LEMON Pop follows in some fine footsteps as a five-year-old winner of the Group 1 February Stakes in Japan. This was the horse’s first attempt at a Group 1, and he has earned an automatic berth in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Classic later this year.

An earlier option could involve a trip to Dubai, but Godolphin Japan’s president Harry Sweeney, the former The Irish Field columnist, is not rushing to make a decision on that. Given Lemon Pop’s impeccable pedigree, he will surely find a stallion box when his racing career is over, being closely related to the great Danehill (Danzig), a champion sprinter, classic-placed miler and multiple champion sire.

Bred by Ollie and Amber Tait, Lemon Pop was sold for them by Irishman Padraig Campion as a foal for $70,000, and purchased in the name of Sweeney’s Paca Paca Farm. He has repaid the investment many times now, and his victory on Sunday was his eighth in 11 starts. Lemon Pop has never finished worse than second, though until now he was only a Group 3 winner.

Unreachable

Blandford Bloodstock bought Lemon Pop’s dam Unreachable (Giant’s Causeway) for 165,000gns just over a decade ago, and he is the best of her four runners and three winners to date.

Unreachable is out of the Grade 3 winner and Grade 2-placed Harpia (Danzig), and that mare can boast of being an own-sister to Danehill, Eagle Eyed and Shibboleth.

Danehill won half of his eight starts, including the Group 1 Haydock Park Sprint and Group 3 Cork and Orrery Stakes at Royal Ascot, he was third in the 2000 Guineas, but only fourth in the Irish equivalent. His full-brother Eagle Eyed (Danzig) was born five years after him, and he showed his best form when sent to race in the USA, the Grade 2 Arlington Classic being among his successes.

Six years after Eagle Eyed was foaled, another full-brother, Shibboleth (Danzig), entered the world and his five career wins included Group and Grade 3 races in England and the USA.

Mating Danzig (Northern Dancer) with Razyana (His Majesty) was hugely successful. In addition to the three stakes winners already mentioned, it produced the group-placed Anziyan, the stakes-placed Quick To Please, and the unraced Family.

Sale bonanza

The last named mare provided a sale bonanza for Jim Ryan, who purchased her for only $9,000 at Keeneland in 2011, and then watched as her two-year-old Dundonnell (First Defense) won the following year’s Group 3 Acomb Stakes at York. Striking while the iron was hot, he sold her on a few months later at Goffs for €260,000. Dundonnell ended up racing in Hong Kong where he won the prestigious The Sprint Cup.

Lemon Pop is the 10th Grade 1 winner for Lemon Drop Kid (Kingmambo) who was pensioned a few years ago at Lane’s End Farm.

The Grade 1 Belmont and Travers Stakes winner sired the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks winner Lemons Forever and Grade 1 Gamely Stakes winner Citronnade in his second crop, but he was not getting these quality of winners on a consistent basis, and his fee fell from an opening $100,000, down to its lowest in 2021, his final year at stud, and that was just $15,000.