LAST week Bruno Vagne featured on these pages as the breeder of Envoi Allen, and in the lengthy piece I spoke about the depth of quality in that gelding’s pedigree.

Envoi Allen (Muhtathir), Espoir D’Allen (Voix Du Nord) and Auvergnat (Della Francesca) are just three stars of the jumping scene that we would immediately recognise, all tracing back to the unraced Dalila (Vieux Chateau).

That mare was born in 1969, did not race, but she produced seven winners at stud. While she is the taproot of the three Grade 1 and 2 winners already mentioned, and more, in one branch of the family, there is another branch too that has done well.

The second branch, also closely associated with the Vagne family, descends from Dalila’s winning daughter Herinie (Or De Chine). She went one better than her own dam and had eight winning offspring, but her daughters and their offspring have blossomed as producers, and this branch of the pedigree has been responsible for Grade 1 Aintree winner Gelino Bello (Saint Des Saints), Grade 2 Cheltenham winner Galahad Quest (American Post), Grade 3 Punchestown winner Elfile (Saint Des Saints) and listed winner and Grade 1 runner-up Eudipe (Useful).

The latest potential star to emerge is the Cheltenham Grade 2 Hyde Novices’ Hurdle winner Hermes Allen. That son of Poliglote (Sadler’s Wells) runs for Sir Alex Ferguson and partners and cost Paul Nicholls and Aiden Murphy £350,000 last December after he was sold by Wilson Dennison. The then four-year-old had won a point-to-point at the second time of asking.

Hermes Allen is the first winner from Une Destine, a daughter of Assessor (Niniski), and her five wins over jumps in France included a Grade 3 at Auteuil.