There is nothing like Royal Ascot. A winner is something special and it is a case of the crème de la crème of racing at the Berkshire course.

While having runners and winners at the meeting is the dream, to breed a winner or placed horse is also the stuff of dreams. I met Gerard Kerin from Co Clare who bred Besharah, the daughter of Kodiac who ran third in the Queen Mary Stakes. His joy at her performance only left me wondering what he would have been like had she won. It is performances such as this that fuel small breeders to be involved in breeding horses.

Seven Group 1 races have been run as we head into the last day of this royal festival of racing and Irish-bred horses have captured three of the seven contested at this level. The three are Gleneagles, Free Eagle and Trip To Paris. All represent different breeding entities and demonstrate the range of such operations.

Gleneagles is the undisputed king of the three-year-old milers and John Magnier and partners bred this son of the brilliant Galileo out of the Group 2 winner You’resothrilling. He is the second foal and second classic winner from the mare, the first being Marvellous. You’resothrilling is well on her way to becoming a serious Blue Hen mare.

IRISH NATIONAL STUD

Free Eagle is a Moyglare home-bred and the result of a long association with the female line by the Haefner family. He has a more than usual significance for all Irish people as he will head, following his racing career, to commence stallion duties at the Irish National Stud. Finding top-class racehorses for stud is becoming harder with each passing year and the option taken by the INS on Free Eagle was inspired.

The third Group 1 winner was bred by the father and son team of Tom and Paul Monaghan at their farm near Kilcock in Co Kildare. They are most famously associated with Ezzoud, a triple Group 1 winner in the early 1990s who twice won the Juddmonte International Stakes. This time their Group 1 hero is the Ascot Gold Cup winner Trip To Paris and he has the profile of a horse that could travel the world successfully in the future.

Irish-bred horses have won more than half of the 24 races run so far. World domination starts at home. And that is not even mentioning the achievements this week of Aidan O’Brien, or the world’s best jockey Ryan Moore. There is nothing like Royal Ascot.