IT is wonderful to see fillies and mares being kept in training, though most are not still racing on the flat as six-year-olds. A welcome exception is the Deegan family’s Insinuendo, a relatively lightly-raced daughter of Gleneagles (Galileo), and as a winner at up to Group 2 level, I am sure the hope is that she can rise to the top and perhaps capture a Group/Grade 1.

Beaten less than a length by classic winner Mother Earth in last year’s Group 3 Lodge Park Stud Irish EBF Park Express Stakes, Insinuendo went one better this year and registered her fourth career success on just her 14th start. She has previously been victorious in the Group 2 Kilboy Estate Stakes at the Curragh and the Group 3 Blue Wind Stakes at Naas, and last year she produced a career best performance when she finished third to Emily Upjohn in the Group 1 British Champions Fillies and Mares Stakes at Ascot.

With winnings now of €285,000, only bettered by two other progeny by Gleneagles, Grade and Group 1 winners Highland Chief and Loving Dream, Insinuendo has more than rewarded connections for the €110,000 invested in her by trainer Willie McCreery at the Goffs Orby Yearling Sale. She was sold there by her breeder, Noel O’Callaghan’s Mountarmstrong Stud.

This win was a timely update ahead of the upcoming Tattersalls Craven Breeze-Up Sale, where Norman Williamson’s Oak Tree Farm will offer Insinuendo’s Mehmas (Acclamation) half-brother as the sale’s second lot.

No shortage

This is a female line which had produced no shortage of high-class fillies and mares, and a couple of colts were outstanding. Insinuendo is the better of a pair of winners out of the Group 3 Dance Design Stakes winner Obama Rule, by Danehill Dancer (Danehill). She is one of three group winners out of the unraced Mennetou (Entrepreneur), being a full-sister to Osaila (Danehill Dancer), successful at Group 3 level at two and three and third in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies’ Turf. Their half-sister, Dawn Wall (Fastnet Rock) won the Group 3 Arrowfield Classic.

Foaled in Australia, Dawn Wall was purchased by Adrian Nicoll of BBA Ireland for A$1.3 million at the 2015 Inglis Sydney Easter Yearling Sale on behalf of the Niarchos’ Flaxman Stables, in partnership with Coolmore. Two of her four wins were at stakes level and she is now dam, with her first foal, of Albula (Galileo), a group-placed two-year-old winner two seasons ago.

Arc winner

Mennetou is a daughter of Detroit (Riverman), the third dam of Insinuendo. She is one of a special group, a winner of the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe who also bred a winner of the race.

Her five winning offspring, including three pattern race winners, are led by Carnegie (Sadler’s Wells), who gained a second Group 1 success in the Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud.

Also descending from Detroit are Twilight Payment (Teofilo), whose nine wins are headlined by his victory in the Group 1 Emirates Melbourne Cup, Banimpire (Holy Roman Emperor) who, as a Group 2 Ribblesdale Stakes winner and a classic runner-up in the Group 1 Irish Oaks, was sold for €2.3 million 12 years ago.

The fifth crop of racing age by Gleneagles are now two-year-olds, and his first four crops of runners have yielded a pair of top-level winners, Grade 1 Man O’War Stakes winner Highland Chief and the filly Loving Dream (Group 1 Prix de Royallieu), while three of his Group 2 winners have been placed in Group 1 races.

Add in another 15 Group 3/listed winners, and it is remarkable to think breeders can send a mare to him this year for only €17,500, less than a third of the fee he commanded when he started out at stud.

VICTORY for Equinox in Meydan has catapulted him into the position of being rated the best runner on turf in the world at present. His success in the Group 1 Dubai Sheema Classic can be added to wins in the Group 1 Arima Kinen and Group 1 Tenno Sho (Autumn Emperor’s Cup), and last year he was runner-up in both the Group 1 Japanese Derby and 2000 Guineas.

