THE Niarchos Draft at the Goffs November Sale made no end of headlines, but few of the buyers will have had a result from their purchase as quickly as Jeremy Brummitt and his client.

The bloodstock agent spent 130,000gns on the Rock Of Gibraltar (Danehill) mare Nocturne, and she was sold with a March covering by Rathbarry Stud’s globetrotting, four-time Group/Grade 1 winner State Of Rest (Starspangledbanner).

While she obviously had lots to recommend her, being the dam of two stakes-placed runners among her three winners, her new owners must have been overjoyed when her son, Tyrrhenian Sea (Dark Angel), brought the curtain down on 2023 with a victory in the Listed Quebec Stakes at Lingfield Park.

Still owned by the Niarchos Family’s Flaxman Stables, and trained by Roger Varian, this was a fourth success for the gelding whose three previous wins were on the all-weather also, but at Newcastle. He had earned blacktype twice before this at Lingfield, running second behind the multiple Group 1 winner Lord North in the Group 3 Winter Derby.

Nocturne was originally acquired for the Niarchos Family a decade ago, costing them €150,000. She was a three-time winner in Germany over 10 and 11 furlongs, and was sold carrying her first foal, a filly by Maxios (Monsun). Named I Wonder, she failed to show anything in two starts and was sold, though her first foal was a winner last year in Germany.

Disaster struck

Jeremy Brummitt actually purchased the next of Nocturne’s offspring, Nivaldo (Archipenko), and he was impressive when, trained by Ralph Beckett, he won both his starts at two.

Disaster struck however and he died the following year without racing again. Surely his talent was on the mind of Brummitt when he recommended Nocturne to his clients last November.

Next up for Nocturne was So I Told You (Gleneagles), and Richard Hughes trained her to win second time out at two, but she failed to build on that promise and disappointed in her second season. She sold for only 28,000gns to Joseph O’Brien who then saddled her to win three of her first four starts at four. She again failed to build on that, before the trainer conjured up a magical third place finish in a listed race at Dundalk on her final start. Her first produce is a yearling colt by Mehmas (Acclamation).

Tyrrhenian Sea followed, and the unraced Kalymnos (Wootton Bassett), a four-year-old who didn’t see the track due to injury. Meanwhile, Flaxman Stables have a two-year-old filly Bright Night (Study Of Man), and a yearling full-sister to Tyrrhenian Sea.

Understandable

When the Niarchos Family invested in Nocturne, it was understandable why they would wish to do so. At the time she was a half-sister to the Group 1 winner Nymphea (Dylan Thomas), but they too celebrated a big update when the next summer Nocturne’s half-brother Nutan (Duke Of Marmalade) won the Group 1 Deutsches (German) Derby. They are all out of the group-placed Neele (Peintre Celebre).

The latter mare’s most recent produce is a yearling colt, Nachtwolf (Australia), and with a number of young stock still to represent her, she could well build on what has been the perfect record to date. Her first nine foals are all winners, four of them stakes winner. Her tenth is the three-year-old Narokan (Holy Roman Emperor) who was placed at two, and this year’s two-year-old is a colt, Nerio (Highland Reel).