O'Neill the toast of Ascot as On Her Toes brings more success

How serendipitous is that? As Ascot invited breeders of winners at last month's royal meeting to lunch on Friday to honour their success, one of the guests was represented by the filly who landed the feature race on the eve of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes card.

Only hours after Padraic O'Neill of Knocklong House Stud in County Kildare had received an engraved silver strawberry dish to commemorate his feat of breeding Britannia Stakes winner Bless Him, he watched his homebred On Her Toes run out a ready winner of the Listed Valiant Stakes accompanied by the Cheveley Park Stud-owned filly's trainer William Haggas from the Ascot Authority box.

“It was fantastic that the focus today was on the breeder and it was just fortunate there was a small breeder here to see the big race won,” said a modest O'Neill. “Along with owners, trainers and punters, breeders are one of the key constituencies in racing that need to be looked after, in their relative proportions, as we supply the horses to the sport.”

Three-year-old On Her Toes contributed to a fine run for her sire Kodiac, who is racking up two-year-old winners at an extraordinary rate this season. No one could accuse O'Neill of jumping on the sire's bandwagon late, as he bred one of his very first stakes winners, Sweet Cecily, who struck in the Listed Bosra Sham Fillies' Stakes in October 2010.

Padraic O'Neill: master of all he surveys at AscotCredit: Martin Stevens

Bless Him and On Her Toes were bred from long established Knocklong House families. The Royal Ascot winner is a Sea The Stars colt out of Happy Land, an unraced half-sister to Hollywood Starlet Stakes winner Creaking Board and classy sprinter-turned-Group 1 sire Dyhim Diamond.

On Her Toes is out of the winning Averti mare Dancing Jest, a half-sister to high-class sprinter The Kiddykid, who became one of the first stakes winners for Kodiac's illustrious predecessor at Tally-Ho Stud, Danetime.

“We bred Dancing Jest and sold her to Jane Lury, who gave the mare back to us as a gift for retirement,” O'Neill explained. “Her first foal, by Captain Rio, we called Jane's Memory and she won a Listed race.”

Dancing Jest – now the dam of two stakes winners from just three runners - has a Tamayuz yearling filly, produced no foal this year, but is back in foal to Kodiac.

“The next offspring is always much more athletic than the last one,” O'Neill laughed. “But the Tamayuz filly has plenty of substance and she's going to the Goffs Orby Yearling Sale.”

Reflecting on his turn in the limelight as the toast of Ascot, O'Neill said: “You need those as breeders to keep the show on the road.”