In November 2017, when we were all younger and many of us were better looking, I embarked on a jolly boys’ outing to northern France. But this wasn’t your average lads’ weekend away; no, this was a sortie to the sales – a half-cooked fantasy gaining momentum through peer group pressure!

The innocence of (relative) youth, allied to one too many croissants during a classroom session with Ron, a master of the catalogue, led to us looking at a few yearling fillies at the Arqana November sale, and subsequently securing one of that small group.

She had an emerging sire on her page, and a proven producing mare. The filly we bought was named Coquelicot and she’s now seven, rising eight. So how did it go?

As is the way with such long-term projects, progress was not linear. Our plan was for her to be dual purpose, having a few spins on the level before her hurdling career and then back to flat handicaps later on.

As it has panned out, that’s exactly what she’s done, though not exactly as we envisaged. A growing pain as a two-year-old scuppered her early flat runs and, instead, she ran in ‘junior bumpers’ – National Hunt Flat races for three-year-olds.

On 20^th November 2019, a day shy of two years after we acquired her, Coquelicot – Cookie – made her debut in a fillies’ junior bumper at Warwick. In a field of ten, she was sent off 11/2 and, turning for home on the business lap, she looked like tailing herself off.

My first racecourse thought with any syndicate horse is always, “please don’t be useless”, and here those fears seemed well founded. But wait, what’s this? After getting tapped for toe and looking like falling out of camera shot, she found her racing gear and motored home... for second – behind her Anthony Honeyball stablemate, Belle de Manech (also bought at Arqana).

We were delighted: we had a racehorse! But that was just the beginning of an odyssey which has yet to end. Another second place, this time at Newbury, was followed by wins at Taunton, Huntingdon and – memorably, as Covid took a grip on the nation – in Listed company at Kempton, rounding out a remarkably successful bumper season and incubating some hot hurdle dreams through those warm locked down summer nights.

Cookie’s debut season over hurdles was, erm, disappointing, to say the least. The problem was she didn’t really make a hurdle shape over a hurdle. It was more of a snooker table shape, in spite of extensive schooling. And yet still she wasn’t beaten far: in 2^nd, 3^rd twice and finally 4^th, she was never more than eight and a half lengths behind the winner.

The following season, on 3^rd November 2021 and having had a maiden jaunt on the flat at Nottingham just a week before, Cookie won her handicap debut over three miles at Chepstow. But she wasn’t really right for some reason in the 2021/22 campaign and just one further effort followed, a valiant second to a good – and tough – mare in a valuable handicap hurdle at Hereford (that’s easy for me to say).

Then, last year, it all came together again. Cookie once more began on the level at Nottingham – finishing one place and a couple of lengths closer than she had a year prior in the same race – before heading to Ascot for the three mile handicap hurdle being staged this weekend. Under an inspired Rex Dingle she led them a merry dance and gave her owners – including yours true – one of the days of their lives.

Incredibly, she was still not done, rocking up next at Sandown on Tingle Creek day and delivering a similar verdict in similar fashion, this time with Aidan Coleman doing the steering. Next stop was Kempton the day after Boxing Day and here she gave best only to a well-handicapped mare in Glimpse Of Gala, still collecting up five grand for her second place.

To this year and, after a slightly flat effort in a £100,000 handicap hurdle where she perhaps had too much use made of her against a hotly contested early pace, she reverted to flat races. One more run was needed to qualify for a handicap mark on the level and, that box duly ticked at Southwell, she returned to Nottingham’s familiar turf in gloriously wet conditions.

Under Andrea Atzeni, Cookie just kept rolling all the way up the straight, eventually bashing her closest pursuer by an easy four lengths. She’d have doubled up at Pontefract on her next start, too, but for a difficult transit; and she was again close up in fourth – beaten just three-quarters of a length – at Ascot in a race where her stamina strengths were not brought to the fore.

Her debut this season was at Newmarket in a £15,000 handicap where she ran second to an old warrior, with nine lengths back to the third and another nine to the fourth…

...and on Monday she tried Listed company for the first time over hurdles, in a three mile mares' race at the same track where she claimed her Listed bumper win, Kempton. Unbelievably, she made all to win unchallenged, from a mare rated 10lb higher than her, by six lengths! Now we have to consider raising our sights still further and have the Grade 2 Warfield Mares' Hurdle at Ascot in January on the agenda.

