THE first of the juveniles I am suggesting will go on to better things is hardly an original, or surprising, choice. If she never won again, One Look has already realised her owner’s dream.

Thanks to a more than €600,000 first prize for the Goffs Million, and a runaway six-length win in the race on her debut, One Look appears to be a filly of some promise, and what an investment she was, costing the Connolly Racing Syndicate €65,000 as a yearling.

She was bred by Tullpark Ltd, a trading name for Stanley Lodge, the Cashel nursery owned by William Kennedy and John Wall. This year they welcomed a smashing Sea The Moon (Sea The Stars) colt foal which they intend to sell later this year.

Tullpark invested 120,000gns in One Look’s dam, the French three-year-old winner Holy Salt (Holy Roman Emperor), a decade ago. She was just out of training. Holy Salt’s foal of 2023 is just her fifth produce, but she is dam of two winners and a placed runner, and her other winner was quite smart. Baptism (Sea The Stars) sold for €460,000 as a foal, was a juvenile winner for Cheveley Park Stud and John Gosden, and then went to Italy where he won at Group 3 level and was runner-up in the Group 2 Premio Federico Tesio.

Soon after Holy Salt was bought, the team at Stanley Lodge celebrated a Group 1 win for the mare’s half-brother I’m Your Man (Cape Cross), who was renamed He’s Your Man after his move from France to Australia. He won the Epsom Handicap at Randwick and was placed a few times also at that level.

Boosted

The pedigree has been boosted a number of times also by Holy Salt’s half-sister Perfect Hedge (Unfuwain). A listed winner in Ireland, she added the Group 3 Prix Penelope to her tally of victories and she placed in the Group 1 Prix Saint-Alary. At stud, the best of Perfect Hedge’s winners is the Group 2 French winner Called To The Bar (Henrythenavigator), and he was runner-up to Oscar Performance in the Grade 1 Belmont Derby, and beaten less than a length when second in the Group 1 Prix Royal-Oak.

I am going to stick my neck out here and suggest that Roger Varian might have a 2024 US classic winner in his stables. Bred by Stonestreet Thoroughbred Holdings, Military Artist (Munnings) was sold as a yearling for $150,000 at Keeneland last year, purchased by Ted Durcan and Longways Stables.

This year, Mick Murphy and Sarah O’Connell’s Longways Stables resold Military Artist, who was the top lot at the opening session of the Tattersalls Craven Breeze Up Sale, to Oliver St Lawrence for 360,000gns. St Lawrence was standing alongside Bahraini owner Fawzi Nass and Varian.

At the time St Lawrence said: “He is a very taking horse, Roger was keen on him and so was I. We have had luck with Munnings before with Shahama, who did well in Dubai and then went to the US.”

Mick Murphy said: “I am a very happy vendor! He was very popular, we had a lot of the right people on him. He is a quick horse and a lot of people said he is very similar to Jack Christopher.” The latter is Munnings’ leading runner and was a three-time Grade 1 winner. He stands at Ashford Stud alongside his sire.

Second time out, Military Artist opened his account, bringing to five the number of winners and runners for his dam Separate Forest (Forestry). That mare was well-bought by Stonestreet Stables for $230,000 after winning four times, including a Grade 3 at Santa Anita. The best of her offspring to date has been triple stakes winner Henry Woods (Uncle Mo).

Garfield Shadow

Finally, you might scratch your head at my choice of the debut winner of a four-runner contest over the minimum trip at Hamilton, but the time of the race would indicate that this was an above-average winner.

Bred by Peter Jones, Garfield Shadow is not surprisingly a son of James Garfield (Exceed And Excel), and having sold as a yearling for a derisory €3,000, he showed his first glimpse of talent when breezing well at the Tattersalls Ireland Goresbridge Sale this year, and selling for €155,000 to Blandford Bloodstock.

Garfield Shadow is the second foal of Lara’s Theme (Lawman), and he is a grandson of Flowers Of Spring (Celtic Swing) whose five victories included a Group 3 fillies’ race at Gowran Park. This is the immediate family of Alamshar (Key Of Luck).