THERE must be lots of delight at Overbury Stud this week, thanks to a purple patch enjoyed by one of their resident sires, Golden Horn (Cape Cross).

In the space of less than a week he has sired two new blacktype winners, with the Irish-bred Goldenas winning the 140th Group 2 Derby Italiano, and the 85,000gns December Sale purchase Wonderful Times landing a listed race in France, while the four-year-old Haskoy was successful in the Group 3 Aston Park Stakes at Newbury, adding to an earlier win in the Listed Galtres Stakes at York.

Readers will know that the Group 1 Derby and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner was sold last year to Dash Grange Stud owner Jayne McGivern, and moved from Dalham Hall Stud to Simon Sweeting’s Overbury Stud, His fee this year, £8,000, is some way adrift of the £60,000 he commanded in his first three years at stud, but with the quality of mares he covered in his early years, it was inevitable that he would get some smart performers.

His new status at Overbury is that of a dual-purpose sire, with the emphasis perhaps on attracting more and more quality National Hunt mares. Indeed, after she had purchased Golden Horn, McGivern took ownership of the dam of Constitution Hill, with the intention of sending her to the four-time Group 1 winner. Hopefully, flat breeders have not abandoned Golden Horn, as he is an impeccably-bred horse who was an exceptional racehorse.

Blacktype winners

His weekend successes took his tally of blacktype winners to 14, Goldenas joining Botanik (also Group 1-placed) as a Group 2 winner, Haskoy joining West End Girl as a Group/Grade 2 winner, while the Ballylinch Stud-bred Wonderful Times is his tenth listed winner. Golden Horn has also begun to emerge as a sire of note over jumps, Nusret, Stag Horn and First Street all recording victories at Grade 2 or 3 level over hurdles.

The Ralph Beckett-trained Haskoy carries the colours of Juddmonte Farms, and she looks likely to progress further and become a Group 1 winner. Her recent win was just her fourth start, three of which she has won. She was runner-up last year in the Group 1 St Leger, but demoted to fourth. A victory at the highest level in staying races is surely the aim of connections now.

Haskoy is a daughter of the listed winner Natavia (Nathaniel), a half-sister to the Group 1 Sun Chariot Stakes winner, and the dam of two stakes winners, Spinning Queen (Spinning World).

Sold for 350,000gns as a yearling, Wonderful Times won and was placed a number of times for Normandie Stud when in the care of the Gosden father and son team, but this was not enough to stop her from being sold for just 85,000gns last December. Now, on her second start for Barton Stud, she is a stakes winner, and her value trajectory has been significantly reversed. She is the first stakes winner out of the Group 1 performer Wonderfully (Galileo), and from the immediate family of Invincible Spirit (Green Desert).

Austin Curran

Which brings us back to the Italian Derby winner, Goldenas. His weekend success was his third in four starts, all this year, and he was runner-up once. Bred by Austin Curran at his Blackberry Road Stud in Co Waterford where he has just a handful of broodmares, the three-year-old is a graduate of the 2021 Goffs Autumn Sale where he sold for €23,000 to Razza Latina. Two years earlier the same owners spent £18,000 on Goldenas’ sibling Prichi (Awtaad), and she had just won for the first time when they bought the son of Golden Horn.

Subsequently Prichi won a listed race, one of her four victories, and both these stakes winners are by sons of Cape Cross (Green Desert). They are the first two foals of the Medaglia D’Oro (El Prado) mare Naseej, and she was bought as an unraced three-year-old filly through Emerald Bloodstock for 18,000gns. Medaglia D’Oro is also the broodmare sire of the Grade 1 Preakness Stakes winner National Treasure. After the emergence of Prichi as a listed winner, Curran sold Naseej privately and she has since produced a yearling filly by Mehmas (Acclamation) for Andreas Jacobs’ Gestüt Fährhof.

Naseej is a half-sister to five winners, the best of which was Mutashaded (Raven’s Pass). Trained by Roger Varian for owner-breeder Hamdan Al Maktoum, he won his first two starts, ran third to Hillstar at Royal Ascot in the Group 2 King Edward VII Stakes, and was not seen again after a disappointing run in the John Porter Stakes.

They are out of Sortita (Monsun), an outstandingly well-bred mare who was bought by Shadwell as a yearling for €750,000 in France, and won or placed on four of her five starts.

Classic winners

Her yearling value was thanks to the fact that in the year she was purchased, her full-brother Schiaparelli (Monsun) became the third Group 1 German classic winner for the Old Vic (Sadler’s Wells) mare Sacarina.

His German Derby victory was the first of five Group 1 victories, and he was following in the hoofprints of the 2000 Deustsches Derby and Group 1 Grosser Preis von Baden winner Samum (Monsun) and the German Oaks winner Salve Regina (Monsun).

This is one of the best families in Germany, and three daughters of Sacarina have gone on to produce Group 1 winners, the most notable being Sea The Moon (Sea The Stars), the brilliant German Derby winner and now a successful Group 1 sire at Lanwades Stud.

MAGE failed to add the second leg of the Triple Crown, the Grade 1 Preakness Stakes, to his victory in the Kentucky Derby, running third to National Treasure.

That son of the leading sire Quality Road (Elusive Quality) was winning for just the second time, his first coming last year at two, but he had form that indicated that he was up to winning at the highest level. After all, his juvenile form had seen National Treasure run second in the Grade 1 American Pharoah Stakes at Santa Anita and third in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile at Keeneland. His earnings now exceed $1.3 million, and he has repaid the $500,000 investment made in him as a yearling at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Yearling Sale.

Bred by Peter E Blum Thoroughbreds and consigned as a yearling by Bridie Harrison, National Treasure was selected at Saratoga by bloodstock agent Donato Lanni. He is one of four runners from Treasure (Medaglia D’Oro), three of them being multiple winners, while National Treasure’s four-year-old full-sister Quality (Quality Road) is still racing and been placed a number of times.

Treasure failed to win, in spite of being kept in training for three seasons, though she was placed on a number of occasions. She is a half-sister to four US stakes winners, and out of the stakes-placed Proposal (Mt Livermore). That mare was an own-sister to Grade 3 winner and Grade 1-placed Multiple Choice (Mt Livermore), and a half-sister to the unraced Lady Godiva (Unbridled’s Song) who bred the Grade 1 Clark Handicap winner Leofric (Candy Ride).

Well Chosen

Proposal’s dam Lady Of Choice (Storm Bird) was only placed but went on to produce nine winners. She had a notable half-sister in the Grade 1 Ashland Stakes winner Well Chosen (Deputy Minister), and she, in turn, bred Telling (A.P. Indy), the best of whose six victories came in the Grade 1 Sword Dancer Invitational Stakes at Saratoga, a race he won twice.

National Treasure became his sire Quality Road’s 15th Grade 1 winner when capturing the Preakness Stakes, and the classic winner is from the ninth crop by the Lane’s End stallion who is covering this year at $200,000. He stood for that fee in 2020 also, but after one season at this high he dropped back for two years to $150,000. Quality Road is now sire of 72 stakes winners.