Cape Cross has given the team at Darley much to be excited about ever since his first runners hit the track. Leading first-crop sire and leading sire of two-year-olds in Britain and Ireland in 2003, Cape Cross was an instant success, his first runners including the outstanding dual Classic winner Ouija Board. This year, another dual Classic winner, Sea The Stars, is ensuring his sire’s name remains in lights.
Cape Cross is now firmly established as one of the stars of the Darley stallion ranks, alongside such household names as Singspiel, who has two new Group One winners this season in Eastern Anthem and Dar Re Mi, and Halling, whose son Cavalryman won the G1 Grand Prix de Paris on 14 July, putting himself firmly in the running for a return to Longchamp for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe on the first weekend of October.
Among our host of exciting young sires, five have their first yearlings selling this autumn and buyers will be intent on working out who will be the next Cape Cross. One who shares his sire, the mighty sire of sires Green Desert, is Byron (pictured). The comparisons don’t end there as Byron is also an exceptionally well-bred horse. His dam Gay Gallanta was Champion two-year-old filly of Europe and he’s from a real stallion’s family, which include the likes of A P Indy, Summer Squall, Lemon Drop Kid, Duke Of Marmalade and the outstanding South African sire Al Mufti. Byron’s yearlings in 2009 include colts out of the Group One winners Intrepidity and Cherokee Rose, and a half-sister to the Group Two winner Tariq.
Iffraaj emulated Byron in winning the Group Two Lennox Stakes and he is closely related to Cape Cross, being out of his half-sister Pastorale. This, too, is a wonderful family, boasting the stallions Diktat and Layman, and such great distaffers as Alydaress, Russian Rhythm and, of course, the great Champion filly Park Appeal, the dam of both Pastorale and Cape Cross. Iffraaj’s foals fetched up to €92,000 last year and among his yearlings are a half-brother to Tagula, sire of the very exciting juvenile Canford Cliffs, and also to Xaar’s Group Two-winning son Balthazaar’s Gift.
As mentioned, the family of Cape Cross and Iffraaj is represented by another of the Darley sires with his first yearlings. Haras du Logis resident Layman, a solid and imposing chestnut son of the great Sunday Silence, has been immensely popular since retiring to stud in France and has three colts on offer at the first major European yearling sale of the year at Deauville in August. Like Cape Cross, Layman is a record-breaking miler and his second dam Alydaress is a half-sister to Park Appeal.
Standing alongside Layman at Haras du Logis is Librettist. As a Danzig half-brother to Dubai Destination, he hails from the same sireline as Cape Cross, while his dam Mysterial is a half-sister to the crack Japanese sprinter Agnes World. Librettist won two of his three starts at two and developed into a dual Group One-winning miler as a four-year-old, beating Manduro and Ad Valorem in the Prix Jacques le Marois. First-crop yearlings by Librettist include half-siblings to the Group One winners Lend A Hand, Sweet Return and Donna Blini.
The final member of the Darley team with first-crop yearlings is the globetrotting four-time Group One winner Shirocco. Being by the outstanding German sire Monsun, he is bound to find favour with yearling purchasers and, bloodlines aside, he measures up to Cape Cross in one very important way: they both achieved a Timeform rating of 129. His foals certainly attracted the buyers last year, fetching up to €100,000, and half-siblings to German Derby winner Adlerflug, classy French stayer Le Miracle and Group One winner Royal Highness feature among Shirocco’s yearlings, 16 of whom are set to go under the hammer at the Arqana sale in Deauville, which starts on Friday, 14 August.
