The combination of a high quality female family and some intricate handling of Danehill (Danzig) appears to have paid rich dividends in the form of Blind Raise (Ace High), who won his second black type race from four starts in last Saturday’s McKenzie Stakes (Listed, 1300m) at Sandown.

A quick glance shows the promise of something special in the pedigree given the three-year-old gelding’s second dam is the great Seachange (Cape Cross). Bred, like Blind Raise, by The Oaks Stud in the Waikato, she won seven New Zealand Group 1s and was the country’s Horse of the Year twice, in 2007 and 2008.

But the other eye-catcher concerns a 4m x 3m of Danehill. He’s the grandsire of Ace High’s unraced dam Come Sunday (Redoute’s Choice) and of Blind Raise’s dam Away Cruising (Darci Brahma).

A fairly close-up doubling of the GOAT - or inbreeding to the heavily inbred-himself Danehill - hasn’t been everyone’s cup of tea, especially through two sons, since that’s statistically the least successful of the three ways of doing it.

But look a little further back in Blind Raise’s pedigree and we see Danehill’s second dam Spring Adieu (Buckpasser) isn’t just there twice because of his two spots, but in triplicate, at 6f, 6f x 5f.

Better still, that middle mention comes in clear and strong along Ace High’s female line, with Spring Adieu being his fifth dam.

And it’s this that The Oaks Stud’s Rick Williams believes could be a major key to the exciting potential of Blind Raise, whose trainers Trent Busuttin and Natalie Young have on a path towards the Caulfield Guineas (Gr 1, 1600m).

“I think having Spring Adieu through the tail female of Ace High helps that Danehill mix a bit,” Williams tells It’s In The Blood.

“People say close-up inbreeding to Danehill hasn’t been very successful, but in this case it seems to be working, and I was wondering whether it was that tail-female Spring Adieu that might help.

“It balances it out, with Spring Adieu going through a daughter instead of through a son in Danehill, and the X chromosome comes straight up the tail female into Ace High, nice and clear.

“So that made appeal in the mating.

“Let’s just say it seems I got it right with that one, but that doesn’t mean to say I’ll get it right again - or even that it works the second time around,” the veteran breeder adds with a laugh.

In this case it does appear to have worked at the second attempt. Blind Raise has a year-younger full-brother who Williams calls a stronger version of the original. A paddock accident meant he couldn’t go to sale, which, given subsequent positive reports from his breaker and Blind Raise’s emergence, is starting to look like a nice bit of bad luck for Williams, as he prepares to race the colt.

Another trick to the pedigree is a bit more of a no-brainer: Ace High’s sire High Chaparral (Sadler’s Wells) over Danehill.

It ranks as easily High Chaparral’s most successful nick by number of stakes winners. Granted, it’s produced more than double the runners of his second most populous nick, but through the time-tested course of 104 starters, High Chaparral over Danehill mares has produced 16 stakes winners at a 15 per cent SWTR. They include 11 Group winners - three at the top level including the Irish-bred Free Eagle and Queensland Oaks (Gr 1, 2200m) victor Youngstar.

Zabeel (Sir Tristram) sits second among these nicks, with eight stakes winners from 49 runners, albeit at a marginally higher SWTR ratio of 16 per cent.

The quality Williams laid on the Ace High table from Blind Raise’s female family runs deep.

It has a taproot of stakes-placed British mare Glide By (Remainder Man) as the gelding’s fourth dam. Brought to Australia in the 1980s, she threw Yachtie (Broad Reach), who won Rosehill’s Pago Pago Stakes (Gr 2, 1200m) and Caulfield’s Blue Diamond Prelude (Gr 3, 1100m) for males, and later stood at The Oaks.

His full-sister - Blind Raise’s third dam Just Cruising - was only placed but was a star of the breeding barn for The Oaks.

Just Cruising’s third named foal, Korau Road (Cape Cross) ran a Group 1 second as well as being a city winner. But another try at that mating a year later by Williams produced the great sprinter-miler Seachange, who not only won seven Group 1s but was placed in four more - including two in Australia - and raced at Royal Ascot.

Two years on, Just Cruising bore the filly Keepa Cruising (Keeper), who became her second elite winner along with claiming a Group 3.

Keepa Cruisin threw Listed winner Espresso Martini (High Chaparral) and the dams of three more black type winners including Antrim Coast (Roc De Cambes), who took Moonee Valley’s Alister Clark Stakes (Gr 2, 2040m) and ran second in the New Zealand Derby (Gr 1, 2400m).

In all, eight stakes winners came with Just Cruising either their first, second or third dam, from New Zealand to Perth and with Melbourne and Brisbane in between.

Seachange went to stud and threw five winners from six runners. But while, like so many great racemares, she didn’t throw a stakes winner, her talents appear to have bobbed up a generation later.

One daughter was Pelican (Fastnet Rock), a Melbourne city winner, who gained greater fame as the dam of Storm Boy (Justify), the four-time stakes victor at two and three who’s now standing at Coolmore Stud, and of his Group 3-winning half-brother Shangri La Boy (Pierro).

Seachange also threw Away Cruising, who now appears to have passed on the genes superbly well in Blind Raise.

Withdrawn from Karaka 2017, Away Cruising ran three placings for Williams in New Zealand before he shipped her to Patrick Payne in Victoria.

“I thought she was a bit better than she was showing in New Zealand, and of course the prize-money is a bit better across the Ditch,” Williams says.

She was “no superstar” but did win at Warrnambool and Moe. While she was in Australia, Williams started her breeding career with a cover from American Pharoah (Pioneerof The Nile).

Returned to New Zealand, she bore her first foal, Usir. Bought by Lindsay Park for $70,000, he had four modest runs in Victoria and is now racing in the Phillipines, where he’s at least won eight times to date.

For Away Cruising’s second cover, Williams hit on Rich Hill Stud’s then-unproven Ace High, standing in his third season. The first try missed, but another go a year later has brought us Blind Raise.

“We happen to be a shareholder in Ace High, but I did like the mating, on paper and on physicals,” Williams said.

“The Seachange family is not a big family, and Ace High is a nice, taller, leggier horse, and there were some lines there in the pedigree match-up that I really liked too.

“I’ve done it three times now, so I must’ve been serious about it. I might have to do it again now - I’m not sure yet. But definitely Trent [Busuttin] has been singing Blind Raise’s praises for a good while now, so let’s hope he’s right.”