FORTY-SIX yearlings by Invincible Spirit (Green Desert) sold last year, ranging in price from 600,000gns down to a scarcely believable €3,000.

The present crop of two-year-olds by the Irish National Stud stalwart are the eighteenth in Europe to represent the Group 1-winning sprinter and multiple Group 1 sire. During that time Invincible Spirit has sired 466 juvenile winners, a number of which won at the highest level at the age of two.

That list started with Vale Of York’s success 14 years ago in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, was quickly added to when Hooray was victorious the following year in the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes, and then Rosdhu Queen made it a double two years later when she too captured the Cheveley Park Stakes.

In 2015 Shalaa brought up a juvenile Group 1 double when he won both the Middle Park Stakes and the Prix Morny.

Irish National Stud

National Defense, standing with his sire now at the Irish National Stud, won the Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere in 2016, two years before Royal Meeting triumphed in the Group 1 Criterium International. That juvenile crop also included the Group 1 Vertem Futurity Trophy winner, and subsequent classic scorer, Magna Grecia.

Oh, and in Australia, he sired the Group 1 juvenile winner Yosei, and this was one of three victories she compiled at this level.

Now nestled among the 466 juvenile winners is Invincible Spirit’s first two-year-old winner of this year, Diego Spirit. Would you believe it, but he is the same colt who sold for €3,000 last year in the Goffs Sportsman’s Yearling Sale? Given his pedigree, and his close relationship to one of Invincible Spirit’s 22 Group 1 winners, Profitable, it is still head-scratching that Diego Spirit could have sold for so little.

Thankfully, he doesn’t know what he cost, and at the weekend Diego Spirit won more than his purchase price when successful over six furlongs at Siracusa in the colours of Romano SRLS, his purchaser at Goffs. The colt was bred in partnership by the Phelan’s Tullogher House Stud and the Irish National Stud.

Diego Spirit is the second foal and second winner for his Youmzain (Sinndar) dam Kaks Roosid, the first being So Chic (Exceed And Excel). That three-year-old filly, a €55,000 Goffs yearling, is trained by Charlie Hills and won over seven furlongs in March at Wolverhampton. Last year Kaks Roosid visited Showcasing (Oasis Dream).

No surprise

Perhaps Diego Spirit will not scale the heights of many of the best runners sired by Invincible Spirit, but were he to become a stakes winner it would be no surprise. His dam is an own-sister to the stakes-placed Nabhan (Youmzain) and a half-sister to the Italian stakes winner, and 29-time winner, Gamgoom (Exceed And Excel), while their unraced sibling Golden Dirham (Kheleyf) bred this year’s French listed winner Perdika (Unfortunately).

Smart two-year-old form is quite common in this family. Diego Spirit’s grandam Danidh Dubai (Noverre) was beaten just two lengths by Cuis Ghaire when finishing third in the Group 3 Albany Stakes at Royal Ascot. She had nine winning siblings, the best of which was the Ascot hero and Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes winner Profitable. Their dam Dani Ridge (Indian Ridge), a daughter of a former INS sire, also bred Group 3 winner Ridge Ranger (Bushranger).