WHEN Jim Hay paid £380,000 at the Goffs London Sale last year for the winning two-year-old Mirage, the price seemed to be a fair one. The filly was a half-sister to a stakes winner and from an exceptional female line and anything she might achieve in the future would be a bonus.

Well, that bonus came recently in the shape of a victory at Santa Anita in the China Doll Stakes, a mile race for three-year-old fillies on the turf. The Irish-bred daughter of Oasis Dream won by a neck from the Edmond Kent-bred Lady Valeur whose pedigree was recently reviewed on these pages, while a nose back in third was another Irish-bred, the Kodiac filly Nodiac.