SOME two years since she gained her biggest win, in the Group 1 Shuka Sho at Hanshin, Stunning Rose (King Kamehameha) posted her second elite race win, adding the Group 1 Queen Elizabeth Cup at Kyoto to her race record. In between these two victories she ran six times but appeared to have completely lost her form, unplaced each time.

In fact, in her 17-race career Stunning Rose has been out of the first three on just eight occasions, and that barren spell until now accounted for most of them. Her six wins include two Group 3 races at Nakayama, while at three she was runner-up in the Group 1 Yushun Himba (Oaks). As you can imagine in Japan, she is a major money winner, and Sunday’s victory sent her winnings past the £2.6 million mark.

Stunning Rose is one of seven winners for her dam Rosa Blanca (Kurofune), and they come from 10 foals, one of which was not named, while one of the others was placed and bred a two-year-old winner this year. Stunning Rose’s own juvenile half-sister Blooming Rose (Saturnalia) won last month on just her second start, and perhaps she can develop into a stakes filly. To date, Stunning Rose is the only one of her dam’s winners to earn any blacktype.

Rose Kingdom

Amazingly, the same comment applies to the grandam of Stunning Rose. She is Rosebud (Sunday Silence), a high-class runner herself who had eight winners, and the only one to have any blacktype was a son of King Kamehameha (Kingmambo). He was special though. Rose Kingdom was the champion at two in Japan, and he earned a deserved Group 1 win in the 2010 Japan Cup at three, having earlier finished second in two classics, the Japanese Derby (beaten a neck) and St Leger.

Sadly, Rose Kingdom didn’t train on, but did go to stud where he has had some minor success. His placed full-sister Rosarium (King Kamehameha) bred her first important winner last year when her two-year-old son Seltsam (Henny Hughes) won the Group 3 Hakodate Nisai Stakes.

Rosebud was second in the Yushun Himba, Japanese Oaks, more than two decades ago, and when the race only had international listed status. Two of her three wins were in stakes races, but her own-brother Rosenkreuz (Sunday Silence) numbered the Group 2 Kinko Sho among his five successes. They were two of the nine winning offspring from the listed Japanese juvenile winner Rose Colour (Shirley Heights).

Another giant

It is just over five years since the Japanese champion sire King Kamehameha died at Shadai Stallion Station, weeks after the passing of another giant in Japanese breeding, Deep Impact. He was only 18. King Kamehameha’s immune system had gradually worsened from the start of that year.

He was bred by Northern Farm out of Manfath (Last Tycoon), making him a half-brother to Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby winner The Deputy (Petardia).

When King Kamehameha won the Tokyo Yushun (Japanese Derby), he did so in a record time. He was retired later that season due to superficial digital flexor tendonitis in his right foreleg, found after he won the Group 2 Kobe Shimbun Hai, his seventh success. He was rated the champion three-year-old.

His stallion career, limited to 14 crops, resulted in 16 Group/Grade 1 winners, including international sprinter Lord Kanaloa, Duramente, and Rey De Oro.

King Kamehameha’s other leading progeny include the fillies’ Triple Crown winner Apapane and Hong Kong Group 1 victor Rulership. He has sired 70 group winners and 32 listed winners in total, and his daughters have produced a number of Group 1 winners.

Father and son record listed double

KODIAC’S two-year-old Glamis Road was enterprisingly sent by trainer Ollie Sangster to Saint-Cloud for her fourth start this year, and there she claimed a hugely valuable stakes win in the Listed Prix Herod. Last year Ralph Beckett won the same contest with Zoum Zoum.

Bred by Rory O’Brien and sold as a foal at Goffs for €28,000 through Ringfort Stud to Lillingston Bloodstock, Glamis Road was resold at the same company’s Premier Yearling Sale in Doncaster for a modest profit, making £40,000 to Rochestown Lodge Stables. She came under the hammer for a third time, again at a sale conducted by the UK arm of Goffs, but here she suffered a reversal in fortunes, despite coming up as part of Katie Walsh’s consignment, and her trainer secured her for just £30,000.

Having earned more than she cost, Glamis Road has gone on to put a serious increase on her value with a blacktype success. She has also given a shot in the arm to her dam, Pass The Moon (Raven’s Pass). She was bought by Rory O’Brien for €6,000 having just turn five, after she promised so much on the track. Runner-up on her debut at two and placed next time out at Goodwood, her form declined after that, and a much hoped for win never came.

Pass The Moon’s start at stud was less than auspicious, and her first foal was never named. Her second, the three-year-old gelding Hector’s Left Foot (Footstepsinthesand) sold for €25,000 as a foal but has disappointed on all three outings this year. Glamis Road has provided a great fillip with her two wins, and Gerry Hogan will be pleased that he bought her yearling full-brother at Goffs last month for €34,000. This year Pass The Moon had a filly by Starman (Dutch Art).

A full-sister to the US Grade 3-placed Darkwingsoverdubai (Raven’s Pass), Pass The Moon is out of an own-sister to the Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks winner Funny Moon (Malibu Moon), and she later sold at Fasig-Tipton for $2,300,000.

Glamis Road’s fourth dam produced the US champion and multiple Grade 1 winner Vanlandingham (Cox’s Ridge), and is grandam of Distant Music (Distant View), winner of the Group 1 Dewhurst Stakes.

Advancing years, he will be 24 next year, has not stopped Kodiac (Danehill) from siring high-class winners. His current crop of juveniles is headed by the Group 1 Keeneland Phoenix Stakes winner Babouche, Group 3 winners Korisa and Symbol Of Strength, and Glamis Road. Yet, his fee for next season is down to €25,000, surely rare value.

Room Service

Owned by Irish men Roddy and Robert O’Byrne, Kodiac’s grandson Room Service has been paying his way. By Rathbarry’s Kodi Bear, and bred by Edmund Kent out of the placed Tamara Love (Tamayuz), he was a fine foal sale for 60,000gns, and a better yearling sale at 115,000gns, on the latter occasion bought by Timmy O’Byrne. Room Service won his purchase price back at two when he captured the valuable Weatherbys Scientific Stakes at Doncaster, and most recently, on his first time back there, took his winnings to more than £240,000 when winning the Listed Wentworth Stakes.

Tamara Love, an 85,000gns yearling, was bought by Kent for 2,500gns at three after disappointing on the track. The Ballyhampshire Stud man persevered with her, and trained her to come within a length on two occasions of winning a race. She has done well at stud, her three winners from her first four foals have all won at least three times. Her yearling colt made a bid more than his own-brother Room Service did as a foal, sold for 62,000gns, and shortly Kent will offer Tamara Love’s latest, a son of Supremacy (Mehmas), at the Newmarket December Sale. You will find the full pedigree under Lot 705.