John Ingles covers some of the pedigree points of interest from this week’s racing at Royal Ascot.
‘Cousins’ deliver more Royal Ascot success for Reem Three family
There can’t have been a more successful family at Royal Ascot in recent times than that of Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum’s broodmare Reem Three. With Group 1 successes this week for her grandsons Rosallion in the St James’s Palace Stakes and Inisherin in the Commonwealth Cup, they’re the third generation of Royal Ascot winners from their family in the Sheikh’s yellow colours with the black spots.
As well as being a half-sister to the 2010 Hampton Court Stakes winner Afsare, Reem Three is the dam of three more Royal Ascot winners. The 2018 Britannia Stakes winner Ostilio was followed a year later by Cape Byron winning the Wokingham Stakes but the best of the trio is her Frankel colt Triple Time, 33/1 winner of last year’s Queen Anne Stakes.
Reem Three has eight foals to date who have achieved Timeform ratings of 100 or more and her current three-year-old Bolsena, runner-up in a listed race at Goodwood earlier this month, could yet become another as she’s currently rated 95.
Another of her daughters, Ajman Princess, went close to being another Royal Ascot winner, finishing second at 33/1 in the 2016 Ribblesdale Stakes when still a maiden. Ajman Princess went on to Group 1 success at four in the Prix Jean Romanet at Deauville and is now dam of the clearly very much speedier Inisherin who shares his sire Shamardal with another of the family’s sprinters Cape Byron. As for Inisherin’s ‘cousin’ Rosallion, he’s out of Reem Three’s unraced daughter Rosaline.
Giant’s Causeway’s legacy lives on
Inisherin and Rosallion have more in common than the same grandam. Their respective sires are Shamardal and his son Blue Point and they’ve played their part in a very successful Royal Ascot this year for the Giant’s Causeway sire line. Giant’s Causeway was a Royal Ascot winner himself, in the St James’s Palace Stakes, while his first-crop son Shamardal won the same race, albeit when Royal Ascot was held at York that year.
Rosallion was therefore following in the footsteps of both his grandsire and great grandsire in adding his name to the St James’s Palace roll of honour, though his sire Blue Point was no stranger to success at Royal Ascot either, winning the King’s Stand at four and the same race at five when doubling up in the Diamond Jubilee Stakes.
Another of Shamardal’s sons, Lope de Vega, is having a fine season with two classic winners in France this year, Look de Vega and Rouhiya, and while the latter couldn’t add to her Poule d’Essai des Pouliches success in the Coronation Stakes, he has a very progressive son in Going The Distance, winner of the King George V Stakes.
Lope de Vega is in turn the sire of Belardo and he had a winner on the first day of the meeting when Belloccio, already his sire’s highest-rated Flat performer in the British Isles, won the Copper Horse Handicap.
The other winner of the week from the Giant’s Causeway sire line was Norfolk Stakes winner Shareholder who is by Giant’s Causeway’s American son Not This Time, runner-up in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. Wathnan Racing’s €460,000 breeze-up purchase Shareholder had been Not This Time’s first winner in Britain when making a successful debut at Beverley just twelve days earlier.
Bred in the purple
Some eye-catching pedigrees have come to the fore this week, though perhaps not in the most high-profile races. Shadwell’s home-bred five-year-old horse Israr, who won the listed Wolferton Stakes on Tuesday, comes into that category.
Both his parents distinguished themselves for the late Sheikh Hamdan, with sire Muhaarar a Royal Ascot winner himself in the very first running of the Commonwealth Cup. Muhaarar proved a top-class sprinter, going on to win the July Cup, Prix Maurice de Gheest and the Champions Sprint Stakes back at Ascot.
Israr’s high-class dam Taghrooda didn’t run at the Royal meeting but she did win the King George at Ascot the following month to add to her success in the Oaks.
Taghrooda also finished third in the 2014 Arc which was won by Treve for the second year running. Treve was another broodmare on the scoresheet this week thanks to her four-year-old daughter Doha, winner of Thursday’s Kensington Palace Stakes.
Al Shaqab’s Doha, another home-bred, probably trumps even Israr on pedigree, though, as she’s the product of two Arc winners, being by Sea The Stars who’s also the sire of Taghrooda. With breeding like that, perhaps it wasn’t surprising that Doha should prove better than a BHA mark of 85 – she’s surely earned a bid for some black type now – but her pedigree was less of a clue that she’d be effective over as short as a mile. Doha was Sea The Stars’ second winner of the meeting after Pledgeofallegiance’s success in the Ascot Stakes over two and a half miles.
Last hurrah for Galileo?
With three winners, it was Sea The Stars’ half-brother Galileo who was the week’s leading sire. The third anniversary of Galileo’s death at the age of 23 is approaching so there will be few further opportunities for the great sire to add to the 35 wins he has now notched at Royal Ascot over the years. Maybe the victories of Illinois in the Queen’s Vase, Ballydoyle stablemate Kyprios, who won his second Gold Cup, and Uxmal in the Queen Alexandra Stakes will even go down as his final successes at the meeting.
Illinois was Galileo’s sixth winner of the Queen’s Vase and it was in that same race in 2010 that he registered his first Royal Ascot success as a sire when his sons Mikhail Glinka and Theology were separated by a nose. Since then, with the exception of 2013, Galileo has had at least one winner at every Royal Ascot since, including five in 2016, the year he had his first Gold Cup winner Order of St George.
But while Galileo himself may no longer be around, several of his sons have also got on the board this week. They included Frankel, who had a couple of winners thanks to Royal Hunt Cup winner Wild Tiger and impressive Chesham Stakes winner Bedtime Story, while his Derby winning sons Australia and New Approach have provided Ribblesdale winner Port Fairy and Hardwicke winner Isle of Jura respectively.
Dark Angel setting the pace after Group 1 double
Dark Angel deserves a mention too, siring the first and last Group 1 races of the week. Charyn landed his first top-level success in the Queen Anne Stakes over a mile, while eight-year-old Khaadem repeated his success of last year in the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes over six furlongs.
Those valuable successes have wider significance, though, as they put Dark Angel in front in the sires’ championship after a blank week for closest rivals Dubawi and Kingman.
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