Group 1 Royal Ascot Winner

What an absolute thrill it was in the week to be a part of the Group 1 Prince Of Wales’ Stakes winner, My Dream Boat.

The Lord Shanakill colt bought from the Doncaster Breeze Up sale in April 2014 for £40,000 (earnings of £562,774 to date) was Paul & Clare Rooney’s first Group 1 winner and what a way to do it, coming from last to first in the final 2 furlongs, mowing down Aidan O’Brien’s Breeders Cup Turf winner Found in the dying strides and booking his place in the Eclipse & Champion Stakes.

Adam Kirby on My Dream Boat in the Group 1 Prince Of Wales‘ Stakes

This was trainer Clive Cox’s biggest winner to date but he is by no means a stranger to Group 1 success, also having struck in partnership with jockey Adam Kirby (who also became a proud new father) 24 hours earlier in the King’s Stand Stakes.

In the winners enclosure

With all the talk about the success of Breeze Up’s and recent winners to come out of them, it is interesting that neither My Dream Boat or Caspar Netscher (my other Group winning breeze up purchase) had clocked a fast time in their breeze, proving that it is the overall package, not just the time angle that you need to digest before buying a top class performer.

Being by the Irish National Stud’s (now sold to stand in USA), Lord Shanakill (a Group 1 winner at 8f) out of a sprint winning mare by Choisir, you would have expected him to be speed orientated but all he has done is improve and uses the speed he does posess to great effect over the 10f trip on soft ground.

Click for My Dream Boat Pedigree

This first Group 1 success for us adds to our Cheltenham & Aintree winners in 2016 and moves us onto 174 for the calendar year, well on track to surpass last year’s total of 272.