How the shrewd Fiona Denniff has been rewarded for constantly backing her stock

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Here he takes a look at the pedigree of recent Southwell 80-1 winner Lady Lou - subscribers can get more great insight from Martin every Monday to Friday.

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I wouldn’t usually devote several-hundred words to the pedigree of an 80-1 winner of a 0-60 handicap at Southwell, but I’m making an exception in the case of Lady Lou as she represents an exceptional feat of breeding.

Besides which, the way in which the Michael Dods-trained filly flew wide and late under Callum Rodriguez to score a shade cosily in the seven-furlong event on Sunday was sneakily impressive and hinted that there might be a little more to come from her in future.

Lady Lou became the 12th winner bred by her owner Fiona Denniff from the rags-to-riches mare Hill Welcome, a Most Welcome half-sister to Middle Park Stakes winner Stalker who finished third on her debut at Bath but achieved little on the track thereafter and was bought as a three-year-old for a paltry 3,000gns at the defunct Lincoln Handicap Sale at Doncaster.

The benefit of hindsight is unnecessary for realising that market valuation of a half-sister to a two-year-old Group 1 winner was bizarre, even allowing for the fact she wasn’t the biggest and her form amounted to very little. It goes to show, once again, that no stone should be left unturned at any sale in the pursuit of quality and value.

Hill Welcome showed early that she would be the bargain of a lifetime for Denniff by producing as her first foal Mary Read, a 2002-foaled daughter of Bahamian Bounty who was bought in after misbehaving as a yearling at Tattersalls. She won two races and finished a neck second in the Molecomb Stakes for a syndicate that included her breeder.

Hill Welcome’s second produce, the 2003-foaled Diktat filly Tiana, was sold to Darley for 90,000gns as a yearling and won her maiden by three lengths before finishing third in the Oh So Sharp Stakes for John Gosden.

The mare’s 2004-foaled colt Jack Rackham (by Kyllachy) won five races, her 2006-foaled colt Dubai Hills (by Dubai Destination) scored in ten races and achieved a peak RPR of 106, and her 2007-foaled colt Henry Morgan (by Bahamian Bounty) notched four victories. All three raced entirely, or for the majority of their careers, for Denniff.

Two more winning fillies out of Hill Welcome who carried Denniff’s own silks, the 2010-foaled Different (by Bahamian Bounty) and the 2011-foaled Modify (by New Approach), were bookended by talented Exceed And Excel colts, in the 2009-foaled Exceedance, who made £95,000 as a yearling and won two races for a best RPR of 97, and the 2013-foaled Above N Beyond, who fetched £85,000 as a yearling and also scored twice, but with a second in the Doncaster Stakes and an even better RPR of 108 to boot.

Hill Welcome’s 2014-foaled Kyllachy colt Breaking Free won twice, her 2018-foaled Twilight Son colt Sunset Salute scored at Chester in good fashion last year, and her 2019-foaled Brazen Beau filly is the newly anointed winner Lady Lou. She is her dam’s penultimate offspring registered with Weatherbys, with a 2020-foaled Harry Angel filly still to come.

Hill Welcome is not the only prolific producer to have graced a paddock, of course, but what makes her story so special is that Denniff has continued to breed winners from this family, often by cleverly buying back fillies for less than the prices she sold them for as youngsters.

So, for example, Dubai Bounty, a Dubai Destination filly she bred from Mary Read, was sold as a yearling for 50,000gns and won a Chester handicap for her purchasers, before being bought back by Denniff for 10,000gns. She won another race at Wolverhampton for Denniff and produced the popular Group 1-placed sprinter Kachy for her.

Tiana, who had carried the colours of Princess Haya and then Martin Flitton on the track, was brought back into the fold by Denniff as a six-year-old at a cost of just 35,000gns.

She has developed into something of a blue hen for her loyal breeder, producing the Group-winning and Group 1-placed Beat The Bank and Chil Chil (who was sold as a yearling for 500,000gns), the Listed-placed and Commonwealth Cup fourth Salt Island, and Auria, who carried home silks to victory in the Listed Coral Distaff last year.

Denniff has been rewarded for the commendable practice of consistently standing behind her stock by almost cornering the market in the highly productive Hill Welcome family, and it will be interesting to see if a more recent purchase to reclaim one of her homebreds also pays off.

Maximum Effect, an Iffraaj half-sister to Kachy, was sold by Denniff Farms to Hugo Lascelles, acting on behalf of Lady Bamford, for 120,000gns at Book 2 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale in 2017.

The filly won a Kempton maiden by two lengths and was placed on all but one of her eight starts for John Gosden, but was still deemed surplus to requirements by her owner and sent to the Tattersalls July Sale of 2020.

Denniff swooped for the filly, signing for her at 70,000gns with Avenue Bloodstock, and her maiden cover last year was by Showcasing.

What do you think?

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Pedigree pick

Phil Kirby takes the wraps off Top Ville Bobby, a Yeats half-brother to his stable star Top Ville Ben, in the bumper at Newcastle on Tuesday (12.50).

Top Ville Ben has danced every dance in the jumps sphere, winning a point-to-point, a bumper, over hurdles and over fences. He has won nine races in total and around £117,000 in prize-money, and his finest hour came when winning the Rowland Meyrick at Wetherby in 2019.

It would probably be wise to keep stakes low when it comes to Top Ville Bobby, though, as Yeats’ progeny tend to improve with age, as shown by his 24 per cent strike-rate in bumpers, 47 per cent strike-rate in hurdles and 51 per cent strike-rate over fences.

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Good Morning Bloodstock is our latest email newsletter. Martin Stevens, a doyen among bloodstock journalists, provides his take and insight on the biggest stories every morning from Monday to Friday