At some point, though we have only one eye on it just now, she will go to the breeding shed and she’ll be a valuable proposition there. First, though, she will have further opportunities to add to a record of eight wins and seven seconds from 23 career starts; she’s only twice been out of the first four in her life, and one of those was a fifth place effort. She is the sort of horse any owner, regardless of depth of resources, dreams of.

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And so here we are again. No trip to France this time but what was lost in being up close and personal in Deauville was more than gained by time with the videos and the catalogue; and we had the best in the business, Highflyer Bloodstock, on the ground across La Manche.

A shortlist was drawn up, a budget established, and our agent set to work. Tessa Greatrex, one of the Highflyer three (along with Anthony Bromley and David Minton), loved a filly whose page was impossible to ignore so loaded was it with Black Type – an indicator that members of the family on the maternal side have performed well, either winning or placing, in Pattern races.

Vetting sailed through, the hammer fell at our very top price of €50,000 and, rather than the usual buyer’s remorse, I am still cock a whoop at the filly we’ve secured. So allow me to introduce you to LUNA LUX. Here she is, arriving at Potwell Farm.

 

 

And here she is meeting her new mates. I love the way she handles herself with quiet authority. Note, she's a yearling in a field with mostly two-year-olds which is why she looks a little smaller than some.

Luna Lux is by Masked Marvel out of Black Luna, and she has a year younger half-brother by Doctor Dino.

Masked Marvel was a very good three-year-old, winning the St Leger by an easy three lengths, and has a National Hunt pedigree to die for: by Montjeu out of a very high class German-bred mare. His first 2yo’s hit the racetrack in 2018, so his oldest crop are now only seven.

He can already boast the likes of Grade 1 winners Teahupoo and Sel Jem, Cheltenham Festival winner Maskada (who, incidentally, finished third behind Coquelicot the day Cookie made her debut), the rapidly improving Heltenham, Aintree Grade 1 second Marvel de Cerisy, the smart French mare La Danza, and nine-time (!) winner Geromino.

He has a 43% winners to NH runners ratio so far (20 individual winners from 47 horses, according to Racing Post’s database) which, when you consider most of his progeny to have raced are yet to reach their peak, is impressive; and he’s had 52 wins from 285 runs overall under National Hunt rules (18% strike rate).

That puts him third overall amongst all NH stallions to have had at least 250 runners in the past five years! And, though it’s not really relevant in this context, backing all Masked Marvel’s on all starts would have delivered a 17% ROI at Betfair SP – 49 points profit.

 

 

So far so (very) good. But what of Luna Lux’s mum, Black Luna? Well, she was a very, very good race mare indeed. She had 18 races over obstacles, eleven hurdles and seven chases, winning six and placing on another six occasions.

Her wins included a 2m2f Listed hurdle, a 2m6f steeplechase and, on her final start, a twenty length demolition of a conditions field in a 2m4f hurdle. She was also second in a Listed chase on her penultimate start.

Black Luna is by Soldier Of Fortune, the same sire as Coquelicot, and her page is awash with Black Type. Her dam, Back The Winner, was Listed placed herself and, as well as Black Luna, threw Jazz In Montreux, an eight time National Hunt winner including at Grade 3 and twice at Listed level. And, further down the page, is the name Hiddenvalley Lake, well known to devotees of the winter game.

 

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So Luna Lux is bred for this job, all right. She was born and raised at Maulepaire, one of the best farms in France.

 

 

And this week she made her way to Potwell Farm, home of Anthony Honeyball Racing, where she’ll be given time to settle in and get over the strains of the sales.

Thereafter, she’ll be broken in and lightly trained with a view to making her debut in 2025. If you think that’s a long way off, consider that it will be 2024 in 39 days’ time!

I’ve syndicated her into tenth shares and she sold out to existing syndicate members within a week.

Like Coquelicot, because of Luna Lux's pedigree, she'll be a valuable broodmare down the line almost regardless of how her racing career goes.

She may or may not be as good, and as fun, as Cookie - then again, maybe she will! - and it will be an incredible journey finding out.

Matt