UNSOLD at €125,000 when he was offered for sale at the Goffs Champions Sale last month, Mctigue later joined Emmet Mullins to race for Paul Byrne. The pair had enjoyed big race wins previously with The Shunter.

Before the month was out Mctigue popped up in a juvenile hurdle at Sedgefield which he won by more than eight lengths, sent off the odds-on favourite. Less than three weeks later and the three-year-old gelded son of Fracas (In The Wings) was on his travels again, this time to Auteuil, and again he was in the winners’ enclosure after the Grade 2 Prix Georges de Talhouet Roy Hurdle.

Mctigue was bred by Marguerite Joyce in Co Galway, and she and her husband Joe stand his sire Fracas. They raced that colt, trained by David Wachman, and his five wins were headed by victories in the Group 2 Derrinstown Stud Derby Trial at Leopardstown and the Group 3 Classic Trial at Sandown. Fracas ran in the Derby at Epsom, won by Motivator from Walk In The Park, and finished fourth, a length behind the third-placed Dubawi.

Fracas was not well supported at stud, but he has shown ability as a sire, notably getting the impressive juvenile Smash Williams. Trained by Jim Bolger, Smash Williams took our breath away when he won at the Curragh on his debut, following up with victory in the Group 3 Round Tower Stakes. He did win again, a listed race at the age of five, but he never fulfilled the promise of those first two successes.

Highly-promising

As it happens, Mctigue is out of a half-sister to Smash Williams. Tradfest (High Chaparral) was put in training with Bolger but she only made two starts, being a highly-promising third on her Leopardstown debut at two. She passed through the sales twice, selling to the Manning’s Boherguy Stables as a foal for €37,000, and reselling for a whopping 190,000gns as a yearling, thanks to the promise of those early wins for Smash Williams.

The Joyce connection goes back another generation with Mctigue and Smash Williams. The latter is out of the winning two-year-old Take Flight (Pivotal), and she is a full-sister to the Frances Crowley-trained Saoire who won the Group 1 Irish 1000 Guineas and placed at two in the Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes. She raced for Joe Joyce.