Peace Envoy represents a branch of a famous family

PEACE ENVOY (FR) - 2014 bay colt

Coolmore Stud's classic winner and juvenile Group 1 star Power (by Oasis Dream) got his first stakes winner when the Aidan O'Brien-trained Peace Envoy held on to beat his stable companion Lundy by half a length in the Listed Coolmore War Command Rochestown (C&G) Stakes over six furlongs at Naas.

The colt was bred by Team Hogdala A B, he made a winning debut over five furlongs at Dundalk in April and was then runner-up, at odds-on, over the same trip in soft ground at the Curragh. Both he and the colt he beat on Sunday hold Group 1 entries.

Peace Envoy is a €125,000 graduate of the Arqana Deauville October Yearling Sale and his siblings include Kadyny (by Zamindar). That colt was third in the Group 3 Prix des Chenes as a two-year-old and won the Czech Derby over 12 furlongs the following summer, a race that carries local Group 3 status but does not give its winner blacktype as per the International Cataloguing Standards.

His dam ran three times at two, finishing well-beaten at Newmarket and at Redcar and picking up fourth place over eight and a half furlongs at Windsor, beaten by nearly six lengths. Her sole win from seven starts at three came in a 10-furlong handicap on firm ground at Brighton.

Hoh My Darling (by Dansili) is, in turn, out of an unraced mare called Now And Forever (by Kris), and that full-sister to Group 3 May Hill Stakes runner-up and Listed Middleton Stakes third Everlasting Love is a half-sister to the Group 3 Curragh Cup scorer and successful National Hunt stallion Witness Box (by Lyphard).

These are the highlights of the first three generations of the pedigree, and it is not the sort of profile that one would expect of a mare who would go on to produce a precocious six-furlong listed scorer. This would suggest that Peace Envoy's young sire is largely responsible for his aptitude.

If you go back another step in the family's history then you will find that his third dam, Excellent Alibi (by Exceller), was a half-sister to the great racehorse and broodmare Dahlia (by Vaguely Noble), the classic and prolific Group/Grade 1 star whose progeny feature the top-level winners Dahar (by Lyphard), Dahlia's Dreamer (by Theatrical), Delegant (by Grey Dawn II) and Rivlia (by Riverman), and whose descendants include the Group 1 winning stayers Nedawi (by Rainbow Quest) and Rite Of Passage (by Giant's Causeway).

In a remarkable coincidence, Peace Envoy and Vona, the filly who won the season's first juvenile stakes race, come from branches of the same family, although their actual relationship to each other is remote; they merely share a fourth dam in Charming Alibi (by Honeys Alibi).

Peace Envoy earned a Timeform figure of 102p for his recent success and it will be interesting to see how far up in the rankings he can go by the end of the year. He has plenty of pace, and he could do well in some of the season's better two-year-old sprint events, but his pedigree gives him prospect of staying further than that.