Wait for it. The Northern Farm-bred Equinox (Kitasan Black) has now won almost €9 million for Silk Racing Company, and he is the third foal, runner and winner for his dam, the King Halo (Dancing Brave) mare Chateau Blanche. He has raced just seven times, never been out of the first two, and all except his first run have been at group level.

Chateau Blanche won the Group 3 Mermaid Stakes, one of her four successes, and she was runner-up in a Group 2 race. Last year she visited Kitasan Black, himself a son of Black Tide (Sunday Silence), again.

Her other winners are Weiss Meteor (King Kamehameha), a Group 3 winner who has won half of his eight starts, and three-time winner Miss Bianca (Lord Kanaloa).

Tony Bin

Twice successful at three, Chateau Blanche’s dam Blancherie (Tony Bin), daughter of a Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner, bred four winners. Blancherie is a half-sister to the Japanese champion steeplechaser Blandices (Sakura Bakushin O), winner of the Nakayama Grand Steeplechase in 2004. Their dam was the Japanese stakes-placed Maison Blanche (Alleged), though her half-brother Balleroy (Kaldoun) won a Group 3 in France from Tel Quel and was second to Sillery in the Group 1 Prix Jean Prat.

Kitasan Black raced 20 times from three to five, was twice the champion older horse in Japan, and was successful over distances ranging from nine furlongs to two miles.

He won the Group 1 Japanese St Leger at three, the Group 1 Japan Cup at four, and brought his Group 1 tally of victories to seven at five. The four-year-old Equinox is from his first crop, as is Group 2 winner Gala Force, while the unbeaten Sol Oriens is one of a pair of Group 3 winners in his second crop.

Ushba Tesoro

While Kitasan Black is covering at €70,000 this year, his Shadai Stallion Station compatriot Orfevre (Stay Gold) commands just €25,000. This is in spite of siring four Group 1 winners, among them the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Distaff heroine Marche Lorraine.

The latest star performer for the Japanese Triple Crown winner, successful in six Group 1 races and runner-up to Solemia and Treve in successive editions of the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, is Ushba Tesoro.

The six-year-old Ushba Tesoro, bred by Chiyoda Farm Shizunai, has won nine times. He graduated from a listed win last year, at the age of five, to wining the Group 1 Tokyo Daishoten, and he won another listed race in 2023 on his way to landing the Group 1 Dubai World Cup. These are his only four pieces of blacktype.

Ushba Tesoro is the best of four winners from Millefeui Attach (King Kamehameha), herself successful three times. She is a half-sister to the listed winner Bold Brian (Brian’s Time), and they are out of Sixieme Sens (Septieme Ciel), a listed winner in France who was sold at the Goffs France Arc Sale in 1995, was sent to race in the USA, and twice was victorious at Grade 2 level. She made her way then to Japan where she produced nine winners.

On a night to remember, again, for Japanese breeding, Derma Sotogake stepped up in class to win the Group 2 UAE Derby, and will now be aimed at the Kentucky Derby next month. A listed winner, and being successful for the fourth time, he warmed-up for his latest triumph with a third-place finish in the Group 3 Saudi Derby.

Mind Your Biscuits

A liking for Dubai comes as no surprise as the Shadai Farm-bred three-year-old colt is from the first crop of Mind Your Biscuits (Posse), the US Grade 1 Malibu Stakes winner who was twice winner of the Group 1 Golden Shaheen Stakes at Meydan. Off to a great start at stud, Mind Your Biscuits has already chalked up 39 individual winners in that first crop, and he has a second stakes winner in Maruka Rapid. Four others have been stakes-placed.

One of four winners from five runners, Derma Sotogake is the best offspring to date of the Listed Kanto Oaks winner Amour Poesie, a daughter of Neo Universe (Sunday Silence). Just as he does in the pedigree of Equinox, Tony Bin (Kampala) crops up as the sire of Derma Sotogake’s winning grandam, Happy Request.