AT the Doncaster St Leger meeting in 2014, Decorated Knight (Galileo) made his racing debut, and his sole start as a juvenile. In the 17-runner field over a mile, he was runner-up to the more experienced Commemorative, a colt who went on to win the Group 3 Autumn Stakes next time out.

Roger Varian took a patient approach and Decorated Knight was put away for the winter. With a stallion’s pedigree, connections surely had an eye at all times on a potential stud career, but they again showed patience at three when the colt won twice, and showed that he was at least above average when running third to Time Test in the Group 2 Joel Stakes.

A change of stables, to Roger Charlton, and continuous development, saw Decorated Knight travel to Ireland to record his first group win at four, annexing the Group 3 Meld Stakes at Leopardstown. Now established as a solid group performer, few observers might still have predicted how much better he would be at five.

Four wins and a number of placings up to this point yielded prizemoney of £100,000, but another four victories at five would add more than £1.2 million to that sum. Three of the four wins were at Group 1 level, starting with the nine-furlong Jebel Hatta at Meydan. He doubled up with success in the Tattersalls Gold Cup, ran second to Highland Reel in the Prince of Wale’s Stakes, and crowned his career with victory in the Qipco Irish Champion Stakes.

I remember writing in this column of my hope that he would find a place at stud, and thankfully he did, at the Irish National Stud in Kildare. In addition to his race record, he possessed another quality that gave him an edge when it comes to making a successful sire – that of being from a tremendous dam line.

Champion family

Decorated Knight is a son of Pearling (Storm Cat), and she is a full-sister to five blacktype horses, two of note. Giant’s Causeway (Storm Cat) was a champion racehorse and champion sire, and his influence on the breed will be felt for generations to come.

So too will that of the Group 2 Cherry Hinton Stakes winner You’resothrilling. She is just the ninth mare in history to produce four Group or Grade 1 winning offspring – Gleneagles, Happily, Marvellous and Joan Of Arc.

Significantly, all four of those Group 1 winners are by Galileo, the sire of Decorated Knight.

If it was written in the stars that Decorated Knight was destined for success at a stallion, it was also long odds-on that he would not sire the winner of the Brocklesby Stakes! He always appeared likely to make a real mark in his second season and beyond, though getting juvenile winners was not out of the question.

Damaar’s win

Indeed, he has hit the jackpot already with some five individual winners, and Damaar’s debut win for John and Thady Gosden over seven furlongs this week marks that colt out as a runner who could well become his sire’s first stakes winner at two. This would be quite something too, given that the colt’s dam Arwa (Holy Roman Emperor), although a six-furlong debut winner herself at two, is a half-sister to the three-time champion stayer Order Of St George (Galileo).

Decorated Knight’s other winners include the unbeaten Silver Bullet Lady, trained by Roger Charlton, while knocking on the door are the likes of Paul and Clare Rooney’s Wind Your Neck In, placed on both his starts this month and beaten a short head at the weekend on his second outing. He looks certain to be a winner this year.