How do you top Dame Flora Duffy? Is it even possible? Well, as the saying goes, if you can’t beat them, join them.

Join them Simon Scupham did with the expertly chosen name of Flora Of Bermuda for the syndicate Bermuda Racing’s most recent racing horse of star quality.

First came Johnny Barnes, who famously in 2015 won a group three race under Frankie Dettori at the Deauville Racecourse in France, followed by Horseshoe Bay, Queen Of Bermuda, Spirit Of Bermuda, Pink Sands and Bermuda Princess.

But it is Flora Of Bermuda that has captured the imagination and shown the potential to rival the impact made at home and abroad by the “goddess of triathlon”.

On the heels of winning the group three William Hill Summer Stakes at York on July 12 as a 14-1 shot, the three-year-old filly stepped it up on her French debut on August 8 by closing fast to finish fourth at the same odds in the group one Maurice de Gheest, a 6½-furlong race worth €350,000 (about $386,000) to the winner.

It was a performance that was steeped in quality and made the more impressive in that Flora Of Bermuda was the best of the four British horses that had crossed the English Channel — which included group one winners Mill Stream (July Cup at Newmarket) and Khaadem (Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee at Royal Ascot).

Having broke well under jockey Oisin Murphy, Flora Of Bermuda travelled well on the good-to-soft ground. She did not have much luck in running but when a gap appeared inside the final furlong she pushed through the gears and actually caught and passed the third-placed finisher a few strides after the line.

The performance warranted for Flora Of Bermuda a career-high Official Rating of 106 and a certainty that there will be more group one dates in her future, with the Sprint Cup at Haydock and British Champions Day at Royal Ascot considered.

“It was a magnificent day for Flora Of Bermuda in Deauville, finishing fourth in the prestigious Group 1 Prix Maurice de Gheest,” he told Scott Burton of The Front Runner. “In doing so she has gained black type at the top table of racing, which is so important for her future broodmare career — this achieved at only three years of age and at her very first attempt. Despite not being in the greatest of positions during much of the race she finished so well hitting the line doing her best work.”

The performance came during the same week that her namesake had defied the odds to finish fifth in the Olympic women’s triathlon.

“What a remarkable athlete she is finishing an amazing fifth in defence of her Olympic crown in Paris,” Scupham added. “This was despite having to overcome what was almost a career-ending injury and being able to compete in only a couple of races since 2022. What an achievement and what a career. We can only aspire to be as proud of Flora Of Bermuda’s racing career when she eventually retires.”

With that there is the promise of a second career as a broodmare.

“I’m not a big fan of being an owner and it being ‘I’m Simon Scupham and I own this horse and that horse.’ That all seems to be a bit of an ego thing to me.

“Living in Bermuda, being born in Bermuda and growing up in Bermuda, it just seemed the obvious thing to create some sort of interest around the place that I love and the place that has given me such a good life.

“We started out as more of a syndication kind of project with a few good mates and a few others. But I just realised that going to yearling parades with Jake [Warren, owner of Highclere Stud] and buying horses at £200,000 or £300,000 is just a shot in the dark. Unless you have endless amounts of money, and time and patience, it’s just a long shot.”

It was the retirement of Johnny Barnes to stud that provided the springboard for Scupham to start taking the idea of breeding more seriously.

“We decided to support him as a stallion, so we bought a few mares,” Scupham said. “We thought we’d go to the breeze-up sales and buy fast fillies, and have a bit more of a stable plan around breeding, which has to be a bit more of a rifle shot for us rather than a shotgun because we’re not gonna buy that many. So we had to find somebody that knows what they’re doing and we chose Jake.”

Queen Of Bermuda and Spirit Of Bermuda both earned their way to the breeding shed with black-type performances, while the promising Pink Sands — who had future Lowther winner Living In The Past behind her when breaking her maiden at Ripon — might well have attained that level if injury had not intervened.

Now Flora Of Bermuda, who has two wins among six black-type finishes in her 11-race career, will be given at least a couple of cracks at further enhancing her group one credentials before joining the Bermuda broodmare band.

“She’s justified what we’ve always felt and hoped, which is that she’s a top-class group one animal,” Warren said.

“At the beginning of this year, she was unlucky at Haydock, which is why we didn’t follow the initial plan and go on to the Commonwealth Cup.

“But since then she’s been faultless and seems to be jumping through the hoops really well; she is a very exciting filly for us.”

As exciting as the rest of the season may be on the racecourse, Scupham and Warren are already looking forward to Flora Of Bermuda’s breeding career, while awaiting the anointment of her successor — Bermuda Longtail, a Hello Youmzain filly out of Et Toi Et Moi, who has already gone off to trainer Andrew Balding.

“She’ll be coming out soon and she was the fastest filly in that sale,” Scupham said.

“That’s the game plan and the challenge will be continuing to come up with good names because we’ve been through a few already.”