I HAD the pleasure of sitting at lunch on Saturday with Sonia Rogers, among others, hosted by the sponsors of the day’s Group 1 Juddmonte Irish Oaks. Hours later, the classic was won by Johanna Walsh (Sea The Stars), who comes from a female line that she has had deep connection with.

In the late 1960s, Sonia and her husband, Captain Tim Rogers, bought the winning filly Flight Table (Round Table) in the USA. She was carrying her first foal, a filly named Ferazza (Hawaii), and became a winner whose daughters bred stakes winners in England, Germany and Venezuela. Ferazza was followed by another filly, Gully (Dike), also a winner and grandam of a stakes winner in Italy.