COULSTY had something like 45 foals in his first crop, now three-year-olds. The Group 3 winning son of Kodiac (Danehill) then covered smaller books over the next two seasons, before breeders sat up and took notice of his first runners. Then they flocked to him this year, and he covered more than 100 mares.

What brought about this phenomenal increase in interest?

Well, that first crop has four stakes winners and a pair of stakes-placed horses among their number. Group 2 Princess Margaret Stakes winner Santosha was the first to put the sire in the spotlight, but now she has been eclipsed by the Keeneland Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes winner Shantisara. That 10,000gns yearling purchase, bred by Oliver Donlon, is now a triple stakes winner and the earner of some €650,000 ($790,000).

Purchased last year for 10,000gns by Federico Barberini, Shantisara immediately paid her way with two wins in France, the first a claimer which she won by five lengths. She was claimed for €35,555, won again for her new connections, and suddenly people were noticing her. Nicolas de Watrigant saw her potential and, soon after, she was purchased privately.

Shantisara transferred to the stables of Chad Brown and is now winner of three of her four starts in the USA, as well as finishing second, all the time racing in stakes company. Her wins include the valuable Jockey Club Oaks at Belmont.

One of just three foals, and the only one named, from the unraced Kharana (Dalakhani), the five-length Grade 1 winner Shantisara is out of a mare purchased by Oliver Donlon for €1,000 from the Aga Khan draft at the 2010 Goffs November Sale. It was to be two years after that purchase that Kharana finally had a winning sibling, Khalili (Desert Style).She sold for €1,500 at Goffs before winning three times in Greece.

If you go back a couple of generations you will find lots of quality. Shantisara’s third dam was Khanata (Riverman), a listed winner in Ireland and runner-up in the then Group 2 (now Group 1) Pretty Polly Stakes. Her unraced half-sister Kasora (Darshaan) bred High Chaparral (Sadler’s Wells) and is grandam of last year’s French Oaks winner Fancy Blue (Deep Impact).