 Troy's
First Classic Winner
In the summer of 1985 Troy's daughter Helen Street gave him his first major success as
a sire when she won the Irish Oaks. It was also a fitting win in that she was owned and
bred by the same connections as Troy, Sir Michael Sobell and his son-in-law Simon
Weinstock. She was trained too at the West Ilsley stables of Major Dick Hern, Troy's
trainer, who had just recovered from a riding accident in which he had been paralysed.
Promise at Two
Helen Street had shown a lot of promise in her first season as a two year old: she won
her first two starts, including an impressive win in the Prix du Calvados, a Group 3 event
for fillies in France, in which she broke the course record. She was then a gallant second
to the following year's filly triple crown winner Oh So Sharp in the Fillies' Mile at
Ascot, giving the latter four pounds in weight. She ended the year as one of the highest
rated two-year-old fillies in Europe.
Classic win at Three
At three, Helen Street started off with a third place, again to Oh So
Sharp, in the Nell Gwynn Stakes over 7f, a distance surely too short for the
daughter of Troy and a Riverman mare. She was stepped up in distance for the
Musidora Stakes, a significant Oaks trial, but ran poorly, finishing fourth.
It was later discovered that she had been suffering from a virus and hence
was taken out of the Epsom Oaks and allowed to rest. However she was sent
over to the Curragh for the Irish version of the Oaks where she took on the
Epsom Oaks third, Dubian and several other good fillies such as Fatah Flare
and the promising Sally Brown.
Unfortunately Helen Street has not been such a great success as a
broodmare that one might have hoped given her racing career and the
successes of many of the less well-performed Troy mares in that sphere.
However she will always be remembered as the horse who put Troy on the map
as a sire.
|
