SUNDAY at ParisLongchamp was the scene of both of the French Guineas races, and the fillies’ version, the classic Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches, was won in fine style by the favourite, Blue Rose Cen.

This daughter of Churchill (Galileo) last year was at the same venue to run out a five-length winner of the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac from a pair of Irish-trained fillies, Jim Bolger’s Gan Teorainn and Aidan O’Brien’s Never Ending Story. She is now the winner of six of her eight starts, and Blue Rose Cen’s previous efforts saw her win a pair of Group 3 races, the Prix d’Aumale and Prix de la Grotte, also at ParisLongchamp, and finish second in a listed race at Deauville.

Champion

As a result of her juvenile efforts, Blue Rose Cen was crowned the champion two-year-old filly in France last year.

Owned and bred by Leopoldo Fernandez Pujals’ Yeguada Centurion, Blue Rose Cen is the first foal out of a €15,000 yearling buy at Goffs who went on to win the Group 3 Lodge Park EBF Park Express Stakes at the Curragh when trained by Patrick Prendergast, Queen Blossom.

Queen Blossom is a daughter of Jeremy (Danehill Dancer), a sire more noted now in National Hunt circles, and she was bred by the Irish National Stud where her sire stood for most of his career.

In the USA Queen Blossom was sold on for $220,000, won the Grade 3 Santa Barbara Stakes at Santa Anita, and was sent back across the Atlantic to the Tattersalls December Sale where Ted Durcan picked her up for just 110,000gns.

Now that she is the dam of a Group 1 winner with her first foal, who has already earned €680,000 on the track and given young trainer Christopher Head both his first Group 1 winner and classic winner, Queen Blossom has justly earned the moniker of being ‘good value for money’.

Cheering

No doubt also cheering Blue Rose Cen home at the weekend will have been bloodstock agent and Irish Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association chairperson Cathy Grassick, along with her great friend and client, Carisbrooke Stud’s owner Yvonne Jacques. They purchased the dam of Queen Blossom, the group-placed juvenile Mark Of An Angel (Mark Of Esteem), in February 2019 at Arqana for €72,000.

The foal she was carrying, Capo La Gala (Le Havre), became her fourth winning offspring last year when successful three times. Last year Carisbrooke sold the two most recent offspring of Mark Of An Angel at Tattersalls, her now two-year-old filly by Starspangledbanner (Choisir), and her now yearling colt by Showcasing (Oasis Dream).

This is the second classic winner in the first two crops by Churchill, with Group 1 Prix du Jockey-Club-French Derby winner and Arc runner-up Vadeni heading up his first crop. His 10 stakes winners also include Group 2 winners The Foxes and Ladies Church, Group 3 winners Queroyal, Grand Alliance and the recent Derby Trial winner Sprewell, and three other stakes winners.

South Africa

Apart from Queen Blossom and her classic-winning daughter, you have to go back to Blue Rose Cen’s fourth dam, Grey Angel (Kenmare), to find the next blacktype winner.

Foaled in England, Grey Angel was sent to South Africa to race, and there she won eight times, five of these successes being achieved in stakes races. She won twice at Group 3 level and was runner-up in the Group 1 Gosforth Park Fillies and Mares Challenge.

After that she was repatriated to appear in the 1995 Tattersalls December Sale, where she sold for 62,000gns to the BBA. To put this in perspective, the overall sale average for broodmares, fillies and horses in training that December was about 27,000gns. Perhaps South African form might have been viewed then with some cynicism.

WHAT do the weekend’s Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Poulains-French 2000 Guineas winner Marhaba Ya Sanafi and the unbeaten dual Grade 1 winning bumper horse A Dream To Share have in common?

Well, both are sons of Muhaarar (Oasis Dream) and both are out of daughters of Galileo (Sadler’s Wells). This year has been something of a revelation for the former Nunnery Stud-based Muhaarar, currently based at Haras des Faunes in France.

The champion three-year-old sprinter in Europe in 2015 with four Group 1 victories that season, Muhaarar retired to stud in a blaze of glory, and commanded a fee of £30,000 in his first four seasons under the Shadwell banner.

A less than glorious start with his first runners saw his fee tumble, first to £20,000, and quickly to £10,000, but neither reduction was enough to tempt breeders to use him in Norfolk.

He moved to France last year, accompanied by a further major drop in fee to €5,000, and that was enough to attract a book of 55 mares. With a revival in his fortunes somewhat last year, his fee changed direction this season and rose by 50% to €7,500. Results will surely ensure that this position will be maintained for now. In fact, his good week was enhanced on Thursday when his four-year-old daughter Sicilian Defense won her second stakes race.

Group 1 winners

He has now sired 22 stakes winners in hist first four crops, and two of them are Group 1 winners. This is not a bad record, far from it, but the vagaries of fashion had already dismissed him as a sire of any consequence, largely based on the expectations breeders and buyers at the sales had for the horse.

His second Group 1 winner is Eshaada, while three of his progeny, his son Bran, last year’s May Hill Stakes winner Polly Pott, and Trevaunance have been successful at Group 2 level. His son Evening Sun, a Grade 3 winner in the USA, is another of his good winners out of a Galileo mare.

Muhaarar is one of the best sons of Oasis Dream (Green Desert), who like him was a European champion sprinter and also scored in the Group 1 July Cup. Oasis Dream has sired 134 blacktype winners, 18 of them at Group 1 level, including Native Trail, Goldream, and Midday, and also Group 2 star and leading sire Showcasing.

As a two-year-old Muhaarar made a winning debut at Doncaster before adding the Group 2 Gimcrack Stakes at York. He was never out of the first three in five starts that season, running third to Ivawood in the Group 2 July Stakes at Newmarket and to Charming Thought and Ivawood in the Group 1 Middle Park Stakes.

Record time

Muhaarar took his revenge on Ivawood early the following season when he won the Group 3 Greenham Stakes at Newbury in record time. Going on to Royal Ascot, he easily defeated Limato in the Group 1 Commonwealth Cup, before adding the Group 1 Darley July Cup at Newmarket. A trip to Deauville brought him success in the Group 1 Prix Maurice de Gheest, before a fourth consecutive Group 1 victory in the British Champions Sprint Stakes at Ascot, ahead of Twilight Son. At the end of that season Muhaarar was rated on 132 by Timeform, second only to Golden Horn.

What of the female side of Marhaba Ya Sanafi’s family? Bred by Rabbah Bloodstock, that group purchased his dam Danega as a four-year-old for 58,000gns, but last year they sold her on for just €16,000 at Goffs in November, where she was snapped up by Duncan McGregor. At the time she had bred a single winner with her first three foals, and last weekend’s classic winner was still unraced. In foal to Hello Youmzain (Kodiac), her purchase price didn’t even cover the stallion’s fee last year.

Well, you can read the rest of this story in Heart of Racing on page six of this week’s paper.