There’s no denying that 2009 was the year of Sea The Stars. When a stallion has a horse of that quality among his runners, other offspring are always going to find that the bar has been set extremely high - so high in fact that no stallion alive has sired a better horse than the 140-rated Sea The Stars – but with Cape Cross, his sons and daughters have once again provided strength in depth throughout 2010.
Grand Prix de Paris winner Behkabad and Hong Kong’s star miler Able One have provided their sire with a Group One winner from each hemisphere, while Crystal Capella, Treat Gently, Cape Dollar, Mekong Melody, Capecover and Crossthestart have won Group two contests in England, America and Australia. St Leger third Corsica and Tattersalls Gold Cup runner-up Recharge have also performed admirably at the highest level in 2010.
Sea The Stars may stand out on a Timeform rating of 140 but Behkabad, an unlucky fourth when starting favourite for this year’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, has been awarded the same mark - 125 - as Cape Cross’ seven-time Group One winner and dual Classic heroine Ouija Board.
They are just three of the eight individual Group One winners who stand at the top of the roll of honour that depicts Cape Cross’ distinguished stud career. It is ten years since he retired to Darley and he leads all middle-distance stallions, having sired more Group winners worldwide than any other current sire in the 11 to 12-furlong category.
But from the outset, Cape Cross was renowned as the producer of decent juveniles: he was leading first-season sire and leading sire of two-year-olds in Britain and Ireland in 2003. Not much has changed in that regard.
Sea The Stars was himself winner of the G2 Beresford Stakes at two, while Behkabad showed himself to have Classic potential with success in last year’s G3 Prix des Chenes.
Of this season’s young pretenders, Cape Dollar leads the charge with her victory in the G2 Rockfel Stakes, which saw another daughter of Cape Cross, I Love Me, finish third, having won a valuable 16-runner sales race on debut at Newmarket. The two fillies have earned Timeform marks of 104p and 102p respectively but they are each eclipsed in the ratings by Signs In The Sand, Godolphin’s G3 Sirenia Stakes third-place finisher who has a mark of 108p.
British-bred Bezique is unbeaten in Italy and won the Listed Premio Reppubliche Marinare in Rome on her most recent outing for owner/breeder Aston House Stud, while another Cape Cross juvenile well worth keeping an eye on next year is Khawlah, a close relation to Sea The Stars out of a daughter of Melikah. She won a Newmarket maiden for Godolphin in September and followed up with a placing in the G3 Oh So Sharp Stakes in early October.
With representatives such as these year on year, Cape Cross has earned his place in the pantheon of Europe’s elite sires and there’s plenty to look forward to. In 2010, Cape Cross covered 148 Stakes horses or producers, incuding 19 Group One winners or producers.
Also in 2010, his own family credentials continue to be bolstered by his close relatives at stud: Diktat, out of a daughter of Cape Cross’ dam Park Appeal, is the sire of one of this season’s hottest juveniles, the Prix Morny and Middle Park Stakes winner Dream Ahead. And then there’s a certain first-season sire by the name of Iffraaj. You’ll know that name by now courtesy of his 35 first-crop winners headed by the G1 Prix Jean-Luc Largardere hero, Wootton Bassett. Iffraaj, too, is out of a daughter of Park Appeal. It’s a family that just keeps on winning.
