TWO-year-olds do not often take on their elders, but after The Great War easily won the Listed Anglesey Lodge Equine Hospital Blenheim Stakes at the Curragh on Sunday, trainer Aidan O’Brien indicated that he could be supplemented for tomorrow’s Group 1 Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp.

The Claiborne Farm bred colt, who cost $1,000,000 at the Keeneland September Yearling Sale in 2013, has now won three of his seven starts, with the first pair of those being easy odds-on victories over the minimum trip.

He was only fifth in the Group 2 Norfolk Stakes in June, then sixth behind Ivawood in the Group 2 July Stakes over six furlongs before being beaten a length by Ainippe in the Listed Curragh Stakes, back over five.

He was unplaced in a valuable sales race at Doncaster last month, was rated 105 before his latest success and he could be an ideal candidate for those new big sprints for three-year-olds next season.

The Great War is one of a growing number of stakes winners for the Claiborne Farm stallion War Front (by Danzig), a horse whose 31 individual stakes winners (to Monday night) include five who have won at the highest level, and notably the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes winner War Command and the Group 1 Juddmonte International Stakes and Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes hero Declaration Of War.

The colt is the seventh foal out of a once successful filly called Guide (by Pulpit), and his string of winning siblings includes the prolific winner, and six-figured earner, Escort (by First Samurai).

His dam’s full-brother Laity is a multiple listed scorer, she has a pair of stakes winning half-sisters, and is also related to an unplaced mare whose best winner is another son of War Front.

DOUBLE FIGURES

The best of Guide’s sisters is Trip (by Lord At War), whose 11 wins included a trio of Grade 3 contests and a trio of listed events, and that high-class mare, who earned over $880,000, is the dam of the blacktype scorer Passport (by Pulpit), a gelding whose win tally is also into double figures.

Joke (by Phone Trick) ‘only’ won four times, but this dual stakes winning half-sister to Guide is the dam of the triple Grade 1 sprint star Zensational (by Unbridled’s Song), a Hill ‘N Dale Farm stallion whose first crop includes the dual stakes winning sprinter Zensational Bunny.

Guide and her talented siblings are all out of the listed handicap scorer Tour (by Forty Niner), and that mare, who has two stakes winning siblings of her own, is also responsible for Leave (by Pulpit), the unplaced dam of the high-class gelding Departing (by War Front).

His wins include the Grade 2 Super Derby, the Grade 2 West Virginia Derby, and the Grade 3 Illinois Derby, the races in which he has been placed include this year’s Grade 1 Stephen Foster Handicap, and his earnings are in excess of $1.5 million.