The strange story of the modest mare from Ayr who made it big in Japan

Japan is an enthusiastic importer of many luxury goods from Scotland, such as whisky and smoked salmon, but who could have guessed Caledonian broodmares would become the must-have item among the wealthiest racehorse breeders in the Pacific nation?

Extraordinarily, a cheaply bought mare with an unexceptional pedigree who spent her breeding career in Ayrshire has become the fountainhead of a thriving family in Japanese racing, one responsible for one of the best racemares to have been campaigned anywhere in the world during the last decade and for Sunday's surprise Japanese Derby winner.

The producer in question, Cal Norma's Lady, was by Lyphard's Special, a September Stakes winner with a splendid pedigree – by Lyphard and a half-brother to champion American sprinter My Juliet and, for better or worse, the infamous $10.2 million dud Snaafi Dancer – but who made little impact as a sire.

Her dam, June Darling, was an unraced daughter of Middle Park Stakes winner Junius who, like Lyphard's Special, was talented and bred in the purple – in his case a Raja Baba three-parts brother to Cheveley Park Stakes winner Gentle Thoughts – and also failed to deliver at stud.

Cal Norma's Lady was conditioned by Ayr trainer John Wilson, best known for sending out Harry Hastings to a famous Scottish success in the Supreme Novices' Hurdle at Cheltenham in 1985, and was a six-length winner on her first start at two – albeit in a seller at Leicester.

CAL NORMA'S LADY FACTFILE

Pedigree 1988 ch m Lyphard's Special-June Darling (Junius), died 2014

Breeder Mary Murphy

Owner James Thom and Sons

Race record won three of 17 starts, best RPR 97

Progeny record dam of nine winners inc Donna Blini (won Cheveley Park S-G1, dam of Gentildonna and Donau Blue), Magical (won Will Rogers Handicap-G3) and Little Book (placed, dam of Roger Barows)

Although her debut had come in ordinary company, she remained unbeaten with a seven-length score in a Hamilton nursery and a length victory in a competitive Newmarket nursery on her second and third starts, to post a respectable peak Racing Post Rating of 97. Those were her only three wins, however, and she ended her racing career in low-grade handicaps.

Cal Norma's Lady came into the possession of Gordon Thom, owner of New Hall Stud in Ayrshire, at a cost of just £3,000 and the settlement of a client's debt and she eventually produced nine winners, having started out being covered by inexpensive and ultimately inconsequential stallions.

Her first six offspring, two by Magic Ring and one each by Bijou D'Inde, Fleetwood, Keen and Sabrehill, all won races with one of the Magic Ring colts, Magical, taking the Grade 3 Will Rogers Handicap after being exported to the US.

The breeding career of Cal Norma's Lady stepped up a gear when her mating with classy sprinter Bertolini in his first year at Overbury Stud at a fee of just £4,000 resulted in Donna Blini, a 20,000gns Doncaster yearling purchase by Johnny McKeever who toughed out front-running victories in the Cherry Hinton and Cheveley Park Stakes for Brian Meehan.

Donna Blini was well beaten in the 1,000 Guineas and Coronation Stakes on her first starts at three but proved a useful sprinter when dropped back in trip, adding a victory over Majestic Missile in a Newmarket conditions stakes to her resume.

At the end of her three-year-old season she was sold to Katsumi Yoshida for 500,000gns – a not inconsiderable price, but one that made her only the 20th most expensive filly or mare at a frenzied pre-recession edition of the Tattersalls December Breeding-Stock Sale in 2006. Offered as a broodmare prospect, she was a full 4,100,000gns cheaper than another Meehan-trained Cheveley Park Stakes winner in Magical Romance, whose cover by Pivotal accounted for only £65,000 of the disparity.

Donna Blini actually had a best RPR five pounds in excess of Magical Romance's, but the latter was in possession of a swanky pedigree as a Barathea three-parts sister to the reigning Oaks winner Alexandrova.

Donna Blini: won the Cherry Hinton and Cheveley Park Stakes in brave fashionCredit: Jon Winter

Yoshida has been handsomely rewarded for his focus on performance over page in the case of Donna Blini – a similar approach that served his family well when they managed to buy the 1989 US horse of the year Sunday Silence after his racing career, American breeders willing to part with the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Breeders' Cup Classic victor apparently because of his modest distaff pedigree and perceived conformation faults.

