ONE of the best-bred winners of the week at Royal Ascot was the horse who won the last race on the card on Saturday. Commissioned credited trainer Gordon Elliott with his first winner at the meeting, gained while he was sunning himself in Barbados, and the six-year-old son of the Derby winner Authorized was bred at Kilfrush Stud.

At the time of his breeding Kilfrush was in different ownership to today and managed by Brendan Hayes. It produced many top-class winners over the years and the farm was sold to its present owners in 2013.

Commissioned was sold as a yearling to John Ferguson for 180,000gns and won a couple of races at three years. John then took on the mantle of trainer and sent the gelding out to win three times over hurdles and finish second in a Grade 2 juvenile hurdle. He has now won his first start for new connections, the almost two-mile, six-furlong Queen Alexandra Stakes, and in the process recoup a large part of the £65,000 he cost at the Tattersalls Ireland Cheltenham Sale in April.

While he is a Royal Ascot winner, he is not the best runner from his winning Caerleon dam Zelda. She is responsible for no fewer than eight winning offspring and the best of these was a complete contrast to the staying Commissioned. Zipping was a son of Zafonic and he was rated one of the best three-year-old sprinters in Europe 14 years ago. At two he won the Group 2 Prix Robert Papin and was runner-up in both the Prix Morny and Middle Park Stakes.

SPECIAL MENTION

Two of Commissioned’s half-sisters were Group 3 winners, but worthy of special mention is the Warning filly Zelding. Two of her daughters distinguished themselves, Glorious Sight running second in the French 1000 Guineas and third in the French Oaks, while Beauty Is Truth gained all her three victories in stakes races, including the Group 2 Prix du Gros-Chene.

Beauty Of Truth has played her part in enhancing the pedigree further, breeding the recent Australian Group 1 winner The United States, and the multiple Group 3 winner Fire Lily who was runner-up in both the Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes and the Prix Marcel Boussac.

Zelda is one of 11 winners from a dozen runners for Mill Princess, a winning half-sister to the dam of Assert and Bikala. Five of her 11 winners won stakes races, while at least three of her daughters bred Group 1 or classic winners. Last Tycoon was some way the best of her progeny, being rated both the champion sprinter and miler in Europe as a three-year-old. The King’s Stand Stakes, Nunthorpe Stakes and Breeders’ Cup Mile winner was later a successful sire.

Daughters of Mill Princess have bred, among many other stakes winners, two fillies successful in the Poule d’Essai des Pouliches – French 1000 Guineas, as well as the champion Immortal Verse who won the Group 1 Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot.