ON what was a weekend to remember for Sea The Stars (Cape Cross), it was appropriate that one of his winners was an Aga Khan homebred.

Johnny Murtagh trains the three-year-old Hanalia, and this daughter of the Gilltown Stud-based super sire is improving all season, and looks like one that could even be better at four. She has been in a starting stall six times this year, recording three victories and chasing home another Aga Khan filly, Tarawa, in a Group 3 on her penultimate outing.

Hanalia was not one of the market fancies for the Group 2 Moyglare Jewels Blandford Stakes, but she kept on gamely to win, her rider having lost his whip. The race is one that the Aga Khan team like to win, and they have captured half of the last 10 stagings of the contest, Shamreen being successful twice, along with Eziyra and Tarnawa. The latter filly won a pair of Group 1 races, while Eziyra was placed at that level. Next stop for Hanalia is a Group 1 on Arc weekend,

Earlier this season, Hanalia gained a stakes win in the Listed Oaks Trial at Naas, and thus became the third stakes winner among five successful offspring from Hanakiyya (Danehill Dancer). That mare won over a mile at three when trained by John Oxx, and like her daughter Hanalia, she was unraced at two. The decision to cover Hanakiyya with Sea The Stars was taken the year after the mare’s Sea The Stars granddaughter Hamariyna (Sea The Moon) won the Group 3 Derrinstown 1000 Guineas Trial at Leopardstown, and she was runner-up in a Group 2.

The first stakes winner out of Hanakiyya was Hunaina (Tamayuz), and what a fairytale purchase she was at the end of her three-year-old career. A three-time winner in Ireland, including at two, she sold to Stroud Coleman for €140,000, and transferred to the ownership of Trevor Stewart, and the training stables of Henri-Francois Devin. He saddled her to win three times at four, a listed success at Kempton being followed by a Group 3 victory at Chantilly.

Sweet William

Hanalia is from a very ‘happening’ family, so much so that another of the stars in the female line, Sweet William, won the Group 2 Doncaster Cup last week for owner and breeder Philippa Cooper of Normandie Stud. Sweet William is also a son of Sea The Stars. Hanalia’s grandam is a half-sister to the dam of Harzand (Sea The Stars), the dual Group 1 Derby winner who started his stud career at Gilltown Stud, and now operates out of Kilbarry Lodge Stud.

Hanakiyya is one of half a dozen winners from 11 foals produced by the winning Be My Guest (Northern Dancer) mare Handaza. All six won from the Currabeg Stables of John Oxx. Hanabad (Cadeaux Genereux) was a listed winner over the Curragh’s six furlongs at three and runner-up in the Group 3 Ridgewood Pearl Stakes there. His half-brother Hamairi (Spectrum) did even better, winning the Group 3 Coolmore-sponsored Concorde Stakes at Tipperary over seven and a half furlongs.

Those two colts were immediately followed by Hannda (Dr Devious), and she gave the immediate family a huge boost when she became the dam of Seal Of Approval (Authorized). Winner of the Group 1 QIPCO British Champions Fillies and Mares Stakes, Seal Of Approval is a half-sister to the French stakes winner Gale Force (Shirocco).

Prominence

What a producer Gale Force is proving to be. She first shot to prominence with Hurricane Lane (Frankel), the 2021 Group 1 Irish Derby and Group 1 St Leger winner who has just completed his first season at Grange Stud in Fermoy. He was followed the next year by Sweet William, and he gained his biggest success with his Group 2 win last week, having prior to that run second in the Group 1 Goodwood Cup, and third in the Group 1 Ascot Gold Cup.

This a family that the Aga Khan and his family have nurtured for a few generations. Handaza, grandam of Hanalia, is a daughter of the dual winner Hazaradjat (Darshaan) and she bred a pair of stakes winners. These include Hazariya (Xaar) who won the Group 3 Athasi Stakes over seven furlongs and is the dam of Gilltown Stud’s dual Derby winner Harzand, and grandam of Big Rock (Rock Of Gibraltar). He won last year’s Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot.

When I say this is a happening family, here is another example. Handaza’s stakes-placed half-sister Hidden Brief (Barathea) is responsible for Emily Upjohn (Sea The Stars), and she was third at the weekend in the Group 1 Prix Vermeille, while her five victories are headed by the Group 1 Coronation Cup and Group 1 British Champions Fillies and Mares Stakes.

Arc favourite

Added to that weekend listing of big race winners for Sea The Stars is the three-year-old Sosie, and he is now a general favourite for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe after his Group 2 Prix Niel win. Placed in the Group 1 Prix du Jockey Club-French Derby, Sosie then became one of his sire’s 22 Group 1 winners with his defeat of Illinois in the Group 1 Grand Prix de Paris.

Sosie is the outstanding runner among the four winners from the stakes-placed Sosia (Shamardal), and the other three comprise the German stakes winner Copie (Iffraaj), dual French stakes winner and multiple pattern-placed Anasia (Intello), and the group-placed Sosino (New Approach). This year the Wertheimer brothers welcomed a full-brother to Sosie, and the foal is already named Jumeau.

Responsible for four stakes performers, Sosia is herself one of four stakes performers out of Sahel (Monsun), a winning four-year-old in France, and two of these were sired by, you guessed it, Sea The Stars. They are the Group 3 winner Soudania and the listed-placed Sahelian. As if this was not enough, their winning half-sister Intimhir (Muhtathir) produced the Group 3 UAE winner Star Safari, and he too is by Sea The Stars.

Best offspring

In spite of all of these successes, the best offspring of Sahel is in fact the Italian Group 1 winner Sortilege (Tiger Hill). Here is another example of a branch of the family clicking with a particular stallion, as she is the dam of the 2022 Italian Group 3 juvenile winner Sirjan (Zarak), this year’s Group 1 German Oaks second Spanish Eyes (Zarak), and grandam of the Group 2 winner and Group 1-placed Straight, also a son of Zarak (Dubawi). Sahel is an own-sister to no less than three Group 1 winners, Schiaparelli (Monsun), Samum (Monsun) and Salve Regina (Monsun).

Schiaparelli became the third Group 1 German classic winner for the Old Vic (Sadler’s Wells) mare Sacarina. His German Derby win was the first of five Group 1 victories, and he was following in the hoofprints of the 2000 Deustsches Derby and Group 1 Grosser Preis von Baden winner Samum (Monsun) and the German Oaks winner Salve Regina (Monsun). The latter mare has five stakes-winning descendants, led by her US Grade 2 winning daughter Salve Germania (Peintre Celebre), and including the Group 3 German classic trial winner Sea Of Sands (Sea The Stars), and this year’s German Group 3-winning juvenile Santagada (Soldier Hollow).

This is one of the best families in Germany, and three daughters of Sacarina have gone on to produce Group 1 winners, the most notable being Sanwa (Monsun), responsible for Sea The Moon (Sea The Stars), the brilliant German Derby winner and now a successful Group 1 sire at Lanwades Stud.