Sunday Silence, of course, became a perennial champion sire in Japan and matings between his best son, Deep Impact, and Donna Blini at the Yoshidas' Shadai Stallion Station resulted in Donau Blue, a dual Grade 3 winner and runner-up in the Grade 1 Victoria Mile, and Gentildonna, a seven-time winner at the highest level including in the Japanese 1,000 Guineas, Oaks, the Japan Cup twice and the Dubai Sheema Classic.

The sharp rise of Donna Blini as a broodmare in Japan naturally prompted breeders and agents to seek out her relations, making Thom back in Ayrshire an unlikely broker of internationally in-demand bloodlines.

In 2009, three years after Donna Blini's sale to Japan but also three years before her daughters Donau Blue and Gentildonna would deliver their first Graded successes, New Hall Stud sold the mare's Librettist half-sister Little Book to Rabbah Bloodstock for just 60,000gns in a depressed post-recession yearling market.

Little Book showed little for original trainer Ed Vaughan and owner Ali Saeed and halfway through her three-year-old season she was sold back to Thom through Elusive Bloodstock for 7,000gns. She managed a third in a Class 6 handicap at Ayr before being put in foal to Invincible Spirit and being re-offered at the December Sale of 2012 – which took place a little over a week after Gentildonna's glittering three-year-old career had been crowned with a stunning victory over Orfevre in the Japan Cup.

Gentildonna: daughter of Donna Blini won seven Group/Grade 1 racesCredit: Edward Whitaker

With pedigree over performance the main selling point on this occasion, JS Company gave 230,000gns for the mare and she has been bred from in Japan by Tobino Bokujo, with the Invincible Spirit filly she was carrying at the auction turning out to be a two-year-old winner named Madame Creation.

Little Book has subsequently been sent repeatedly to Deep Impact to produce close relations to Donau Blau and Gentildonna and the second foal emanating from those matings, Roger Barows, was a neck winner of the Japanese Derby at Tokyo at the weekend, defying the lack of a previous Graded score and odds of 92-1.

If Roger Barows – whose first three dams are by sires who were exported or switched to jumps breeding after starting out covering Flat mares in Britain and Ireland – can prove that shock Classic victory no one-off and amass more Grade 1 wins he would surely be given a good chance at stud and in doing so allow the influence of Cal Norma's Lady to deepen in Japan.

The mare's Japan-based daughters also have plenty of progeny in the pipeline. Little Book has two-year-old and yearling fillies by Deep Impact, while Donna Blini has a two-year-old filly by the same sire named W Encore and a yearling colt by King Kamehameha.

Donna Perfume, a Bertolini full-sister to Donna Blini sold privately by Thom to Japan, has a four-year-old filly by Orfervre who has run unplaced, an unnamed three-year-old filly by Heart's Cry, a two-year-old colt by Heart's Cry called Game Aruaru, and an unnamed yearling filly by Deep Impact.

There are also the paddocks careers of those mares' daughters to look forward to, not least that of Gentildonna, whose first foal Moana Anela, a three-year-old filly by King Kamehameha, is a winner. She also has a two-year-old colt by that sire and a yearling filly by Maurice.

The transformation of Cal Norma's Lady from Leicester seller winner to Classic matriarch is quite phenomenal. Although with the benefit of hindsight we might look beyond her humble origins and bread and butter matings to the fact that she was tough, a trait she clearly passed on to Donna Blini, and was noted to be a very correct model if not overly big at 15.2 hands. She also had many well-related and high-achieving ancestors even if, in the case of Lyphard's Special and Junius, they flopped at stud.

Thom, who bade farewell to Cal Norma's Lady when she had to be put down due to the infirmities of old age at 26 in 2014, has been left somewhat incredulous but bursting with pride that the family he reared in rural Ayrshire has taken Japan by storm. He has no female relations left in his ownership and he sold the main part of New Hall Stud to GVC Holdings chief executive Kenny Alexander three years ago, but still keeps an interest in breeding and racing.

Cal Norma's Lady is not the only rags to riches story to arise from Thom's breeding ventures at New Hall Stud, as a year to the day before Roger Barows landed the Japanese Derby, Sophie P – by the exiled Bushranger out of a mare who was a 14,000gns vendor buyback on her last sale ring appearance – won the Grade 1 Gamely Stakes at Santa Anita.

There must be something in the air in Ayr.

If you enjoyed reading this, you might also like...

Aga Khan back in Group 1 limelight thanks to Siyarafina's Longchamp triumph

Pivotal hits 30 top-flight winners as Siyarafina strikes in Prix Saint Alary

Shades of mum as Zarkava's son Zarkallani storms home at Longchamp