IN the world of equines, €1,200 would buy you very little. Incredibly, it was the purchase price of an unraced Lope De Vega (Shamardal) three-year-old called Vida Amorosa.

She was sold for that giveaway figure having realised €46,000 as a foal and 72,000gns as a yearling. At the time of her final sale ring appearance, she was a half-sister to three minor winners, and from a branch of a good family that had gone a little quiet. How that picture has changed.

Vida Amorosa was purchased by Tom Lacy and his son Barry, men with quite a pedigree and performance record. Tom has been a most successful owner, breeder, jockey and trainer and a mentor to many within racing. His son Barry is a full-brother to Keeneland Sales’ Tony Lacy, and their mother Margaret is a sister to Paddy Behan, the breeder of the outstanding Altior. That’s just for starters.

The Lacy’s farm is in that rich area of the midlands associated with good horses, horsemen and women. Rhode, Co Offaly is enjoying a purple patch, with Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes winner La Petite Coco a recent example of the type of quality runners the area is producing. Derek and Gay Veitch in Ringfort Stud are also there, as are the Lacy family at Ballyheashill Stud.

Barry Lacy has related the story before about buying Vida Amorosa, and why she was sent to Tally-Ho Stud to Mehmas (Acclamation). Just a few months before the Goffs February Sale where they bought Vida Amorosa, they noticed that the filly’s winning half-sister Queen Of Power (Medicean) had a colt foal by Acclamation (Royal Applause) sell for €130,000. That sparked their interest.

Faith justified

That Acclamation colt turned out to be the Group 3 Prix de Meautry winner Garrus, and suddenly a sleepy pedigree was coming alive. Though they were sending an unraced maiden to an unproven sire, their faith in doing do was justified when Vida Amorosa’s first foal, Gubbass, sold as a yearling to Charlie Gordon Watson. Last year he won the valuable Weatherbys Super Sprint and was group-placed.

Meanwhile, the second foal out of Vida Amorosa, also a son of Mehmas, was bought as a foal by Tony O’Callaghan for €75,000. This cracker of a colt benefited from the early successes of his full-brother, and resold at last year’s Goffs Orby Sale for a highly profitable €225,000. He has turned out to be Persian Force, winner on Thursday for the third time, but this time in the Group 2 July Stakes. His only other start saw him finish runner-up in the Group 2 Coventry Stakes.

Guess what? Last year Tom and Barry Lacy sold a colt foal by another Tally-Ho stallion, Inns Of Court (Invincible Spirit), for €80,000 using the services of Ringfort Stud, and he was bought by the man with the Midas touch, Tony O’Callaghan. Watch him soar in value when he comes up for sale this autumn. This week Barry told me that Vida Amorosa is in foal to Tally-Ho Stud’s Group 1 July Cup winner Starman (Dutch Art).

Champion juvenile

If you go back to the fourth dam of Persian Force, you can see where some of this precocity and class is coming from. Lettre D’Amour (Caro) is the grandam of Danehill Dancer (Danehill), a champion juvenile with wins in the Group 1 National Stakes and Phoenix Stakes, and later a champion sire. The Group 2 Coventry Stakes winner Buratino (Exceed And Excel) is also on the page.

Mehmas himself won the July Stakes, and now he is the sire of the two most recent winners of the same race, Lusail and Persian Force. Lusail went on to win the Group 2 Gimcrack Stakes, was beaten a head in the Group 1 St James’s Palace Stakes, and looks for a Group 1 win this weekend in Deauville. Mehmas came close to Group 1 success, chasing Churchill home in the National Stakes at the Curragh.