Double delight for Darley's young guns

Shamardal and Dubawi sire their third and fourth G1 winners respectively

Dubawi and Shamardal, undoubtedly two of the most exciting young stallions on the planet, enjoyed an outstanding afternoon's racing at Randwick in Sydney on 2 October, with both sires recording new G1 winners.

Dubawi notched his fourth individual G1 winner and his second in just eight days, when his three-year-old daughter Secret Admirer beat a high-class field to take the one-mile G1 Flight Stakes.

This was just the second start in Black type company for the filly (who was third in a Listed contest at the same course last month) and she could not have put up a better performance, demonstrating a blistering turn of foot to come from the rear of the field and power down the straight, sweeping past her rivals to win by a head from More Strawberries.

Bred by Eire Bloodstock, Secret Admirer is out of the unraced mare Secret Illusion – herself a half-sister to multiple G1 winner Donegal Mist and from the family of champion sprinter Mr Illusion.

Dubawi has now sired 13 individual Group winners worldwide, including fellow G1 winners Poet’s Voice (who took the QEII last weekend), Makfi and Happy Archer.

He has sired ten Group winners from his first two northern hemisphere crops – more than any other stallion with the exception of fellow Darley sire Street Cry.

Later on the same card, Shamardal's four-year-old son Captain Sonador gained his first Stakes win in scintillating fashion when charging to victory in the feature race of the day, the one-mile G1 Epsom Handicap.

Taking the lead in the closing stages, Captain Sonador finished too strongly for his rivals, beating the odds-on favourite Trusting by a head. Previously third in the G1 Royal Randwick Guineas at three, he has now won on five occasions.

Shamardal is also sire of dual G1 winners Faint Perfume, and Lope de Vega - who lines up in tomorrow's Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.