BECTIVE Stud, owned by Noel and Valerie Moran, and managed by Michael Lynam, had a special reason to be pleased with the victory of The Yellow Clay in the Listed Kevin McManus Bookmaker INH Flat Race at Limerick.

The four-year-old son of Yeats (Sadler’s Wells) became the 35th blacktype winner for the four-time Group 1 Ascot Gold Cup winner, but he is the first winner, and now blacktype winner, bred by the Moran’s at their state-of-the-art, and still developing, stud farm.

It should be said that great credit is due to the team at Bective for persevering with Winning Indian, an unraced daughter of Indian Danehill (Danehill).

That Group 1 Prix Ganay winner was not a success at stud, leaving just a pair of Australian-conceived stakes winners on the flat, while over jumps he also sired just two, though they were Potters Corner, successful in the Grade 3 Coral Welsh National Handicap Chase, and the Listed Marston’s Midlands Grand National Handicap Chase, as well as Shanahan’s Turn who won the Galway Plate and the Grade 2 Florida Pearl Novice Chase.

Winning Indian went to stud in 2009, but she had a hit and miss decade before finally foaling The Yellow Clay, her first winner. Hopefully she will add to that in time, as she has a three-year-old filly, The Queen Of Zim (Getaway), and a yearling colt by Crystal Ocean (Sea The Stars). She is due to foal soon, this one being a son or daughter of Jukebox Jury (Montjeu).

Winning Indian is a half-sister to four bumper winners, three of which went on to win over hurdles and/or fences. Their dam Winning Sally (Lancastrian) was placed a number of times in bumpers, but while she never won, five of her siblings did.

One of these was Dainty Daisy (Buckskin), and she has been successful also at stud, her best son being the Punchestown Grade 1 Champion Novice Hurdle winner Dedigout (Bob Back) who was twice runner-up in Fairyhouse Grade 1 chases, the Powers Gold Cup and the Drinmore Novice Chase. He won 10 races in all.

Winning Jenny

Winning Sally and Dainty Daisy, along with Winning Jenny (Leading Counsel), a successful racemare and the dam of two blacktype National Hunt performers, are all daughters of Winning Nora (Northfields).

Bred for the flat, being by a half-brother to Habitat (Sir Gaylord) and out of a leading two- and three-year-old filly in Germany, Widschi (Dschingis Khan), Winning Nora won twice at three when trained by Kevin Prendergast for Mrs Maria Mehl-Muelhens, after whom the German 2000 Guineas is named.

Winning Nora was bred at Baronrath Stud and after racing for Prendergast she moved to Dessie Hughes and won a number of races, coinciding with the death of her owner. She then was acquired by Denis Reddan and Michael Hourigan took over the training reins.

Successful six time over hurdles and on another three occasions over fences, Winning Nora gained a listed hurdle win at the now defunct Tralee, while she was runner-up in the Kerry National and third in Galway Plate.

Goffs bumper winner on the Crest Of Glory

WITH £59,000 to the winner, the Goffs UK Spring Sale Bumper at Newbury attracted a field of 19 runners, but none of them could live with the hugely impressive Crest Of Glory, who ran out a 15-length winner and marked himself down as a horse of immense potential.

Bred by Liz Lucas’ Swanbridge Bloodstock, who also bred the runner-up I’m A Lumberjack (Jack Hobbs), Crest Of Gold was sold at the 2022 Goffs UK Spring Store Sale for £48,000, and he is a four-year-old son of Black Sam Bellamy (Sadler’s Wells), Galileo’s own-brother, and out of the winning Hernando (Niniski) mare Dolly Penrose. She created quite a stir in 2006 when, as a yearling, she sold for €120,000 at the Tattersalls Ireland November Sale. Dolly Penrose went on to win twice on the level and once over hurdles, and Crest Of Gold is her second winning offspring.

Bred by the British comedian Jethro (real name Geoffrey McIntyre Rowe), Dolly Penrose’s exceptional price as a yearling still did not match that achieved a year earlier by her half-sister Mohboss (Lahib), who realised a record €180,000. What was it that made these fillies so desirable?

Well, they were both daughters of the Grade 1 hurdle winner Mistinguett (Doyoun), and their half-brother Rimsky (Silver Patriarch) was an emerging talent.

The year before Dolly Penrose was sold, Rimsky won the Grade 2 Persian War Novice Hurdle at Chepstow, beating the subsequent Grade 1 winner Massini’s Maguire, and he chased home Neptune Collonges in another. He went on to win over fences, but ended up as a 10-year-old winning a couple of point-to-points.

A half-sister to Sinntara (Lashkari), the stakes-winning dam of Sinndar (Grand Lodge), Mistinguett won as a two-year-old for Stradivarius’ owner Bjorn Nielsen when trained by Richard Hannon, was placed from two starts when in the care of David Loder, and then the Curragh Bloodstock Agency bought her for 16,000gns for John Duggan, and he sent her to be trained by Nigel Twiston-Davies.

Cleeve Hurdle

She won five hurdle races, including a 15-length victory in the Grade 1 Cleeve Hurdle, and the highlight of her placed efforts was when she was second, following the disqualification of Magical Lady, to Paddy’s Return in the Grade 1 Triumph Hurdle, also at Cheltenham.

Mistinguett bred six winners, and in addition to Rimsky, they included stakes winner and Group 2-placed Misternando (Hernando), a full-brother to Dolly Penrose, and the Grade 2-placed hurdler Mistanoora (Topanoora).

Crest Of Gold is from the last crop sired by Group 1 Tattersalls Gold Cup winner Black Sam Bellamy, and he is best known as the sire of the three-time Group 1 winner Earl Of Tinsdal, while his best National Hunt winners include the high-class French hurdler Galop Marin, Grade 1 hurdle winner Sam Spinner, and The Giant Bolster.