Hadden hoping to hit the heights with well-bred Derby pair

More Of That, the only horse to beat Annie Power when she stood up en route to the 2014 World Hurdle, was well-named by owner JP McManus. It's a phrase that could apply to his breeder's hopes for the Tattersalls Ireland Derby Sale, which begins on Wednesday and to Gary Hadden's selective breeding policy which has seen his family's Coolruss Stud in County Wicklow breeder four Grade 1 winners, two of them at Cheltenham in the last nine years.

Cooldine and Blow By Blow, both successful at the highest level for Willie Mullins, are among those bred by Hadden, a Darley Flying Start alumnus and pedigree consultant to flat breeders, while sales ring success includes the highest-priced filly at the 2017 Derby Sale.

A daughter of Shirocco out of N’Avoue Jamais, the filly was purchased by Highflyer Bloodstock for €155,000. Her pedigree illustrates perfectly Hadden’s approach to the select broodmare band recruited for Coolruss Stud.

A half-sister to three Listed-winning jumpers in France, her dam won the Grade 1 Prix Alain du Breil at Auteuil and is a half-sister to Group 1 Prix d'Ispahan third and French sire No Risk At All and to Nickname, a Grade 1 winner over fences in both Ireland and France before embarking on an ill-fated stud career in his native land.

"I only keep a handful of National Hunt mares and would have six or seven foals every year. I like to buy mares with good pedigrees that have already produced a good horse," Hadden explains. "They have a better chance of doing it again and I don’t mind buying older mares that have bred a good horse. A lot of agents look at pedigree, conformation and sire but ultimately the horses who win races come in all shapes and sizes but, more often than not, what pulls it together is pedigree. It might skip a generation or two but class comes through."

That is exactly what the pair of fillies offered by Coolruss Stud at this year's renewal of the Derby Sale boast – impeccable pedigrees.

The Yeats half-sister to Grade 1 winner Dodging Bullets

Early in proceedings comes Lot 19, a daughter of Yeats out of Nova Cyngi, which makes the three-year-old a half-sister to 2015 Champion Chase winner Dodging Bullets and five other winners. On its own, that would be enough to pique the interest of plenty of buyers but the page is an exquisite one.

Nova Cygni, by Kris S, is a daughter of the Niarchos family’s brilliant racemare Northern Trick, who was Europe's champion three-year-old filly in 1984 courtesy of victories in the Prix de Diane and Prix Vermeille and second place in the Arc.

Northern Trick is the second dam of Group 1 winner Shiva and Oaks heroine Light Shift, who is the dam of Ulysses, last season's champion older horse in Europe. It is a family to make pedigree buffs salivate and this filly possesses high residual value as a broodmare.

Dodging Bullets was famously bred by one Frankie Dettori, so how did Nova Cygni find her way to Wicklow?

"I remember seeing her in the sales ring as a yearling when she was sold by the Niarchos family and I thought she was a nice, big scopey mare from a good family but I didn’t have any clients for her," Hadden says. "A number of years later when Dodging Bullets came up, I looked up his dam and saw that she was relatively young for a National Hunt mare and that she had been sold to Sweden, so I asked Matt Coleman to see if he could find her."

Coleman was successful in his quest but it was a race against time because when the agent located Nova Cygni, it was just days before one of the twice-yearly shipments of thoroughbreds out of Sweden. As students and journalists will attest, there is nothing like a deadline to concentrate the mind.

Then Dodging Bullets added his three Grade 1 victories to the page in the months before this filly was foaled.

"She's a lovely, racey filly with plenty of quality to her and she looks the type who will come to hand quickly. I think that flat background really adds that bit of class to National Hunt pedigrees and this filly has class," Hadden says.

On Thursday, Hadden sells a filly with an excellent French and current pedigree, a daughter of Stowaway and a half-sister to Petit Robin (Lot 383), a top-class mare who won the Grade 2 Desert Orchid Chase and was placed in the Tingle Creek, Champion Chase and Victor Chandler Chase for Nicky Henderson. Another of her half-sisters is the dam of Anibale Fly who was third to Native River in last season's Cheltenham Gold Cup.

The daughter of Stowaway who is a half-sister to Petit Robin

"Again Matt Coleman found her dam for me, this time in France, and I was attracted by the fact that she had already bred a good horse and was a big, strong old-fashioned chasing type. She's half to a good horse and one of her sisters has bred a good horse and these are the types of pedigrees you should be breeding from,” Hadden says.

Sales success is one thing but for Hadden, what you can’t beat is success on the track.

"I get a buzz out of seeing horses go and win good races," he says. "You spend a lot of time sourcing good mares, getting the right families and putting the correct stallion on top of that so that you have the right foundations for racing.”

And more of that is exactly what Coolruss Stud has to offer at Tattersalls Ireland this week.

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