Ardad the latest first-season sire to strike as Blue Collar Lad wins at Bath

Blue Collar Lad provided Overbury Stud's first-season sire Ardad with his first winner when taking the five-furlong CB Protection Security Training Restricted Novice Stakes at Bath on Tuesday.

Bred by Phil Cunningham, Blue Collar Lad was sold to Robyn Brisland at Book 4 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale for just 1,000gns, meaning he has already repaid his purchase price. The colt held on for a short-head success over the Equiano-sired Muskateer Three.

Out of the placed Canford Cliffs mare Wonderful Life, a half-sister to the Italian stakes-placed Pit Babe, Blue Collar Lad is the second of Ardad's runners to hit the track after the Richard Fahey-trained Vintage Clarets.

Ardad, a son of the record-breaking Kodiac and winner of the Group 2 Flying Childers and Windsor Castle Stakes during a nine-race career, retired to the Gloucestershire stud in 2016 at a fee of £6,500.

The seven-year-old, who was bred by Tally-Ho Stud and owned by Abdullah Saeed Al Naboodah during his racing career, was one of the joint £170,000 top lots, along with Prince Of Lir, when purchased by Blandford Bloodstock from the Goffs UK Breeze-Up Sale in 2016.

Now standing for a fee of £4,000, Ardad has 102 first-crop juveniles to represent him this term. He is following in the footsteps of fellow first-season sires Caravaggio and Profitable, who got off the mark with their first runners.

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