Brilliantly bred Vatican City breaks maiden at Dundalk for Aidan O'Brien

Vatican City, arguably the best-bred two-year-old in training in Europe, suggested he could in time add further gloss to his family's already brilliant record by shedding his maiden tag with the minimum of fuss at Dundalk on Wednesday.

The chestnut colt, trained by Aidan O'Brien for Coolmore, was always travelling smoothly under Donnacha O'Brien in the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Maiden over seven furlongs and after easing into the lead a furlong out he stretched clear to register a two-and-a-half-length victory over Psyche, a Jessica Harrington-trained colt by Lope De Vega.

View full result and watch race replay

Like many Ballydoyle two-year-olds, he had clearly benefited from the experience of his first run, which in his case came when fifth to Friday's Vertem Futurity hopeful Kinross at Newmarket in early October.

It is no exaggeration to say Vatican City, who holds entries in the Irish 2,000 Guineas and Derby, qualifies as one of the most impeccably bred individuals among this year's juvenile crop.

He is by sire phenomenon Galileo and is a brother to three individual Group 1 winners – Marvellous, successful in the Irish 1,000 Guineas; Gleneagles, who scored in the National Stakes at two and completed the Anglo-Irish 2,000 Guineas double at three; and Happily, who took the Moyglare Stud Stakes at two and finished third in the 1,000 Guineas at both Newmarket and the Curragh at three.

Vatican City is the sixth foal out of the remarkable producer You'resothrilling, with the preceding five all having won black-type races and achieved Group 1 placings. Besides Marvellous, Gleneagles and Happily, there was Coolmore, successful in the Group 3 Weld Park Stakes and third in the Belmont Oaks, and Taj Mahal, a Listed winner who was runner-up in the Secretariat Stakes.

Cherry Hinton Stakes winner You'resothrilling – who also has yearling and foal fillies by Galileo, having been mated to him every year at paddocks – is out of an exceptional producer herself, in Mariah's Storm.

The Grade 2-winning daughter of Rahy was bought by Coolmore supremo John Magnier for $2.6 million at the Keeneland November Breeding-Stock Sale in 1996 carrying a Storm Cat foal who would turn out to be none other than the late iron horse Giant's Causeway, a six-time Group 1 winner and a multiple champion sire in North America.

Mariah's Storm was regularly mated with Storm Cat in the early years of her stud career, and also produced You'resothrilling and the stakes-placed Freud, Roar Of The Tiger, Tiger Dance and Tumblebrutus to him.

She later came to Ireland to be paired with Sadler's Wells and then his son Galileo, with the latter mating coming up with Group 3-placed pair Butterflies and Hanky Panky.

Another daughter of Storm Cat and Mariah's Storm, Pearling, produced three-time Group 1 winner Decorated Knight, while the mare's liaison with Sadler's Wells resulted in Love Me Only, subsequently the dam of Irish Derby runner-up and Derby third Storm The Stars.

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