Mark Pennell

It feels like just yesterday that the bloodstock world was lauding the record-breaking achievement of Mehmas in 2024, the year that he sired no fewer than 70 individual two-year-old winners in Europe, smashing the previous record tally of 61 which belonged to his neighbour at Tally-Ho Stud, Kodiac. Time waits for no one in this game, however, and so it is that we now head into the 2026 breeding season with three of those 70 having already found themselves a place at stud. They include Ballyhane's new recruit Magnum Force,...

There's a growing sense of anticipation at Bearstone Stud with less than 11 weeks to go until the start of the British Flat season on turf, with the first foal out of the farm's most notable graduate, Glass Slippers (GB), having recently turned two. The Dubawi (Ire) colt in question will be the third generation of this family to have been bred and raced by Terry and Margaret Holdcroft, who founded the business back in 1979. They bought the colt's great grandam, the winning Fairy King mare Ocean Grove (Ire),...