WE all remember what a year No Nay Never (Scat Daddy) had with his juveniles in 2022, siring Group 1 winners Blackbeard, Little Big Bear and Meditate, while Aesop’s Fables and Trillium were successful at Group 2 level.

This year’s juvenile crop included three stakes winners before last weekend, The Fixer, His Majesty and No Nay Mets, while Matrika had to settle for second-best behind Porta Fortuna in the Group 3 Albany Stakes. At the Curragh, the Aidan O’Brien-trained filly made amends when she won the Group 2 Airlie Stud Stakes, officially the Balanchine Stakes, and took her record to two wins in three starts.

This victory for the Barronstown Stud-bred elevated her from valuable to very valuable, as she is now the fourth stakes winner out of her unraced dam, Muravka (High Chaparral). That mare was not in foal when purchased by David and Diane Nagle in 2017 at Goffs, realising €950,000. At the time she had produced three winners with her first three foals, but significantly one of these was a Group 1 winner.

Bred by Tommy Stack and Stan Cosgrove, Muravka was put in foal at the age of three and her first foal, bred by Tommy’s wife Liz, was The Wow Signal (Starspangledbanner). He was a top-class juvenile, rated the champion in France, and that season he won the Group 1 Prix Morny after landing the Group 2 Coventry Stakes at Royal Ascot. Sadly, he lost his battle with laminitis at the age of six.

Miss Infinity (Rock Of |Gibraltar) was the other stakes winner out of Muravka at the time of the latter’s sale, and she won a listed race at two in Vichy, France and was placed in the Group 2 Rockfel Stakes at Newmarket.

Barronstown Stud

In the same year that Barronstown acquired Muravka, her yearling colt by No Nay Never sold to Japan for 850,000gns. He has since won twice that purchase price, been successful twice at Group 3 level, and chased home Chrono Genesis in the 2021 Group 1 Takarazuka Kinen. Now he is joined on the stakes-winning roster by his full-sister.

Muravka is a half-sister to five winners, the best of which was Tolpuddle (College Chapel). Sold by Tommy Stack and Stan Cosgrove as a yearling, he ended up back at Thomastown Castle and was trained by Stack for Patsy Byrne.

He won a couple of listed races at Leopardstown and the Curragh, was group-placed in England a few times, and was placed in a Grade 2 hurdle race at Punchestown.

Yearling headliner blooms on her debut

THE most expensive Frankel filly at last year’s Tattersalls October Yearling Sale Book 1 was purchased by M.V. Magnier and Peter Brant’s White Birch. She cost 1,500,000gns and was bred by Newsells Park Stud and Craig Bennett’s Merry Fox Stud.

The underbidder was Richard Knight, while Simon Mockridge of Juddmonte Farms was involved up to 1,100,000gns.

Now named Ylang Ylang, the filly won over seven furlongs on her debut at the Curragh, but she did so in a manner that suggests she will progress to group class easily. This maiden was won two years ago by the subsequent Group 1 winner Discoveries, and last year by Never Ending Story, a Group 3 winner and Group 1-placed.

Ylang Ylang is the first foal out of the stakes-placed Shamardal (Giant’s |Causeway) mare Shambolic. She raced for a pair of dukes, Devonshire and Roxburghe, and was placed by John Gosden to won a maiden and novice at two, and to placed a few times in listed company.

Gary Hadden, an advisor to both Merry Fox Stud and Newsells Park, purchased Shambolic at the end of her second season for 800,000gns, and the mare has a yearling colt by Kingman (Invincible Spirit).

Shambolic is one of nine winners from Comic (Be My Chief), but she is far from being the best runner. Two of her siblings won at the highest level, and they were Comic Strip, renamed Viva Pataca (Marju), and Laughing (Dansili). The former was twice champion in Hong Kong, and he retired with earnings just short of £6 million after 18 wins. Many of the races he won now carry Group 1 status, but at the time only the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes did, and he won it twice.

Fitting winner

Laughing cost Charles O’Brien 275,000gns as a yearling, and fittingly won the Listed Nijinsky Stakes at Leopardstown, carrying the colours of Sue Magnier. She was then sold to race in the USA with trainer Richard Santulli and her victories there included the Grade 1 Diana Stakes at Saratoga, and later the Grade 1 Flower Bowl Invitational Stakes at Belmont, beating her stable companion, Tannery.

Comic is a half-sister to Brave Act (Persian Bold) and her, like Viva Pataca, started his career with Sir Mark Prescott before selling to race abroad. In the case of Brave Act, winner of the Group 3 Solario Stakes at two, he went to the USA and was a multiple Grade 2 winner.

Brave Act’s dam Circus Act (Shirley Heights) was an unraced daughter of Circus Ring (High Top), who was unbeaten at two, winner of three of her four career starts, rated the joint-best juvenile filly in Europe, and whose biggest success came in the Group 2 Lowther Stakes at York.

Champagne future beckons for Amo’s Bucanero Fuerte

NAMED after a Cuban lager, Bucanero Fuerte, continued the purple patch being enjoyed by owners, Amo Racing, and trainer Adrian Murray, when the two-year-old son of Wootton Basset (Iffraaj) obliged in the Group 2 Railway Stakes at the weekend.

In fact, the colt is owned jointly by Amo Racing and Giselle De Aguiar, and was a €165,000 yearling purchase at the Arqana Yearling Sale last year. This was the most achieved by an offspring of Frida La Blonde (Elusive City) to date, but it is odds-on that this will not be the case in August, when the colt’s yearling half-sister by Dubawi (Dubai Millennium) is sold.

It is probably something of a surprise that Bucanero Fuerte did not make more, given that his full-brother Wooded (Wootton Bassett) won the Group 1 Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp, and their own-brother Beat Le Bon (Wootton Bassett) was group-placed. In addition, Wootton Bassett’s profile is getting stronger with each passing year, to the point that his fee for the past two years is €150,000.

Bucanero Fuerte is from the last crop conceived in France at a fee of €40,000, and so his sale still represented a financial success. He is the fourth winner from his dam, an own-sister to the listed winner and group-placed Fred Lalloupet (Elusive City), and a half-sister to Mon Pote Le Gitan (Thunder Gulch) for whom the same description applies.

Firm Friend (Affirmed), the grandam of the Gain Railway Stakes winner, won a listed race at Evry, and was runner-up in the Group 1 Premio Regina Elana-Italian 1000 Guineas, and a stakes race in the USA. In addition to the pair of stakes winners she produced, she is grandam of another two, with different daughters.

One name that is instantly recognisable in the family pops up under the fourth dam. That mare, the stakes-placed Chere Alise (Caro), is grandam of Magic Ring (Green Desert). He won the Group 3 Norfolk Stakes at two and he placed at the highest level when third in the Group 1 Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp.

Wooded, the weekend victor’s full-brother, is one of half a dozen Group 1 winners by the champion juvenile Wootton Bassett. His ninth crop are this year’s two-year-olds, and 24 of his 35 stakes winners earned this distinction in group races. One wonders what the runners from his Irish crops will achieve, given the quality of mares he is now covering?