With Tuesday's gutsy win by Take Heart (Dark Angel) in the Chesterfield Cup Handicap at Goodwood, Team Valor International has moved into its second-best earnings year over the course of the 38 years the Barry Irwin-led syndicate has been in business.

The Irish bred Take Heart won the opening race of Glorious Goodwood, the Chesterfield Cup, Handicap event for Class 2 rated gallopers. The gelding was also bred by Ridgemont Stud, who have a South African arm as well in Ridgemont Highlands. 

Another South African link - Take Heart is a son of Three Hearts, the Hat Trick filly that Team Valor bred from their South African Grade 1-placed stakes winner Secret Heart, most importantly remembered as the dam of  the stable’s Breeders’ Cup winner Pluck. Three Hearts, the half-sister to Pluck, ran in Southern California, winning the G3 Red Carpet Handicap and placing in five other Graded races there.

Tuesday's winning purse earnings for Take Heart of £51,540 converts to approximately $66,250 in U.S. funds. That amount is sufficient to push the seasonal earnings of the stable over the $4,000,000 level.

The previous second-best year was 2011, the year in which Team Valor’s homebred colt Animal Kingdom won the Kentucky Derby. But that spectacular year is now in the rear-view mirror as seasonal earnings stand at $4,017,655 and the goal is firmly set on reaching the number one year Is that lofty goal achievable?

"Yes,” says Team Valor International CEO Barry Irwin, “it absolutely is. We have some big races coming up, including the £1,000,000 Group 1 Sussex Stakes tomorrow, in which our stable star Facteur Cheval is competing. It’s a tough field, but we have utter faith in our horse.”

 Image Irish Thoroughbred Marketing