First-season sire Sulamani maintained his impressive strike rate of winners to runners when Quai d’Orsay won at the first time of asking at Hamilton over eight-and-a-half furlongs.
Bred by Miss Kirsten Rausing, the colt, who runs in the colours of Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, is out of Entente Cordiale (Affirmed) and thus a three-parts brother to the hardy Foreign Affairs, who won seven Listed races and is by Sulamani’s sire Hernando.
Sulamani, who stands at Haras du Logis in Normandy, has had just eight runners to date, four of whom have won, including the three-time Italian scorer Sulabe, who was bred in the UK by Darley. He is also sire of Equipe de Nuit, who has finished runner-up in his only two starts to date.
Kheleyf, too, boasts a healthy strike rate of more than 40 per cent winners from his first-crop of runners with his tally now standing at 28 following the victories of Vera's Moscou at Compiegne in France and Laura Green in Milan.
In New Zealand, Cape Cross six-year-old Gaze added further black type to her résumé with a win in the Listed Jim & John Evans Ltd Classic at Pukekohe. This was the fourth Stakes win for the mare, who has also put her name on the roll of honour of the G1 Starcraft Stakes, the G2 NRM/Auckalnd Thoroughbred Breeders Stakes, the G3 Doom Roses. In 37 starts, she has won eight and been placed on 11 occasions.
Cape Cross was also responsible for the third horse home, the six-time winner Cross Roads, who was a head behind the runner-up.
