THE Group 3 William Hill Firth of Clyde Stakes, over six furlongs at Ayr last Saturday, was also a success story for first season sires with three of them supplying fillies who made the top four placings.

Royal Razalma (by Lope De Vega) finished fourth, and so just missed out on blacktype, and she was beaten less than three lengths by Dark Reckoning (by Equiano) and Parsley (by Zebedee) who were only a short-head apart at the line.

Dark Reckoning, who has won three of her six starts, is a first blacktype winner for the Group 1-winning sprinter and Newsells Park sire Equiano (by Acclamation), a sire whose double-digit tally of first crop scorers also includes the Group 2 Prix Robert Papin runner-up Strath Burn.

The filly is trained by Ann Duffield, she was bred by Newsells Park Stud, and she is a £31,000 graduate of the Doncaster Premier Yearling Sale.

She is the first foal out of the multiple sprint winner Impressible (by Oasis Dream), her dam is a half-sister to the juvenile stakes winner Helm Bank (by Wild Again) and to the nine times scorer Sedgwick (by Nashwan) but, more importantly, the mare is a half-sister to Reverence (by Mark Of Esteem).

He won the Group 1 Nunthorpe Stakes, the Group 1 Sprint Cup, the Group 2 Temple Stakes, and the Group 3 Flying Five, and the races in which he was placed included the Group 1 Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp.

His considerable sprinting talent may appear to be something of a surprise for the son of such a brilliant Darshaan-sired miler, but his dam is the Group 2 Flying Childers Stakes heroine Imperial Bailiwick (by Imperial Frontier), and so speed is in the family.

Remarkably, although you will find a couple of Grade 1 placed Chilean horses in a branch of the fourth generation, and a classic placed American horse in the fifth, Imperial Bailiwick, her son, and her grand-daughter are the standout performers in the pedigree.