IN 2016 Shamardal (Giant’s Causeway) became unavailable to commercial breeders. Due to health reasons, Sheikh Mohammed and his team decided to restrict him to mares owned by his family and associates. This came at a time of increasing popularity for the stallion’s services at Kildangan Stud and in 2015, his last year standing publicly, his fee rose to €70,000, having been as low as €20,000 five years earlier.

Now restricted to covering numbers in the mid-60s, Shamardal is continuing to demonstrate his abilities as a sire on the racecourse, and thankfully breeders have access to his sons and will have the chance next year to use one of his best sons, also under the Darley banner, when Blue Point joins their ranks. Blue Point is a four-time Group 1 winner, including two editions of the King’s Stand Stakes and the Diamond Jubilee Stakes.

This year is proving to be a remarkable one for Shamardal and last weekend he sired his third Group 1 winner of 2019, one of 14 stakes winners in the last eight months by the stallion. Earthlight, a home-bred of Sheikh Mohammed, won the Group 1 Darley Prix Morny over six furlongs at Deauville at the weekend, retaining his unbeaten record. Also at the weekend the Aga Khan-owned and bred three-year-old filly Tarnawa added a second group victory to her record when running out the easy winner of the Group 3 Give Thanks Stakes at Cork.

Earthlight, settled towards the rear early on in the Morny, produced a tremendous turn of foot down the home straight and got the better of Slade Power’s daughter Raffle Prize close to the line to win by a neck. The pair were two and a half lengths clear of the rest. The winner is trained by Andre Fabre and is now four from four, having also won the Group 3 Darley Prix de Cabourg. Fabre indicated that Earthlight could tackle the Group 1 Darley Dewhurst, Stakes, with next spring’s Group 1 2000 Guineas already on the radar.

Earthlight joins the aforementioned Blue Point and the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Pouliches-French 1000 Guineas heroine Castle Lady as 2019 top level winners for Shamardal, and they are some of the 23 winners at Group or Grade 1 level that he is responsible for.

Earthlight is the first foal out of the Group 1-placed New Approach (Galileo) mare Winters Moon who was also bred by Sheikh Mohammed. She was trained by Saeed bin Suroor and won at Newmarket on her debut at two before finishing third in a pair of group races, notably behind Together Forever in the Group 1 Dubai Fillies’ Mile.

Now that she is the dam of a Group 1 winner with her first foal, there will be even more attention paid to her yearling daughter by Dubawi (Dubai Millennium) and to the foal on the ground, a full-sister to Earthlight.

Earthlight is the third Group 1 winner in this decade for the immediate family. Winters Moon is a half-sister to the 2011 Group 1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud winner Mandaean (Manduro) and to the same year’s Group 1 Montjeu Coolmore Prix Saint-Alary winner Wavering (Refuse To Bend). The latter is dam of a couple of group-placed winners by Street Cry (Machiavellian).

Mandaean, Wavering and Winters Moon are three of the eight winners from Summertime Legacy (Darshaan) who was trained by Andre Fabre. Bred and raced by Sheikh Mohammed’s brother Maktoum Al Maktoum, Summertime Legacy won the Group 3 Prix des Reservoirs at two and the following year was placed in the Group 1 Prix Saint-Alary. She was easily the best of seven winners from the minor winner Zawaahy (El Gran Senor).

Zawaahy was one of five winners from her dam, the unraced Exotic Treat (Vaguely Noble). By some way the best of these was the Vincent O’Brien-trained Golden Fleece (Nijinsky). Golden Fleece was undefeated in a career that consisted of just four starts, with his most notable victory coming on his final start in the 1982 Group 1 Epsom Derby.

As a yearling, Golden Fleece was sent to the sales and bought for $775,000 by Robert Sangster and sent to be trained at Ballydoyle where his sire Nijinsky (Norther Dancer), the Canadian-bred winner of the Triple Crown in 1970, was also trained.

Golden Fleece won his only start at two in a mile maiden race at Leopardstown, ridden by Pat Eddery and beating Assert. At three he established himself as a leading contender for the Derby by winning the Group 2 Ballymoss Stakes at the Curragh and the Group 2 Nijinsky Stakes at Leopardstown, again accounting for the subsequent Group 1 Prix du Jockey Club, Group 1 Irish Derby and Group 1 Benson and Hedges Gold Cup winner Assert.

In the Epsom Derby, Golden Fleece took the lead a furlong from home and went on to win by three lengths from the future Group 1 St Leger and Group 1 Irish St. Leger winner Touching Wood. His winning time was the fastest for almost 50 years and afterwards Eddery said Golden Fleece was “the best horse I have ever sat on”, a view he repeated many times.

Golden Fleece was retired to stud without racing again. He stood at Coolmore Stud for just one season but died from complications after intestinal cancer surgery in March 1984.

Back for a moment to Shamardal. Winner of the Group 1 Darley Dewhurst Stakes at two when he was unbeaten in three starts, Shamardal was accorded the honour of being crowned the best two-year-old in Europe. He earned a second accolade at three, that of best three-year-old miler in Europe. Winner of three of his four starts in his second season, he won all of them at Group 1 level; the Poule d’Essai des Poulains-French 2000 Guineas, Prix du Jockey-Club (French Derby) and the St James’s Palace Stakes.

Destined to make his mark as a stallion, being a son of champion Giant’s Causeway (Storm Cat) out of a stakes-placed own-sister to Street Cry, Shamardal is established as a sire of sires and a broodmare sire of note. While Awtaad, Pretty Pollyanna and Latrobe are examples of Group 1 winners produced by his daughters, his sons include Lope De Vega, like his sire a winner of the French 2000 Guineas/Derby double and now sire of nine Group 1 winners; the Aga Khan’s Group 1 winner Dariyan whose first crop are yearlings; Group 1 winner and group sire Mukhadram; Group 1 winner and group sire Casamento, and the German-based Ameron, a Group 1 winner who is off the mark with his first runners in 2019.

Without doubt Shamardal is one of the most successful sires of his generation.