The team at Tally-Ho Stud have a knack for turning non-stakes winning racehorses into Group 1 sires and Kodiac is one of their greatest successes.
A multiple sprint handicap scorer who was runner-up in the Group 3 Hackwood Stakes at Newbury, the son of Danehill (by Danzig) is out of the 1990 Group 1 Prix de Diane (French Oaks) heroine Rafha (by Kris) and that makes him a half-brother to Group 1 Sprint Cup winner and major sire Invincible Spirit (by Green Desert). He began his career at a fee of €5,000 and such is the reputation that he has built in recent seasons that he was advertised at €45,000 for 2016. His yearlings made up to 360,000gns last season, foals up to 255,000gns, and his Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes-winning daughter Tiggy Wiggy was sold for a massive 2,100,000gns at the Tattersalls December Sales in Newmarket. That classic-placed filly is currently his only winner at the highest level, but it is surely all but guaranteed that she will not hold on to that particular accolade for much longer. Kodiac's 25 blacktype winners include four Group 2 scorers and five who have won at Group 3 level, and his latest batch of two-year-olds features Ardad and Prince Of Lir, winners respectively of the Listed Windsor Castle Stakes and Group 2 Norfolk Stakes at Royal Ascot this week. The latter was bred by Philip and Orla Hore, he is trained by Robert Cowell, and The Cool Silk Partnership had to go to £170,000 to secure him at the Goffs UK Breeze-Up Sale at Doncaster in April. That was a nice return on the £40,000 he fetched at the same venue as a yearling. Prince Of Lir is the second foal out of Esuvia (by Whipper), a former Bryan Smart-trainee who won once over five furlongs and twice over six furlongs, achieving a peak handicap mark of 86. Her siblings include the five-times sprint winner Matuza (by Cadeaux Genereux), the multiple middle-distance scorer Well Painted (by Excellent Art), and also Resplendent Glory (by Namid). The late Terry Mills trained that chestnut to win six of his nine starts, including Group 3 and listed sprints at Sandown, and from limited opportunities at stud the grandson of Indian Ridge (by Ahonoora) has sired several multiple winners, headed by his first-crop son Dreams Of Glory, a five-furlong specialist with 10 wins from 59 starts. Aoife (by Thatching), who is the grandam of Prince Of Lir, won twice, she is responsible for seven winners from eight foals, and is a half-sister to the Group 2 King's Stand Stakes third Funny Valentine (by Cadeaux Genereux). Her siblings also include Dame Hester (by Diktat), a stakes-placed dual winner whose son Donnerschlag (by Bahamian Bounty) won a Group 3 sprint at Hamburg, in Germany, last summer. That six-year-old is trained by Jean-Pierre Carvalho and, three weeks ago, he finished third behind Shining Emerald in the Group 3 Silberne Peitsche over six furlongs at Baden-Baden. The next dam, Aunt Hester (by Caerleon), was a winner at two and as she was out of the triple scorer Lady Hester (by Native Prince) that made her a half-sister to the Group 2-placed Group 3 Prix Daphnis winner L'Irresponsable (by Ile de Bourbon) and to Najaba (by Touching Wood), a Group 2-placed stakes winner in New Zealand who has some notable descendants. Najaba's great-granddaughter Platinum Witness (by California Dane) won the 2014 Group 1 New Zealand 1000 Guineas and two other pattern events, she was runner-up in the Group 1 New Zealand Oaks, and finished third in the Group 1 Windsor Park Horlicks Plate in October. That filly's stakes-winning dam Chartreuse (by St Petersburg) is a half-sister to the dam of the Group 1 New Zealand Oaks runner-up and dual pattern scorer Zennista (by Zenno Rob Roy). Those top performers are too remotely connected to Prince Of Lir to be in a position to give us any sort of idea of his future potential, but as a Kodiac colt from the immediate family of Resplendent Glory and Donnerschlag, it seems clear that his bright future on the track most likely lie within the sprinters' division. Comments are closed.
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