As we heard on more than one occasion last week, breeding a winner at Royal Ascot is special. So when that winner has been five generations and half a century in the making, it naturally counts as extra special, particularly if you've also bred the runner-up.“I had my one-year-old daughter on my knee, and Sophie and I were screaming at the TV, but we were screaming even harder when we realised that the 150-1 second was a Havana Grey we bred as well,” says Ed Harper, whose Whitsbury Manor Stud bred Orthodox and El Floridita, both by resident stallion Havana Grey.“Nigel Tinkler's horse [El Floridita] is not a big colt, but he really toughed it out. You could see him really trying, and to have a one-two in something as competitive as the Norfolk [Stakes] is amazing.”Orthodox followed Whitsbury Manor Stud's tried-and-trusted route of the Tattersalls December Foal Sale, where he was sold for 175,000gns. It was at the Goffs Orby Sale that his trainer Clive Cox bought him for that same amount in euros, and though he may not have represented a successful pinhook, he is now unbeaten in his two starts for Jason Goddard. But every breeder gets left with a youngster or two, and Harper's own colours were seen in the winner's enclosure at Chantilly on Prix de Diane day aboard the Havana Grey filly Bleach, who served up some compensation after her sales option had faltered. “That filly was supposed to go and make a fortune at Arqana,” Harper says. “She's a full sister to Staya who was a bloody good filly last year, but then on-site x-rays, rather than the ones we did two weeks earlier, showed new changes in a knee. We went from thinking we had a big-money horse to thinking nobody's going to buy this horse.”Remaining in France after the sale to go into training with Tim Donworth, Bleach looked pretty smart on her winning debut which opened one of the biggest days of the French racing calendar. “She was a late foal and needed to go to a later yearling sale, so we were sort of thinking how clever we were picking a sale where there were only two Havana Greys. Then I just thought if she is going to have a knee problem, flat tracks on French soft ground would probably be kinder than going up and down the English tracks. So it's worked out nicely.”What has also worked pretty well, and over both equine and human generations at Whitsbury Manor, is the development of the family of Orthodox, which traces back five generations at the Hampshire stud. And it's not just through the mares involved, either, as not only is Orthodox himself by a home stallion in Havana Grey, but so are his first four dams, who are daughters respectively of Showcasing, Compton Place, Midyan and Electric. The latter, a winner of the Great Voltigeur by the Derby winner Blakeney, doesn't necessarily fit the traditional Whitsbury mould which focuses on speed, but, as Harper explains, it is one which has evolved with time and opportunity. He says of the breeding of Orthodox, “It goes all the way back to a mare Dad bought, in the late 70s, called Hollow Heart, who was by Wolver Hollow. And then out of Hollow Heart, we bred Take Heart, who was the first race filly I actually remember racing for Whitsbury. My first visit to a racecourse was Salisbury, midsummer in the heat, as a four-year-old, getting very upset and hot and wanting an ice cream. And Take Heart broke the mile track record at Salisbury, and that's the first racing experience I remember on track. “We've had to do it incrementally from a real budget stallion like Electric, but every generation we were able to improve the quality of stallion that we've been able to stand. Midyan won a Jersey Stakes and was a step up in commerciality from Electric, then Compton Place was a step up again after winning a July Cup. Showcasing arguably was again commercial, being by Oasis Dream, and with the Juddmonte pedigree behind him, and so every generation we've tried to improve things. But it has taken 50 years.”Harper continues, “It's fantastic for Havana Grey, but it's equally good for Showcasing as a broodmare sire. He's still relatively young in broodmare sire terms, as his first five crops were more cheaply produced, so his smarter-bred mares are still very young and are only just beginning to produce runners now.”Showcasing's dual Group 1-winning daughter Quiet Reflection featured as the dam of last year's 1,000 Guineas winner Lake Victoria (Frankel), while the runner-up in that race this year, Evolutionist (Night Of Thunder), is out of another of Showcasing's daughters, Model Guest.“On the same day as the Norfolk, he had Argentine Tango, who is out of a Showcasing mare, win a Listed race at Ayr, and El Caballo, who's obviously a stallion now, is by Havana Gold out of a Showcasing mare, so he looks very exciting as a broodmare sire,” Harper adds.“Orthodox also looks very exciting. The real five-furlong speedsters have been concentrated into the Norfolk away from the Windsor Castle so it was ultra-competitive. The Americans really targeted it with three rather scary-looking fillies, so it was fantastic for Havana Grey to get the first two home.”Orthodox's dam Heartwarming has a Too Darn Hot colt foal this year who is described by his breeder as “an absolute stunner”, and the mare, who was a five-furlong winner herself, is a half-sister to Heartache (Kyllachy), who was also trained by Clive Cox and gave the Harper family another memorable day at Royal Ascot back in 2017 when winning the G2 Queen Mary Stakes. Heartache, who was raced in partnership with Hot To Trot Racing, was later sold to Coolmore for 1.3 million gns and is now the dam of stakes winners Exactly (Frankel) and Salt Lake City (Galileo). Sam Hoskins and Ed Harper after Heartache's Queen Mary win | Emma Berry “Heartache seems like yesterday,” says Harper. “She really took it to the next level for us and in a funny sort of romantic way, Heartache led us to Havana Grey, because she beat Havana Grey in the Flying Childers by a neck. “Clive said to me the day before we took Heartache to the Flying Childers that he'd never seen a piece of work like it. I was worrying about whether the ground was going to be right for her, but he basically said that it didn't matter because we were winning it whatever. “Then for Havana Grey to be outside her just made me think that he was also exceptional, and I would say that was a real pointer for us to Havana Grey. It's funny what leads you to conclusions, isn't it?”For all stud masters, June represents something of a pause in which the racing can be enjoyed after a long covering and foaling season and before the yearling sales commence. Reflecting on the recent breeding season, Harper says, “It's quite clear that the British broodmare herd is shrinking. We're lucky that our stallions still maintain their popularity, but that can't be taken for granted, and it only takes one quiet year, and then you're really struggling, and there's just no fallback any more through weight of numbers of mares.“But for all the things we sometimes moan about, I don't think we truly realise, as British breeders, the access to top-quality stallions that we have in Britain. It is unmatched in my memory, and I'm going back to childhood, when I was going to sleep with stallion guides underneath my pillow, and I would say in 40 years we've never been so lucky. Obviously, Dubawi is right at the end of his career, but in the last three or four years I would say that the availability in Britain might, dare I say, outweigh the diminishing offerings of the broodmare herd in Britain. We need to take advantage of this while it's available, we can't take this for granted.”He continues, “We need to step up and say, hang on, we've got amazing access to five or six incredible world-class stallions here, and I'd like to put Havana Grey into that group. Rather than bemoan the other problems we may or may not have, we should be saying how lucky we are, because it has not always been the case. In the mid-90s, there was actually very few world-class stallions standing in Britain.”When it comes to rallying cries for breeding in Britain, there can be no more legitimate source than Chris, Nicky and Ed Harper, who, through careful cultivation of Orthodox's female family and judicious use of their own stallions, have produced one of the most exciting juveniles of the season to date.Harper adds, “That's why we try to encourage new breeders as best we can, because there's a big story to tell there, and they actually do have access to amazing stallions still in Britain, and now is a real opportunity for them to take advantage of it.” The post ‘In 40 Years We’ve Never Been So Lucky’: Harper Issues Rallying Cry to Breeders as Whitsbury Manor Celebrates Special Norfolk Win appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.