FIVE of the eight Group 1 Royal Ascot winners, Charyn, Asfoora, Rosallion, Auguste Rodin and Kyprios were reviewed last week, and now it is time to complete the list with three more, Inisherin (Shamardal), Porta Fortuna (Caravaggio), and a second Group 1 winner for Dark Angel (Acclamation), Khaadem.

Supplemented for the Group 1 Commonwealth Cup, Inisherin was a second winner at the highest level for his family at the meeting, days after his close relation Rosallion (Blue Point) added the Group 1 St James’s Palace Stakes to prior successes in the Group 1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere at two, and the Group 1 Irish 2000 Guineas. This is simply one of the most happening families in the stud book at present.

Inisherin’s dam Ajman Princess (Teofilo), winner of the Group 1 Prix Jean Romanet eight years ago and runner-up at Royal Ascot in the Group 2 Ribblesdale Stakes, has made a good start at stud, breeding a Group 1 winner with just her second produce.

The three-year-old colt Inisherin was doing this on just his fifth start, having won the Group 2 Sandy Lane Stakes at Haydock Park very recently. He is owned and bred by Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum, who has a two-year-old half-brother King Of Cities (Dubawi) and a yearling half-sister by Lope De Vega (Shamardal).

An Irish homebred for Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum, Rosallion’s dam, the unraced Rosaline (New Approach), is a half-sister to Ajman Princess, and the 2023 Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes winner hero, Triple Time (Frankel), now standing at Dalham Hall for £10,000. They are out of the outstanding matron Reem Three (Mark Of Esteem), and that winner of three races is the dam of 10 winners in all.

Six of the 10 are stakes winners, while Reem Three’s daughter Imperial Charm (Dubawi) was placed in the Group 1 Prix Saint-Alary. Among the list of stakes winners out of Reem Three is Rosaline’s full-brother Ostilio (New Approach) who won the Group 2 Prix Daniel Wildenstein. The list of stakes winners is completed by Group 3 Ascot winner and Group 2-placed Cape Byron (Shamardal), dual stakes winner and pattern-placed Third Realm (Sea The Stars), and last year’s listed winner Captain Winters (Lope De Vega).

Celebration Mile

Reem Three’s half-brother Afsare (Dubawi) won the Group 2 Celebration Mile at Goodwood, and came close to top-level wins in Italy and the USA, finishing second in both the Premio Presidente della Repubblica and the Arlington Million.

Inisherin is winner number 28 at Group or Grade 1 level for the 2005 dual classic winner Shamardal. The Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes winner went on at three to capture the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Poulains-French 2000 Guineas, Group 1 Prix du Jockey Club-French Derby, and the Group 1 St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot.

What a week it was for Dark Angel, with a pair of Group 1 winners and a prominent showing for runners out of his daughters. Charyn was reviewed last week after he got the week off to the best possible start with success in the opening race of the five-day meeting, the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes. Then it was the turn of the eight-year-old Khaadem to take his winnings past the £1.7 million mark with a second successive triumph in the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes.

Less generous

Twelve months ago, Khaadem won the race at 80/1, but this time he was a less generous 14/1 shot, much to the delight of the O’Callaghan family in Yeomanstown Stud. They bred the gelding, sold him as a yearling to Shadwell for 750,000gns, and stand his sire.

Contributing to Khaadem’s tremendous sale price was the fact that his full-brother, Log Out Island (Dark Angel), was a stakes-winning juvenile who ran second in the Group 2 Norfolk Stakes at Royal Ascot and the Group 2 Mill Reef Stakes. Khadeem is one of nine progeny of racing age out of the dual winner White Daffodil (Footstepsinthesand). All of them, with one exception, are by Dark Angel, and four of them are winners, while two others have been placed. Her most recent produce is a filly, born this spring, by Supremacy (Mehmas).

White Daffodil has five winning siblings, and one of them, Lady Links (Bahamian Bounty) won the Listed Carnarvon Stakes and a similar race in France. Lady Links bred a stakes winner Selinka (Selkirk), runner-up in the Sandringham Handicap at Royal Ascot, and that mare has gone on to breed a pair of stakes winners, namely Hit The Bid (Exceed And Excel) and Ruthin (Ribchester).

Bold Edge family

Royal Ascot features under Khaadem’s third dam, Daring Ditty (Daring March). Though of no consequence herself on the track, she bred a pair of stakes winners, one of whom was top-class. Bold Edge (Beveled) won the Group 1 Prix Maurice de Gheest and the Group 2 Cork and Orrery Stakes at Royal Ascot.

He liked the Berkshire course as he also was victorious there in the Group 2 Diadem Stakes.

Khaadem is one of 17 Group 1 winners for Dark Angel, whose 14th crop are this year’s juveniles. His first crop included Lethal Force, winner of the Group 1 Diamond Jubilee Stakes, while another Royal Ascot Group 1 winner was another gelding, Battaash.

Donnacha O’Brien believes that the three-year-old Porta Fortuna (Caravaggio) is not given the recognition she deserves, and he is probably correct. Her victory in the Group 1 Coronation Stakes is her fifth, and she was successful last year in the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes. She recorded the same juvenile pattern double that Fairy Godmother did this year, and Mediate achieved a year before that.

Never out of the places

In addition to these fine achievements, Porta Fortuna has been runner-up in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, the Group 1 1000 Guineas and the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes, and third in the Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes. Never out of the first three in nine outings, six of them Group/Grade 1 races, she has amassed more than £950,000.

This is quite a family success story, as Porta Fortuna is trained by Donnacha O’Brien, was owned by his mum Annemarie when she won her first start, is a son of Caravaggio (Scat Daddy) who was trained by his father Aidan, and is the first foal out of a mare, Too Precious (Holy Roman Emperor), who was trained by Joseph O’Brien.

Annemarie purchased the third dam of Porta Fortuna, Kantikoy (Alzao), in 2003 at Goffs for €10,000. She was an unraced half-sister to the Group 3 winner and classic-placed Kithanga (Darshaan), who had a short time before that bred the Group 1 St Leger winner and Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Turf runner-up, Milan (Sadler’s Wells), now a leading National Hunt sire. Kantikoy’s only winner was Another Nation (Revoque), a chase and point-to-point winner who was second in a Grade 3 hurdle.

The family has been redeemed by Kantikoy’s unraced daughter Delicate Charm (High Chaparral). She bred four winners, two worth a mention as both are full-brothers to Too Precious. Numerian (Holy Roman Emperor) was runner-up in both the Group 1 Doomben Cup and Group 1 Australian Cup. He won at listed and Group 2 level.

Numerian’s own-brother Montesilvano (Holy Roman Emperor) won a Leopardstown juvenile maiden two years ago and travelled to France where he was less than two lengths when third in the Group 3 Prix Francois Boutin at Deauville. Too Precious has a two-year-old filly Sorella Carina (Ten Sovereigns) who sold for 400,000gns last year, and a yearling filly by Sottsass (Siyouni).