by Dom Alco) finished third in a listed hurdle race at Aintree last Saturday, thereby earning valuable blacktype, while another relation was Grade 3-placed at the same venue.

That three-year-old is trained by Nick Williams, and it was a promising British debut for the grey.

Naiade Mag is a Selle Français mare, and so her talented daughters are AQPS (autre que pur sang) horses, as are the various blacktype winners who appear within the first few generations of the family.

The grandam of Sunday’s winner is the triple National Hunt scorer Fortanea (by Video Rock), and in addition to Naiade Mag she is responsible for the Grade 1 Sefton Novices’ Hurdle winner Saint Are (by Network).

That Tom George-trained eight-year-old has also won a listed chase at Aintree, he finished third in the Grade 3 Murphy Group Handicap Chase on his seasonal reappearance at Cheltenham last month, and then finished a three and three-quarter length third behind Oscar Time in the Grade 3 Betfred Becher Handicap Chase over the Grand National fences on Saturday.

Fortanea’s has several winning siblings, but she is also a half-sister to Jalnea (by Quart de Vin) who, though only placed a few times under National Hunt rules, is the dam of the listed chase scorer Tisane (by Dear Doctor). The third dam of Vroum Vroum Mag is a Selle Français mare named Alconea, and this dual winner is a half-sister to the dam of the Listed Proudstown Handicap Hurdle winner Jasmin D’Oudairies (by Apeldoorn), a former Willie Mullins-trained gelding whose seven career wins also included a Grade B chase at Punchestown in 2005.

It is too early to know just how good Vroum Vroum Mag might be, but she holds Grade 1 entries at Leopardstown over the Christmas period, and she has made a sufficiently impressive start to her chasing career to suggest that she could be a star in the making.