RACEGOERS at ParisLongchamp on Sunday were treated to a classic renewal of the €350,000 Prix Royal-Oak over two miles, and the final Group 1 event of the French season.

The sole three-year-old in the race, Double Major (Daiwa Major), winner on Arc weekend of the Group 2 Qatar Prix Chaudenay, took the lead at the entrance to the home straight, and proceeded to win on very heavy ground by an impressive seven and a half lengths.

Bred by Gerard and Alain Wertheimer, also instrumental in the Group 1 weekend success of Ancient Wisdom, Double Major started in March with a second-place finish at Deauville, followed by his first victory in Toulouse over 10 and a half furlongs. He had finished second three times at listed and group level before his first pattern race win, and seems to have found his calling over longer distances.

Double Major was entered for the Arqana Arc Sale but was not presented, having won his Group 2 earlier in the day. He is the fourth foal and winner out of Dancequest (Dansili), a winner at Deauville and placed in a listed race in Longchamp. Her other winners include the Group 3 winner Flop Shot (New Approach) and the stakes-placed Veritas (Camelot).

As good as these have been, there is a mouth-watering bunch of young stock out of Dancequest to look forward to. She has a two-year-old daughter Tyra (Lope De Vega), a yearling filly Rooba (Dubawi), and a colt foal Vegetarien (Lope De Vega). Dancequest is a daughter of Featherquest (Rainbow Quest), and that winning mare left behind 10 winners from 15 foals, notably Plumania (Anabaa) and Balladeuse (Singspiel).

Heroine

Plumania won the Group 1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud, while at stud the best of her winners was the French Group 1 and British Group 3 winner Plumatic (Dubawi). While Balladeuse’s best win was at Group 2 level, in the Prix de Royallieu, she is the dam of a Group 1 winner, the Prix Vermeille heroine Left Hand (Dubawi), and that mare was also runner-up in the Group 1 Prix de Diane-French Oaks.

Double Major is a son of Shadai Farm’s Daiwa Major, a champion sprinter and miler in his native Japan at the ages of five and six. He also won the first leg of the Japanese Triple Crown, their 2000 Guineas. He is a son of the American stallion Sunday Silence (Halo), a major figure in Japanese breeding and the sire also of Deep Impact.

Daiwa Major went to stud in 2008, and Double Major is his eighth Group 1 winner. Last year his son Serifos was one of the leading performers in Japan, winning the Group 1 Mile Championship, and seven of Daiwa Major’s eight top-level winners have been in Japan.

That said, his best runner, Admire Mars, did venture outside Japan and is the only three-year-old to win the Group 1 Hong Kong Mile. Admire Mars, like his sire and grandsire, is a Shadai stallion, and he will be represented by his first two-year-olds in 2024..

Nothing about Ralph Beckett is Understated

I AM a big fan of trainer Ralph Beckett. On Monday he sent the three-year-old Nathaniel (Galileo) filly Understated to Saint-Cloud to contest the Listed Prix Solitude, for which she was allowed to go off at odds of 32/1. She won.

Bred by Al Shahania Stud and sold as a yearling at BBAG in Germany for €67,000, Understated was runner-up on her debut in January, won a maiden on the grass at Windsor and progressed to finishing second to the subsequent group winner Araminta in the Height Of Fashion Stakes at Goodwood.

Three unplaced runs followed, in the Group 2 Ribblesdale Stakes at Royal Ascot, the Group 3 Stanerra Stakes in Leopardstown and a listed race at Newmarket. Entered for the Tattersalls December Sale, where she is Lot 1670, this victory will be a huge boost to her potential sale value. She is one of a pair of winners out of the Makfi (Dubawi) mare Catalyst, and she won once and placed six times, all from seven starts.

Bought for 65,000gns as a yearling, that sole success for Catalyst was enough to see her value boom to 375,000gns at the end of her three-year-old season. Her first two foals are winners, her third is an unraced two-year-old, Gymnopedie (Sea The Moon), and this year she foaled a full-sister to Understated.

Champion filly

There is every reason for breeders to want to get into this female line.

Catalyst is a daughter of the Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes and Group 2 Lowther Stakes winner Bianca Nera (Salse), and those efforts were enough for her to be crowned the champion juvenile filly in Ireland in 1996. At stud she failed to breed a stakes winner, though seven of her offspring won, and three were stakes placed.

However, it was her daughter Ever Rigg (Dubai Destination) who has enjoyed the most success at stud, and she is the dam of a pair of Group 1 winners. Her son Postponed (Dubawi) has been in the news as he moves to stand at Yorton for the 2024 season. Twice champion in Europe, his nine wins were worth some £10 million, and included four Group 1 races.

Postponed’s half-sister God Given (Nathaniel), who shares the same sire as Understated, won the Group 1 Premio Lydia Tesio in Italy and the Group 2 Park Hill Stakes in England, and her son Silver Knott (Lope De Vega), a Group 3 winner last year, just came up short when runner-up in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf.

Sparks Fly

David Loughnane made it a stakes double for British-based trainers at Saint-Cloud when he got valuable blacktype for his prolific winner Sparks Fly.

Bred by the Lowe family, and racing in the colours of David Lowe, the three-year-old Sparks Fly is a daughter of Muhaarar (Oasis Dream), now in France for two seasons after six years at Nunnery Stud.

What a year it is proving to be for Sparks Fly, and how deserving is her stakes win. This was the filly’s eighth win of the year, and her second attempt at a blacktype race. A third winner for her dam, Stepping Out (Tagula), Sparks Fly is also from the same female family as her sire.

Sparks Fly’s half-sister Caroline Dale (Lethal Force) was a smart juvenile in 2020, and she was placed in the Group 2 Queen Mary Stakes at Royal Ascot, the Group 3 Princess Margaret Stakes at the same track, and the Listed St Hugh’s Stakes at Newbury. Their sibling Baby Steps (Paco Boy) is a four-time winner.

While there are lots of winners under the next two dams, blacktype is scarce. Stepping Out is one of eight winners from Teodora (Fairy King), and she is one of seven successful runners out of the Italian listed winner Pinta (Ahonoora). Pinta’s six winning siblings include the sprinter Miss Sacha (Last Tycoon), and that Irish stakes winner is the grandam of the European champion sprinter Muhaarar.