Sires past and present make a first Grade 1 mark among busy Saturday action

A plethora of Grade 1 action – as well as the odd upset – allowed three stallions old and new to strike gold for the first time during Saturday afternoon at Leopardstown and Sandown.

Dancing City had got the ball rolling in the Nathaniel Lacy & Partners Solicitors Novice Hurdle, having been sent off the longest-priced of four Willie Mullins runners. The seven-year-old was bred in France from the time when his sire, Feel Like Dancing was standing at Haras du Lion.

The Lady Bamford-bred son of Galileo, who is a half-brother to Cheveley Park winner Indian Ink, raced only five times for John Gosden but won the Group 3 Bahrain Trophy over 13 furlongs on his final outing. He moved to Whytemount Stud in Ireland for the 2020 season and was priced up at €2,000 for this year.

Dancing City looks on his way to becoming easily his sire's best offspring, most of his other winners having come in smaller races in France, although there should be plenty of Irish-bred crops to come. Bred by the Moutel family, he was bought by Cormac Farrell at the old Goffs Landrover Sale in 2020 from Clifton Farm for €28,000 and moved into the Mullins orbit after winning a point-to-point for that handler at Borris House at the end of 2021.

Kargese makes a breakthrough for her sire Jeu St Eloi in the McCann FitzGerald Spring Juvenile HurdleCredit: Patrick McCann

Not long later it was the turn of Jeu St Eloi, the bright young hope of the Cashman family's Rathbarry and Glenview Studs. Kargese, bred by Thierry Cypres, had been an early Grade 3 winner for the sire at Auteuil last May and, having moved to Mullins in the interim, she was his first at Grade 1 in the McCann FitzGerald Spring Juvenile Hurdle. A private purchase, Kargese has chasing in her family as her dam is a half-sister to the mother of 2015 Grand National runner-up Saint Are.

Mustameet would not be a stallion name on many National Hunt enthusiasts' lips these days, given the smart miler has not been on the roster at Robert Honner's Clongiffen Stud for a while now. Shadwell's US-bred son of Sahm, who was so consistent for Kevin Prendergast through six seasons, is the sire of Sarah Humphrey's lively front-runner Nickle Back, who took the Virgin Bet Scilly Isles Novices' Chase at Sandown.

Bred by Olive Gordon out of the useful Irish jumping mare Mill House Girl, Nickle Back has become his sire's biggest money-spinner, passing Paul Nicholls' progressive young handicapper Outlaw Peter. 

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