WHAT a breakthrough victory at Group 1 level for Cotai Glory, the first season sire sensation of 2021 who stands with the O’Callaghan family at their Tally-Ho Stud in Mullingar.

The two-year-old The Platinum Queen won the Prix de l’Abbaye by a short neck and a neck from the four-year-old Paul McCartan-bred White Lavender and the six-year-old gelding Couer De Pierre. Appropriately enough, The Platinum Queen was also bred at Tally-Ho and sold by them for 57,000gns at this year’s Tattersalls Guineas Breeze-Up Sale to trainer Richard Fahey and owners Middleham Park Racing.

What a start also to the stud career of the winner’s dam Thrilled, and what about her back story? Bred by Tally-Ho and a daughter of their star sire Kodiac (Danehill), Thrilled was sold for 460,000gns as a yearling to the Niarchos’s Flaxman Stables.

Having shown little in four starts, Thrilled was sold at the end of her second season at Goffs, and bought back by her breeders for just €15,000.

Based on the earlier performances of The Platinum Queen, her Galileo Gold (Paco Boy) half-brother sold in August at Goffs UK to Richard Spencer and owner Phil Cunningham for £170,000, and even at that price they must be happy with what they have got. Back in Co Westmeath the O’Callaghan’s have yet another colt out of the mare, again by Galileo Gold.

Cheap yearling

The dam of Thrilled is Fuerta Ventura (Desert Sun), a cheap yearling buy who won three times on the trot in Ireland when in the care of Ken Condon. Realising the value of some blacktype, the trainer sent her to Italy for a listed race but she failed by less than a length to overhaul the Sir Mark Prescott-trained Viz, also on the same mission.

Kept in training at four, Fuerta Venture did not train on, was retained at the end of the year for 62,000gns, failed to sell at Goffs for €92,000 a few months later, was covered by Choisir (Danehill Dancer), and sold to Tally-Ho for 38,000gns at the December Sale. No need to ask who got the best part of that deal!

Fuerta Venture went on to produce a number of good sales horses, three winners and all of them sired by stallions standing at Tally-Ho. The best of her winners was the stakes-placed The Gold Cheongsam (Red Clubs).