'She's the mare of a lifetime and we managed to buy her in our first year'

Jolie Chanson is the sort of mare who would have her lucky owner singing a sweet song and for Conor Quirke she is fast becoming the cornerstone of his Hunting Hill Stud.

The 11-year-old daughter of Mount Nelson was snapped up by Quirke for the bargain price of 3,500gns at the 2018 Tattersalls December Mare Sale and will have not one, but two, of her offspring tackle stakes races at Royal Ascot on Tuesday.

First up will be Rousing Encore in the Coventry Stakes for Richard Fahey and Paul Spencer while later in the afternoon Majestic Dawn, trained by Paul and Oliver Cole for Lee Green and Clive Norman, contests the Wolferton Stakes.

"We are a small operation so to have a mare like her is unbelievable," remarked Quirke on his way to Berkshire. "It's exciting and she has been very good to us, we are just happy to be along for the ride."

Hunting Hill's broodmare band is just four-strong and the stud is only in its infancy. Two-year-old Acclamation colt Rousing Encore is from the first crop of foals conceived on the Castletownroche, County Cork farm and is one of just three juveniles in that crop so for Hunting Hill, run by Quirke and his partner Kathryn Birch, to have produced a dual winner with a live chance in the first two-year-old contest of the week is a major achievement.

"I suppose she's the mare of a lifetime and we managed to buy her in our first year," Quirke says.

Quirke bought Jolie Chanson in foal to Dunaden before the unraced half-sister to the Group/Grade 3 winners Funny Duck and Slow Pace had produced a runner.

The following year Majestic Dawn began the career that has seen the six-year-old entire by Dawn Approach progress from handicaps through winning the Cambridgeshire in 2020 to a stakes performer in 2021, when he was second to Bay Bridge, favourite for Wednesday's Group 1 Prince of Wales's Stakes, in the Listed James Seymour Stakes and now in 2022 a Listed winner courtesy of his pillar-to-post success in the Festival Stakes at Goodwood last time out.

Majestic Dawn's profile is more typical of his dam's progeny than his younger half-sibling, who has surprised Quirke with his two wins from three starts so far which have put him in line for a tilt at the Coventry.

"He was a big strapping horse and everyone who was involved with him all along thought he would be a three-year-old so to see him out this early is a lovely surprise," says Quirke. "I suppose it is that old cliche of a horse running on pure ability but hopefully he will continue to progress."

Pedigree updates have abounded since Jolie Chanson joined Hunting Hill; as well as becoming the dam of a Listed winner, her Dixieland Band half-sister Slow Sand is now the dam of Tampa Bay Derby winner and Arkansas Derby runner-up King Guillermo and the second dam of last year's July Cup winner Starman.

However Quirke believed in the mare long before any of these horses added their bold black type to the page and to emphasise just how much faith he had in Jolie Chanson, he sourced and purchased privately her Dunaden filly last year as a broodmare. She is now in foal to Due Diligence and lives alongside her dam.

"At that stage it was blind faith in the family really," he says, "because Majestic Dawn was just after getting a bit of black type but the pedigree still needed a bit of imagination. It is a family that has so many dimensions. Her dam is by Seattle Slew and her granddam is a Group 1 winner by El Gran Senor. For me it had everything so to be able to buy her for 3,500gns was unbelievable."

Her Invincible Spirit yearling made 65,000gns as a foal last December to Luke Barry of Manister House Stud and she foaled a filly by Ribchester this spring, who is pencilled in for the yearling sales in 2023.

"The Ribchester filly at foot is probably her best foal to date. If you look at the pedigree, it's crying out for Mr Prospector and there aren't too many ways into that nowadays." Quirke explains. "Through Iffraaj with the success of Wootton Bassett I was happy to back Ribchester and anything out of the mare I would expect to progress with time, which makes the two-year-old all the more exciting, but I think ultimately Ribchester will stand the test of time."

It's a sentiment that Quirke is hopeful will apply to Rousing Encore as he is certain that the horse is not about just one day. Royal Ascot is only the beginning of the season and a career that his breeder hopes will come full circle some day soon.

"He was very impressive the last day in Pontefract and Richard Fahey has been very complimentary about him. The most exciting part of it is that there is hopefully more to come with big days ahead, if he stays healthy and sound. My dream now at this point is that he does enough that we can send a couple of mares to him in a few years time," he adds.

That, for any breeder, would be the sweetest song of all.

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