“WELL done Polished Gem,” was the immediate reaction post-race as Fiona Craig represented the Moyglare Stud owner Eva-Maria Bucher-Haefner in the winners’ enclosure following Thursday’s exciting Group 1 Gold Cup.

Victory for the Aidan O’Brien-trained Kyprios now means that Polished Gem becomes one of those rare mares, the dam of three Group 1 winners. This was win number five from seven starts for the still progressive four-year-old, previously successful in the Group 3 Saval Beg Stakes and the Listed Vintage Crop Stakes.

The son of Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) is one of eight blacktype winners for Polished Gem (Danehill), a daughter of the classic winner Trusted Partner (Affirmed).

A winner at two, and an own-sister to Grade 1 Matriarch Stakes winner Dress To Thrill (Danehill), Polished Gem has an impeccable record as a broodmare, her 10 foals are all winners. She herself is one of 13 named foals out of Trusted Partner, a dozen of which raced and all but one, who was placed, won.

Sadler’s Wells

Polished Gem has crossed well with Galileo and another son of Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer), High Chaparral.

Kyprios is a full-brother to the dual Group 1 winner Search For A Song (Galileo) and two other stakes winners, and a half-sister to another Royal Ascot winner, Free Eagle (High Chaparral) who won the Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes.

Polished Gem is also the dam of group and listed winners by Notnowcato (Inchinor), Medicean (Machiavellian) and Dark Angel (Acclamation), while her multiple winning son of Dubawi (Dubai Millennium), Rich History, is just completing his first season at Kedrah House Stud.

This is truly an amazing family, producing talented, sound and durable runners, and what a special race to win in the year when the stud celebrates 60 years since its founding by Walter Haefner.

Let’s not forget – as if we could – Galileo. Kyprios is the great sire’s 95th individual Group/Grade 1 winners, and they have amassed an incredible 195 races at this level. The magic centuries are surely just a matter of time for the Coolmore legend.

Harrington produces Magical Ascot moment

THERE was a second Irish-trained winner on Thursday, and she was yet another for Galileo (Sadler’s Wells). Magical Lagoon, on just her fifth start, added the Group 2 Ribblesdale Stakes to her win last year in the Group 3 Flame Of Tara Stakes at the Curragh.

Magical Lagoon could well be one of the offspring of the great Coolmore stallion that helps to push his number of Group 1 winners to a century, and she races for Zhang Yuesheng, a great supporter of Irish racing and Irish-breds. He acquired Magical Lagoon for 305,000gns in Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale, and how lucky it was that Michael Donohoe from BBA (Ireland) went that extra bid!

Coolmore bred Magical Lagoon, and it is interesting that they also used the services of BBA (Ireland) back in 2014 to purchase Magical Lagoon’s dam Night Lagoon (Lagunas) at Fasig-Tipton for $1.7 million. Her appeal then was that she was a Group 3 winning half-sister to Novellist (Monsun), and the previous year he won the Group 1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. He was also a Group 1 winner in France, Germany and Italy.

In all, Night Lagoon is the dam of 12 winners, a number by Galileo, and three of her winners were stakes placed. This is a family that for years has been notable for the many winners bred by successive dams. Night Lagoon is one of eight winners from the German listed winner Nenuphar (Night Shift), she is one of 12 winners from Narola (Nebos), while Magical Lagoon’s winning fourth dam had eight winners.

The Ridler produces shock win in the opener

THURSDAY’S seven-race card opened with the Group 2 Norfolk Stakes, and the 525,000gns breeze-up purchase, Walbank, was many people’s idea of the likely winner. He came close, but had to play second-fiddle to the 50/1 shock winner, The Ridler.

Owned and bred by Steve Bradley, the colt represented the combination of trainer Richard Fahey and jockey Paul Hanagan who won the race a year earlier with Perfect Power. He went on to win a couple of Group 1 races, and it will be interesting to see if The Ridler is anywhere close to that class. He is the tenth group winner sired by Brazen Beau, Australia’s champion three-year-old when he won a pair of Group 1 races at Flemington.

Brazen Beau is a son of I Am Invincible (Invincible Spirit) and he raced for Chris Waller. His final two starts came in England, and on the first of these he was runner-up in the Group 1 Diamond Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot. Sold for a reputed A$10 million to Darley, Brazen Beau shuttled between Australia and England for a number of years.

His 19 stakes winners are led by Group 1 Manawatu Sires’ Produce Stakes winner On The Bubbles, this season’s Group 1 performer General Beau, and now The Ridler has become his third Group 2 winner.

The Norfolk Stakes winner is one of two winners out of Colorada (Lope De Vega), a placed half-sister to a couple of minor winners out of a daughter of Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer).

Bargain buy spoils a possible Royal jubilee celebration

RACEGOERS on Thursday were hopeful that an absent Queen Elizabeth might celebrate a 25th Royal Ascot victory with Reach For The Moon in the Group 3 Hampton Court Stakes. However, the French-bred Claymore, a son of Ballylinch Stud’s New Bay (Dubawi), proved too good as they passed the post.

Now racing in the colours of Mary Slack, Claymore had a humble start to his life, selling for a giveaway €5,000 at Arqana to Ardglas Stables, and he was pinhooked for a modest £10,000 at the Goresbridge Breeze Up Sale last year when it was held in Newmarket. The colt then won his only run at two, over seven furlongs at Newmarket, and when he next appeared, he was sporting his present racing silks.

His reappearance was a second-place finish to Native Trail in the Group 3 Craven Stakes, followed by a disappointing run in the French 2000 Guineas, but he bounced back on just his fourth run and he looks like a horse to follow.

His win was another boost for New Bay, having a great meeting with Saffron Beach winning the Group 2 Duke of Cambridge Stakes, and Bay Bridge finishing second in the Group 1 Prince of Wales’s Stakes.

Claymore is one of a couple of winners from the unraced Brit Wit (High Chaparral), while his grandam Brisk Breeze (Monsun) won a listed race at Ascot, was group-placed, and she is one of a pair of stakes-winning daughters of Bela-M (Ela-Mana-Mou), a listed winner in Germany and group-placed there and in France.

Poignancy as Secret State wins

THREE handicaps completed the third day of racing at Royal Ascot. The first was won by Secret State, bred by the recently deceased Christopher Hanbury, and this King George V Stakes winner is bred to be much better than a winning handicapper.

Runner-up on his debut, he has now won his last three starts, and is beginning to repay the 525,000gns he cost as a yearling. He is bred in the purple, being a son of Dubawi (Dubai Millennium), a full-brother to a stakes winner and half-brother to Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf winner Line Of Duty (Galileo), and they are out of the Group 1 1000 Guineas winner Jacqueline Quest (Rock Of Gibraltar), first past the post but disqualified.

Another handicap winner with a Group 1 pedigree is Thesis, the Juddmonte homebred winner of the Britannia Stakes. Placed on all of his first four starts, he went into this competitive contest a maiden, and emerged with the more than £50,000 first prize.

A son of Kingman (Invincible Spirit), he is the fifth winner for Nimble Thimble (Mizzen Mast), and the best of the rest is the Group 1 Fillies’ Mile winner Quadrilateral (Frankel).

Bred by Cheveley Park Stud, Inver Park won twice before being sold at Goffs UK in December for £35,000. He has now won three times for new connections and earned more than his purchase price with his win in the concluding Buckingham Palace Stakes. A four-year-old son of Pivotal (Polar Falcon), he is out of a half-sister to that stallion’s Group 1 winning son Maarek.