Pedigree Insights: With You

All good things must come to an end, it's said, and there can be no question that Dansili's stallion career, which ended earlier this year, was good. In fact it was very, very good, as can be seen from his current total of 130 black-type winners, which represents 9% of his output of 1,460 foals of racing age. That's very good going for a stallion who started out at a fee of £8,000.

Dansili's number of Group/Graded winners is heading towards 80 and he notched up his 21st Group 1 winner when his 3-year-old daughter With You produced a career-best performance to land the G1 Prix Rothschild by an impressive three lengths.

Dansili's sons have certainly had their moments, both as competitors and as stallions, with Harbinger winning the King George and Rail Link the Arc, while Flintshire enjoyed Group 1 success on three continents. Zoffany was the champion first-crop sire of 2015 and is poised to capitalise on that bright start, while Harbinger is making his mark in Japan with the likes of the top-class Deirdre, who comfortably defeated a classy field of fillies and mares at Sapporo two days ago. Bated Breath also appears to be on the verge of breaking through.

However, the chances are that Dansili will be best remembered as a highly effective sire of fillies and broodmares. Fillies account for no fewer than 14 of his 21 Group 1 winners, with this impressive collection featuring such as The Fugue (who defeated the males in both the Irish Champion S. and Prince of Wales's S.), Dank and Queen's Trust (both winners of the Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf), Miss France (1000 Guineas), Proviso (a four-time Grade I scorer in the U.S.) and Fallen For You (Coronation S.).

The 14 Group 1-winning fillies also feature a pair of very capable sisters in With You and the 4-year-old We Are. We Are's finest moment came when she snatched victory in the 2014 Prix de l'Opera, She had earlier run out a decisive winner of the G1 Prix Saint-Alary, only to be disqualified in extraordinary circumstances. Her post-race test contained more than the permitted level of testosterone, the cause of which was a tumour on one of her ovaries which required surgery. In a very similar case, another French-trained filly Treat Gently was disqualified after running well in the 2008 Prix Vermeille. Despite the removal of an ovary, Treat Gently has proved a regular breeder and We Are is now the dam of a 2017 filly by none other than Galileo.

We Are raced mainly at around a mile and a quarter and she would have been a leading candidate for the Prix de Diane had she not been forced onto the side-lines by her medical condition. However, her younger sister With You suffered her only defeats on the two occasions she has been tried at around a mile and a quarter. That's not to say, though, that she didn't stay. She was beaten only a short head by Laurens in the G1 Prix Saint-Alary and then With You was beaten only a neck, a nose, a head and a nose when fifth behind Laurens, Musis Amica, Homerique and Happily in the Prix de Diane.

The possibility exists that a mile is With You's optimum distance, allowing her to use her telling burst of finishing speed. Dansili finished only fourth of six on the one occasion he was tried beyond a mile, and With You's broodmare sire Inchinor was a seven-furlong specialist. Inchinor was one of three sons of the sprinter Ahonoora to appear among the broodmare sires of Dansili's group winners, with all four group winners bred to this pattern being fillies.

With You represents yet another success for George Strawbridge's breeding operation. Her dam In Clover was also bred by Strawbridge, for whom she did well in France as a 3-year-old. Although her finest win came in the G3 Prix de Flore over 1 5/16 miles on very soft ground, In Clover was sufficiently speedy to also win a listed race over a mile. She inherited Inchinor's toughness, packing 18 starts into three seasons, during which she was rarely out of the money.

In Clover has proved even more effective as a broodmare. In addition to her two Group 1 winners by Dansili, she has two listed winners by Oasis Dream, namely the fillies Dream Clover and Incahoots, both winners at around a mile. Although In Clover is now 16, her story is far from over, as she has a 2016 Dansili filly, a 2017 Dansili colt and a 2018 Dubawi colt. Her daughter Dream Clover has several young fillies, including a 2016 Dubawi named Turea, a 2017 Zoffany and a 2018 Frankel, and Incahoots has started her broodmare career by producing a 2018 filly by none other than Dansili. This family also produced the Hong Kong Group 1 winner Dominant to Dansili's brother Cacique.

With You and We Are represent the third generation of this female line to have enjoyed group success, as their second dam Bellarida won the G3 Prix de Royaumont over 1 5/16 miles. Their third dam, Lerida, broke the sequence but fourth dam Lalika also won the Prix Saint-Alary before disappointing as favourite for the Prix de Diane. Lalika was herself a half-sister to Roi Lear, a winner of the Prix du Jockey-Club, and their dam Kalila was a half-sister to the Classic winners Val de Loir and Valoris.

It is worth adding that With You's broodmare sire, the diminutive Incninor, was a son of the even smaller Inchmurrin, whose name also cropped up over the weekend as the third dam of the game King George winner Poet's Word.

Inchinor was only 13 when he died and he spent his first five years as a stallion at a fee of only £3,000. Only 145 of his daughters have produced foals, but they have collectively produced more than 30 black-type winners, others being Power, winner of the Irish 2000 Guineas, and Curvy, a Galileo filly who won the GI E.P. Taylor S.

It is a measure of Inchinor's talent as a stallion that his £3,000 crops contained performers of the calibre of Cape Of Good Hope (the top international sprinter who has won at Group 1 level in Australia and Britain), Summoner (G1 Queen Elizabeth II S.), Golden Silca (a neck second in the Irish 1000 Guineas), Orientor (a dual Group 3 winner), Bannister (G2 Gimcrack S.), Umistim (G3 Horris Hill S. and G3 Craven S.) and Nordican Inch (runner-up in the GI Garden City Breeders' Cup H.).

Inchinor stood only 15.1 hands and his dam, Inchmurrin, who was inbred 2 x 4 to the diminutive Northern Dancer, was so small that Timeform described her as “tiny–almost a miniature.” Inchmurrin's lack of size didn't stop her winning her last three races as a 2-year-old and the G2 Child S. by five lengths. Inchmurrin now has 13 group-winning descendants, headed by the Group 1 winners Poet's Word, the St Leger winner Harbour Law and Miss Keller.