GALILEO Gold (Paco Boy) is the sire of Goldana, the Group 3 Gladness Stakes winner at the Curragh. The former Tally-Ho Stud sire is now in France, but there was a great win at the weekend for another of the stallions at the O’Callaghan’s Westmeath farm.

Mehmas (Acclamation) went to stud as a three-year-old and his first crop hit the track in 2020. Now five-year-olds, that group made a huge impact, containing as it did the Group 1 Middle Park Stakes winner Supremacy (Yeomanstown Stud sire). Also in that group was the 2021 Group 1 Del Mark Oaks winner Going Global, and last year’s Group 1 Haydock Sprint Cup winner Minzaal, a new sire this year at Derrinstown Stud.

The foal crop of 2018 by Mehmas now contains a fourth Group/Grade 1 winner, following the success of the French-bred Chez Pierre in the Maker’s Mark Mile at Keeneland in a record time for the race, and beating the champion Modern Games. Almost two out of every three runners by Mehmas win, and he is joined at Tally-Ho this season by his son Persian Force.

Inexpensive

Bred by S.C.E.A. des Prairies and Ecurie de Castillon, Chez Pierre was an inexpensive yearling, selling for just €25,000 at Arqana. He traded again at Arqana the following summer, before he had raced, this time realising €100,000. He joined Francis-Henri Graffard, won his first two starts as a juvenile, and adding another win at three.

The unbeaten Chez Pierre, owned by Roy Jackson and now racing for his Lael Stables, was sent to the USA and won his first two starts last year, second time out landing the Listed Henry Clark Stakes at Laurel. He was then off the track for some time due to injury, meeting his only defeat in seven career starts on his seasonal debut this year. His future career will be watched with great interest.

In spite of being a half-sister to nine winners and to the dam of a Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup juvenile winner, Chez Pierre’s dam Hortensia (Orpen) sold for only €15,000 as a newly-turned four-year-old, having been placed at three in France. Now she is the dam of three runners and winners from her first four foals, and she has a second stakes winner too, the listed juvenile scorer Zelda (Zelzal). Her fifth offspring is a two-year-old own-brother to Zelda.

Winning siblings

Hortensia’s winning siblings are headed by the Santa Anita Grade 3 winner Uraib (Mark Of Esteem) and a pair of stakes-placed winners in Italy. As producers, however, the best of the offspring of Hortensia’s dam Hamsaat (Sadler’s Wells) have been Chez Pierre’s placed dam, and Red Vale (Halling).

The latter was unraced, but she has been successful in the breeding shed where her best runner was Vale Of York (Invincible Spirit). His best day came at Santa Anita in 2009 when he won the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, though he failed to make an impact as a sire.

Hamsaat won her only start, while her full-brother Batshoof (Sadler’s Wells) won a pair of Group 2 races that now enjoy Group 1 status, the Tattersalls Rogers Gold Cup at the Curragh and the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot.

Their half-brother Sound Print/Regular Guest (Be My Guest) also won a number of races in Hong Kong that today would carry Group 1 status. The champion miler there, he won the Steward’s Cup, The Centenary Cup and the Hong Kong Derby.

Mehmas’s fourth crop of racing age are two-year-olds. In addition to his four Group/Grade 1 winners, he has sired five Group 2 winners, four Group 3 winners and another seven blacktype winners. Little wonder that his fee, which was only €7,500 in 2020, is now at a career high of €60,000.