IT is hard to believe that the final crop by the multiple champion sire Deep Impact (Sunday Silence) has just turned three, and contains just six registered progeny.

Four of these have run, and two have won, both being successful last year.

The second winner on the board was the Shadai Farm-bred filly Light Quantum, and she was successful in a race for newcomers in mid-November, raising hopes that she could, in time, provide her sire with a top-class winner from his thirteenth and final crop.

Light Quantum made a successful seasonal debut recently at Chukyo and added the Group 3 Nikkan Sports Sho Shinzan Kinen, so the dream of a potential champion remains alive. She has succeeded in becoming another stakes winner in a family of females that seem to do this easily. Light Quantum’s dam, grandam and fourth dam were all stakes winners, and her third dam was stakes-placed.

A first foal, Light Quantum is out of the US Grade 1 winner Illuminant, a daughter of Quality Road (Elusive Quality), and she comes from the first crop of that four-time Grade 1 winner. A horse of immense natural talent, Quality Road won seven graded stakes, including the Grade 1 Florida Derby, Grade 1 Woodward Stakes, Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap, and Grade 1 Donn Stakes, and he set three track records, from six and a half to nine furlongs.

That initial crop also included the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner Hootenanny, and the Grade 1 Manhattan Stakes winner Spring Quality. They kick-started Quality Road’s stallion career, and his number of Grade 1 winners now stands at 14.

This year Lane’s End is charging $200,000 for a service. The stallion is also standing beside his son City Of Light, the multiple Grade 1 winner of the Pegasus World Cup. Light Quantum is the fifth stakes winner out of a daughter of Quality Road.

Improved

Illuminant improved with age and she won six of her 14 career starts. She showed the first real sign of being above average when she was third to Tepin in the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley Stakes at Keeneland, earning her first piece of blacktype. Any feeling that this was a bit of a fluke was dismissed when, next time out, she landed the Grade 1 Gamely Stakes at Santa Anita. That day she beat Wekeela and the graded stakes winners Elektrum, Keri Belle, Nancy From Nairobi, Fanticola and Nashoba’s Gold.

Showing her liking for the west coast, she added two more stakes wins at Santa Anita, rounding out her career with victory in the Grade 2 Monrovia Stakes. After that she was sent to the Fasig-Tipton November Sale in 2017, a year after her purchase there for $900,000, and sold for $1.1 million to Shadai Farm. Last year she had her second offspring, a filly by Bricks And Mortar (Giant’s Causeway).

Illuminant is out of the three-time sprint stakes winner, Sparkling Number (Polish Numbers), herself a half-sister to multiple stakes winner Smart Sunny (Smarten), and to the dam of stakes winner Lycurgus (Not For Love).

Talented

The grandam, of Illuminant, Sunny Sparkler (Sunny Clime), was another talented racemare, taking the Grade 3 Boiling Springs Handicap among seven career wins, and she is a half-sister to Honey Fox, whose 13 successes included the Grade 2 Ramona Handicap, Grade 2 Orchid Handicap, and Grade 2 Black Helen Handicap.

Continuing the tradition of excellence in the female line, Sunny Sparkler is a granddaughter of the champion older mare Blue Sparkler (Knave High). She was tough and sound, winning 11 times and hitting her peak at four. She later had five winners, and her only stakes winner’s 15 wins included the Beldame Stakes. She was Mac’s Sparkler (McLellan).

Money Catcher shines

KNOWN as Jason Belltree in New Zealand where he was a winner and runner-up twice at Group 2 level, the renamed Money Catcher is bolstering his reputation as an emerging contender among Hong Kong’s staying division.

He franked an excellent third-place finish in the Group 1 Longines Hong Kong Cup over 10 furlongs last month with a brave Group 3 January Cup Handicap over a furlong less. Driven to the front by Silvestre de Sousa, Money Catcher (Ferlax) lowered the class record with a strong gallop throughout.

Third behind star Irish-bred stayer Romantic Warrior at Sha Tin in December, Money Catcher was delivering his second win, along with nine placings, from 16 starts in Hong Kong.

“He’s an improving horse and since he’s got his head in front, it’s brought him confidence and he’s been running better races,” noted de Sousa.

Money Catcher also provided Frankie Lor with his first January Cup success since Simply Brilliant in 2019, and extended the reigning Hong Kong champion trainer’s lead on the 2022-23 table to four, with Lor holding a 29-25 margin over Tony Cruz.

Emerging star

The emerging Hong Kong star is one of three stakes winners for the now deceased Group 1 VRC Australian Guineas winner Ferlax, and like his son he too was a New Zealand-bred. A son of Pentire (Be My Guest), Ferlax won his first four starts, and defeated You’re So Good and Sheer Talent to gain his biggest success.

Retired to stud after suffering an injury during a brief four-year-old campaign that included a runner-up finish to outstanding mare Atlantic Jewel in the Group 1 Memsie Stakes, Ferlax served his first book of mares at Haunui Farm in the 2014 breeding season. Sadly, it was there that he sustained an injury that necessitated having to be euthanized in January 2017, on the eve of his first yearlings being offered for sale.

Money Catcher is the best of four winners from the unraced Warren’s Sister (Savabeel), and the others include six-time New Zealand winner Waimate Bill (Showcasing). Warren’s Sister is a full-sister to the Listed Wanganui Guineas winner Warrentherooster (Savabeel). He is the best of three winners out of the stakes-placed Florida (Pompeii Court).

Come close

This is a solid female line, without a Group 1 winner in the immediate removes. One horse who did come close to being one is Ellakapella (Pompeii Court). She is a half-sister to Money Catcher’s third dam.

A leading three-year-old filly a quarter of a century ago, she was a Group 2 winner who was second in the Group 1 Australia Stakes and third in the Group 1 Australian Oaks.

Ellakapella’s dam was a five-furlong winner and a full-sister to the smart Foxbay (Zephyr Bay). A listed winner, he was placed at Group 1 level, and he was one of half a dozen winning sons and daughter of Primcetta (Test Case).