WHIPPER started his stud career at Ballylinch Stud, standing for five seasons at the Co Kilkenny farm before moving to France and Haras du Mezeray for the 2011 season. A year after he moved along came his first Group 1 winner, Maeve Mahony’s Wizz Kid winning the Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp on Arc weekend in Paris.

Whipper’s last Irish-conceived crop included his second Group 1 winner, another filly. She was Waikika and her top-level success came in Italy where she won the Premio Vittorio de Capua.

Now 2018 is here and his best runner to date has emerged, his four-year-old son Recoletos landing both the Group 1 Prix d’Ispahan back in May and now adding the Group 1 Prix du Moulin de Longchamp.

Owned and bred by SARL Dapart France, Recoletos has also run second to Alpha Centauri in the interim, occupying that position in the Group 1 Prix Jacques Le Marois, while last year the colt was third in the Group 1 Prix du Jockey Club, the French Derby. His seven career wins now have brought earnings of more that £660,000.

Recoletos has been grabbing the headlines but he is not the only star of the 2018 season out of his unraced dam Highphar, a daughter of Highest Honor (Kenmare). Her fifth winning progeny is the three-year-old Castellar (American Post) and she has won half of her six starts, notably capturing both the Group 2 Prix de la Nonette and the Group 3 Prix Cleopatre. That filly, like Recoletos, is trained by Carlos Laffon-Parias.

Highphar has a two-year-old full-sister to Recoletos and this year she had a filly foal by Adlerflug (In The Wings), a multiple Group 1 sire in Germany.

Highphar is a half-sister to a single winner, Benalmadena (Nashwan), and she too is a group-winner producer, her daughter Cartaya (Singspiel) winning a Group 3 race in Italy. Highphar’s dam was a smart racemare.

She is Pharatta (Fairy King) and she was bred by Barronstown Stud and Ron Con Ltd. She won the Group 3 Prix de Sandringham at Chantilly before stepping up to capture the Grade 2 Garden City Breeders’ Cup Handicap at Belmont.

Pharatta is one of five stakes winners from the unraced Sharata (Darshaan) and three of the others were sired by Fairy King’s full-brother Sadler’s Wells. They included the dual Group 2 winning colt Crimson Tide. Sharata is a half-sister to Shahrastani, one of the Aga Khan’s many dual Derby winners.

Whipper (Miesque’s Son) stood his most recent season at Haras de Treban, his first at that farm, where his fee rose from 2017’s €3,000 to a still very attractive €3,800. His first four seasons at Ballylinch saw him command a fee of €12,000.

His Group 2 winners are Pollyanna and Royal Bench, both successful in the Prix Daniel Wildenstein, while Group 3 winners are Lord Glitters, Jackfinbar, Beyond Thankful, Kalsa, Mayhem, Malagenia, Topeka and Dolled Up.