Pedigree Insights: Erupt and Covert Love

In the BBC's never-ending soap opera “Eastenders,” Peggy–the matriarch of the Mitchell clan–never ceased to stress the importance of family–or faaamly, as it is pronounced with a cockney accent.

Although most racehorse breeders are a very different breed from the glowering Peggy, most of them would share her faith in the family, especially the female line. It's pretty much the foundation of every breeding operation, even though it is possible to argue that this concentration on the bottom line of a pedigree isn't particularly logical. After all, any horse's fifth dam is just one of 16 mares in the fifth generation and a five generation pedigree contains 62 individuals, not just the five mares in the bottom line.

That said, both of the Group 1 races contested in Europe last week will have reassured everyone that the best female lines often enjoy a long and enduring importance. The Juddmonte Grand Prix de Paris saw Dubawi's son Erupt retain his unbeaten record–and put himself in contention for the Arc. The fifth dam of the Niarchos family's homebred is the celebrated Ciboulette, bred in Canada by E.P. Taylor back in 1961.

Four days later, the Darley Irish Oaks was won in fine style by Azamour's very progressive daughter Covert Love. This graduate of Hugo Merry's Kilshannig Stud is another with a very distinguished fifth dam, namely Stolen Hour, a Mr. Busher mare bred in Kentucky in 1953.

In an era when North American-bred horses managed an average of only 6.24 starts in 2014, it is well worth highlighting that Ciboulette and Stolen Hour were a good deal tougher. Ciboulette packed 33 starts into three years on the track and was talented enough to win 14 of them, taking at least one of Canada's top prizes for fillies at the ages of two, three and four. Stolen Hour, for her part, was a veteran of 38 races during a three-year career, with 20 of her starts coming as a 3-year-old. While not as classy as Ciboulette, Stolen Hour was a talented three-parts-sister to War Date, one of the best 3-year-old fillies of 1945.

Documenting the extensive achievements of these influential broodmares is a potentially tedious exercise for the reader, so I will try to be succinct.

Erupt's fifth dam Ciboulette was a contemporary of another of E.P. Taylor's standouts, Northern Dancer, so it was to be expected that she made several visits to this brilliant stallion. The partnership got off to a magnificent start by producing the champion filly Fanfreluche and later visits resulted in Barachois, a leading colt in Canada, and Night Shift. Despite being just a minor winner of one of his seven starts, Night Shift developed into a very good stallion, siring a team of more than 30 group/graded winners.

Coincidentally, Night Shift appeared directly in the pedigrees of two of last weekend's top winners. It was his son Azamour, a four-time major winner, who sired Irish Oaks winner Covert Love. And it was another of Night Shift's Group 1 winners, the Prix de Diane and Prix Vermeille winner Daryaba, who ranks as the second dam Dariyan. This Shamardal colt shaped like a potential Group 1 winner when he accelerated in fine style to land the G2 Prix Eugene Adam.

To get back to the female line descending from Ciboulette, it owes its success largely to her daughters Fanfreluche and Somfas (by What a Pleasure) and, to a lesser extent, American Legacy and Silk Lilly.

Somfas became one of those rare mares with three group winners to her credit and her name resurfaced last year as the third dam of Charm Spirit, the high-class miler who stood his first season this year at a fee of £25,000 at Tweenhills.

It has been Fanfreluche, though, who has ensured that the Ciboulette line regularly makes a serious impact in both Northern and Southern Hemispheres. She is the fourth dam of Erupt, the connecting links being her Sir Ivor filly Grand Luxe, Grand Luxe's Spectacular Bid filly Salvora and Salvora's Caerleon filly Mare Nostrum.

The choice of Dubawi as the 2011 mate for Mare Nostrum surely owed a lot to the 2010 efforts of Anna Salai, another of Dubawi's foals out of a Caerleon mare. Anna Salai very nearly landed the Irish 1,000 Guineas, having earlier won the G3 Prix de la Grotte.

In finishing a head second in the Prix Saint-Alary, Marie Nostrum narrowly failed to achieve the same Group 1-winner status already owned by her half-sister Aube Indienne (Yellow Ribbon S.). Erupt's third dam Grand Luxe has made a major contribution to Australian breeding, with her grandson Flying Spur and great-grandson Encosta de Lago both developing into champion sires. Another successful stallion, Holy Roman Empire, is a grandson of Fanfreluche.

As Erupt is by an exceptional stallion out of a mare who very nearly won a Group 1, it is possible to argue that credit for his talent should simply be attributed to his parents, rather than to some illustrious names lurking in his female line.

However, it is a different story with Covert Love, as might be gleaned from the fact that her dam Wing Stealth–who failed to win in nine attempts–was led out unsold at only €19,000 at Arqana last December. Covert Love, whose second dam never raced, had also failed to reach her modest reserve as a yearling, perhaps paying the price for having the unpopular Hawk Wing as her broodmare sire. It also took no more than 35,000gns to secure her year-older half-sister Stealth Missile in February, even though this filly was a dual winner by the fashionable Invincible Spirit.

Of course we know that Covert Love's sire, Azamour, is capable of getting a very good filly, such as the short-lived Prix de Diane winner Valyra and this year's Dubai Sheema Classic winner Dolniya, but his fee in 2014–the year he died–was no higher than €8,000. In other words, it is fair to think that Covert Love owes her Classic ability at least partly to sources a bit further back in her pedigree, with her excellent female line being an obvious possibility.

Her fifth dam, Stolen Hour, left a very rich legacy based largely on her broodmare daughters Best In Show and Stolen Date. The exceptional branch descending from Broodmare of the Year Best In Show has supplied an endless flow of major winners, featuring such as El Gran Senor, Aldebaran, Xaar, Spinning World, Try My Best, Blush With Pride, Domedriver, Redoute's Choice, Rags To Riches and Close Hatches.

Stolen Date was arguably best known as the dam of the successful Irish stallion Taufan (now grandsire of Canford Cliffs, one of this year's leading freshman sires). However, she also visited Nashua to produce the talented sisters Stoshka and Bubinka, the latter a winner of the G3 Premio Buontalenta over a mile.

Bubinka has done sterling work in maintaining the family fortunes and her descendants now include winners of both the Irish Derby (her grandson Grey Swallow) and Irish Oaks (her great-grand-daughter Covert Love). Hong Kong Horse of the Year Designs On Rome is another of Bubinka's numerous stakes-winning descendants.