IN GENERAL, breeders aim for as early a foaling date as possible, in the hope of achieving a developmental edge come sales time or racing season. Sometimes, though, enforced patience can be a good thing.

Take Speciosa’s dam Specifically. We reported in these pages in February that the mare, owned by Waterford Hall Stud, was expecting a foal by Indian Haven and would return to the stallion, who is in the same ownership.

However, Speciosa’s victory in the Nell Gwyn Stakes in the middle of last month convinced the owners that a return to the filly’s sire Danehill Dancer was definitively the right thing – this despite the fact that the Coolmore sire’s €75,000 fee racks up pretty steeply against an in-house cover by their own stallion.

Specifically was one of the first mares purchased on behalf of Waterford Hall Stud, a business founded in 2004 by Peter Gleeson and Julian Smith, along with racing manager and bloodstock advisor Nick Shiambouros, to support their Irish 2,000 Guineas winner Indian Haven as he began his stud career at the Irish National Stud.

McKeever St Lawrence bought the mare, a half-sister to the multiple Group winner Pride, for €50,000 at the Goffs broodmare sale in 2004 on behalf of Waterford Hall Stud. At the time she was in foal to Statue Of Liberty, and delivered a filly the following January.

Specifically, who is boarded at Liseux Stud, County Kildare, was next bred to Indian Haven, and foaled a colt last month, before Speciosa’s Nell Gwyn victory.

“After Speciosa won the Nell Gwyn and we realised that she’d trained on, we made a commercial decision to go back to Danehill Dancer,” Shiambouros explained on Wednesday. “He’s not a cheap sire, but it doesn’t matter if it we get a colt or a filly. We had to do it to get a full sibling to Speciosa.”

The colt foal is “superb”, said Shiambouros. “He’s very correct, a beautiful foal.”

Specifically was covered two weeks ago and will be scanned in the next fortnight to see if the mating was successful.

Waterford Hall was approached with a “substantial offer” for Specifically after her daughter won last season’s Rockfel Stakes, and Shiambouros confirms that following the Guineas “our phone has been ringing.”

He said: “We won’t keep all three – the mare, her yearling, and her foal – but we’re still deciding what we will do with them. Specifically’s Statue Of Liberty yearling might be sent to Part 1 of Tattersalls’ October sale.”

As for Sunday’s result, he said: “I can’t believe we own the dam of a Classic winner. In my wildest dreams I didn’t expect it. It’s been a hell of a ride, and I just can’t believe we’re in this situation.

“The mare throws some very resilient horses, like Major Rhythm who is still racing successfully in stakes races at the age of seven in the States, and Speciosa looks like a real miler.”