Thunder Snow dam charts the history of Godolphin and Coolmore relations

Eastern Joy is a mare of serious consequence. Not just for the phenomenal start she has made to her paddocks career, but also as a living monument to her owner Sheikh Mohammed's once capricious, now mercifully more co-operative relationship with the competing racing superpower of Coolmore.

The sheikh and his brothers Hamdan and Maktoum repeatedly locked horns with Coolmore supremo John Magnier and his partners in the sales ring in the 1980s, driving prices for the most glamorous yearlings to unsustainable highs. By the end of the decade the two camps had reached a truce of sorts, which lasted until the mid-noughties.

At that point, the Maktoum family apparently felt that their support of Coolmore stock was not being reciprocated by the Irish operation and they commenced their boycott of progeny by their rivals' sires at the sales. From then until the self-imposed embargo was relaxed in 2017, Coolmore seldom bought young horses by Sheikh Mohammed's stallions too, the deadlock creating a minefield for commercial breeders that lasted for more than a decade.