JASON Goddard may not be one of the biggest owners in racing, but he can lay claim to being one of the luckiest, and all thanks to trainer Clive Cox.

At the 2019 Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale, Cox spent £65,000 on a son of Mehmas (Acclamation) offered from John Tuthill’s Owenstown Stud, and the colt ran up a sequence of three wins at two, including success in the Group 2 Richmond Stakes at Goodwood, and culminating in season one with a Group 1 win in the Middle Park Stakes. He was sold to Yeomanstown Stud, retired at a fee of €12,000 four years ago, and his first crop last year was headed by the Group 3 winner Anthelia.

Now, six years later, Goddard has only gone and won the Middle Park Stakes for a second time, though this time Clive Cox had to pay a little bit more for the raw material. Ed Harper’s Whitsbury Manor Stud bred the weekend’s Group 1 winner, Orthodox, by their own sire Havana Grey (Havana Gold), and sold him as a foal for 175,000gns to Alexandra Butler. He was reoffered last year from Joey Logan’s Grangeclare Stud, failed to sell in the ring, but a private deal was stuck at €175,000.

After a debut win five weeks before Royal Ascot, Orthodox rocked up to land the Group 2 Norfolk Stakes by three and a half lengths, but after making late headway and running second a furlong out, he weakened to finish sixth in the Group 1 Prix Morny. The team did not lose confidence in Orthodox and neither did the punters. He went off second-favourite on Saturday, and denied a first-crop Group 1 winner for Persian Force, prevailing by a neck.

Havana Grey

This was not the first coincidence thrown up by this winner in the Middle Park Stakes. Orthodox is the second winner of the race for Havana Grey, and the other was Vandeek. He also won the Prix Morny and stands at Cheveley Park Stud. Havana Grey’s stud fee rocketed twice, from £6,000 in 2022 to £18,500 in 2023, the year that Orthodox was conceived, and then to £55,000. His fee has not been disclosed for the past two seasons.

Orthodox is the third foal out of Heartwarming (Showcasing), and her best. Hello Sweetheart (Frankel), her first, sold to Tina Rau as a foal for 320,000gns, was placed last year, and won this year at four in Germany. As a half-sister to a Group 1 winner, she is now be worth a lot to Gestüt Fährhof. A year later, a colt by Kingman (Invincible Spirit) was born, and he sold to Juddmonte for 240,000gns, but has not been named. Orthodox is followed by a colt foal by Too Darn Hot (Dubawi).

It is no surprise that Clive Cox would have an interest in Orthodox when he came up for sale. His dam Heartwarming was leased by Hot To Trot Racing and put in training with the Lambourn handler. She won a maiden at Sandown second time out before finishing runner-up in the Listed St Hugh’s Stakes at Newbury. She is a full-sister to Unbreak My Heart (Showcasing) and that filly placed in the Group 3 Cornwallis Stakes for Chris Harper, Ed’s father, before selling to M.V. Magnier for 625,000gns as a three-year-old. She had her first foal this year, a colt by Frankel (Galileo).

The Clive Cox influence, and his importance in the story of this family success, cannot be overstated. Having failed to sell Place In My Heart (Compton Place), Orthodox’s grandam, as a yearling for £10,000, Chris Harper put her in training with George Baker. She won second time out at two, and was frustratingly second on four other occasions. She then moved to Cox and, on her seasonal debut at four won as listed race at Bath, appropriately sponsored by Whitsbury Manor! She then travelled to Longchamp for the Group 3 Prix de Saint-Georges and was third, beaten a head and a short neck.

At stud, Place In My Heart had just six foals, all bar one of them fillies. Her only colt, the now gelded Asadjumeirah (Adaay), made 180,000gns as a foal, and has run 108 times. Now an eight-year-old, he has won 10 races, twice in his last four starts, most recently in early September. Four of the five fillies have raced, all of them winning, and the best was Heartache (Kyllachy). Another who was leased to Hot To Trot Racing, Heartache was saddled by Clive Cox to win the Group 2 Queen Mary Stakes and Group 2 Flying Childers Stakes at two. Sold to M.V. Magnier for 1,300,000gns at three, she is already dam of two stakes winners, notably Exactly (Frankel). A Group 3 winner at two, that filly was beaten half a length in the Group 1 Matron Stakes by Fallen Angel.

SHOWCASING (Oasis Dream) got his second Group 1 winner as a damsire with Orthodox, and that came after Lake Victoria (Frankel), the brilliant winner of four Group/Grade 1 races, the Moyglare Stud Stakes, Cheveley Park Stakes and the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies’ Turf at two, adding the Irish 1000 Guineas at three.

The Coolmore and Ballydoyle teams have faith in Frankel (Galileo) on daughters of Showcasing, and have a live classic hope for 2026 in the Barronstown Stud-bred Noble Exhibit. He won for the second time in three starts when winning the Group 2 Beresford Stakes for Aidan O’Brien for an almost unbelievable 23rd time.

Since the master of Ballydoyle first won with Johan Cruyff in 1996, the only other trainers to take the contest have been John Oxx (Alamshar, Azamour and Sea The Stars), Jessica Harrington (Curtain Call and Hotazhell), Michael Halford (Casamento), Michael O’Callaghan (Crypto Force) and Paddy Twomey (Deepone). The latter posed a strong challenge to the O’Brien dominance with City Of Dubai, owned by the race sponsor Charlie Bond, but had to settle for second best.

David and Diane Nagle paid 775,000gns for the dam of Noble Exhibit at the end of her racing career. Prize Exhibit raced from two to five, at first for Jamie Osborne as a two-year-old, and then for James Cassidy in the USA. Osborne originally bought her from her breeder, Gaie Johnson Houghton, mother of the trainer Eve, as a yearling for 28,000gns. She won a couple of races, was third in the Group 3 Oh So Sharp Stakes, and as an outsider she put up a fine performance to run fourth, half a length behind the winner Lady Eli, in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf.

Barronstown Stud

During her subsequent career in the USA, Prize Exhibit won four graded races, two of them Grade 2, and was placed in the Grade 1 Del Mar Oaks. Barronstown acquired her a year after the birth of her full-brother, Mohaather (Showcasing), and he won the Group 1 Sussex Stakes, and is sire of the Group 1 Haydock Sprint Cup winner Big Mojo. Another big winner for the Johnson Houghton family is the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes hero Accidental Agent (Delegator), and he is out of a winning half-sister to Prize Exhibit.

The Beresford Stakes winner joins Group 3 winner and Group 2 Ribblesdale Stakes-placed History (Galileo) as the best of the four winners for Prize Exhibit.

Noble Exhibit is group race winner number 128 for Frankel, and stakes winner number 194. The 200 mark is not far away. From just a handful of runners, Frankel offspring of Showcasing mares would suggest it to be a potent cross. Meanwhile, in Book 1 next week, Barronstown Stud will be selling a yearling filly by Kingman (Invincible Spirit) out of Prize Exhibit.