GOOD news from Japan, where the Ger Lyons-trained classic winner Siskin (First Defence) has made the perfect start to his stallion career, his first runner, Kitten In The Sky, winning on her debut over seven furlongs last Sunday at Kyoto.

I say perfect start, but with a rider. Siskin stands at Shadai Stallion Station but due to injury only covered 20 mares in his first season there, and just seven foals are registered. He commanded an initial fee of about €28,000, but that has fallen this year to €12,000. However, his books of mares have grown, and his current yearling crop numbers 46, and he looks set to have a similar number of foals.

Kitten In The Sky was sold by her breeders, Lake Villa Farm, for the equivalent of $245,000 last year as a yearling. Only two yearlings by Siskin were sold, the other making more, and in the past two years the seven foals by the sire that have been to public auction are averaging about €220,000.

Hopefully he can overcome the lack of numbers from his first season at stud and make an impact. His first winner looks as if she could go on to better things.

The eighth and most recent offspring for her dam, the Dance In The Dark (Sunday Silence) mare Mejiro Tonkinese, Kitten In The Sky is her seventh winner. All of her dam’s offspring have raced, and two of them have won at pattern level. Triomphe (Turtle Bowl) was the first to do so, and that gelding’s seven wins include three successes at Group 3 level. His victory in the 10-furlong Kokura Kinen was gained in a course record time.

Different sires

While Triomphe never won or placed beyond Group 3 level, his half-sister Cool Cat (Screen Hero) did, and her second and final win was gained in the Group 2 Flora Stakes. Like her half-brother, she seemed to be best at 10 furlongs. The only offspring of Mejiro Tonkinese not to win was placed, and has produced a pair of winners from three runners. All of the eight progeny of Mejiro Tonkinese are by different stallions.

This is an all-Japanese female line. Mejiro Tonkinese was at her best over a distance, winning three times and earning blacktype when she was runner-up in the Listed Diamond Stakes over two miles and a furlong. She raced until the age of seven, despite showing her best form at two and three.

In fact, she was tried over jumps three times in Japan and placed twice. She is a half-sister to the stakes-placed Mejiro Barbara (Misil), and most of the best runners in the pedigree carry Mejiro in their name.

Kitten In The Sky’s grandam Mejiro Kurohime (Mogami) won three times, as did her third dam Mejiro Tsushima (Bounteous), one of the latter’s victories coming over jumps. Mejiro Tsushima bred a pair of stakes winners, the best of which was Mejiro Thomas (Fidion). He won the Group 2 Kyoto Kinen.

This is the immediate family of the 1991 champion older horse Mejiro McQueen (Mejiro Titan) and his half-brother Mejiro Durren (Fidion), both of whom won the Japanese St Leger.

Juddmonte

Siskin won the 2020 Group 1 Tattersalls Irish 2000 Guineas. Owned and bred by the late Khalid Abdullah at his Juddmonte Farms, he is a son of former Juddmonte sire First Defence (Unbridled’s Song) and is out of the winning Oasis Dream (Green Desert) mare Bird Flown. Siskin rounded out his juvenile season with his fourth win in as many starts in the Group 1 Keeneland Phoenix Stakes, and made the perfect start to his second season when giving Ger Lyons the first of two classic successes that year.

After his biggest win, Siskin was third to Mohaather in the Group 1 Qatar Sussex Stakes, fourth in the Group 1 Prix du Moulin de Longchamp behind Persian King, and he finished his career when ninth in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile at Keeneland.

Siskin is one of a trio of top-level winners for First Defence, a homebred Grade 1 winner himself when he landed the Forego Handicap at Saratoga. He was sold to Saudi Arabia at the end of 2016. He is also sire of Grade 1 winners Close Hatches, successful five times at this level, and Antonoe.

Honest Lady

First Defence is out of Honest Lady (Seattle Slew), a Grade 1 winner and half-sister to Chiselling (Woodman), Chester House (Mr Prospector) and Empire Maker (Unbridled). The latter pair are also Grade 1 sires.

They are all out of Toussaud, a daughter of El Gran Senor (Northern Dancer). Toussaud and Hasili are two Juddmonte mares among the select group of 10 who are responsible for four or more Group/Grade 1-winning progeny.

Toussaud was honoured as broodmare of the year in the USA where she was a Grade 1 winner of the Gamely Handicap and a full-sister to a graded stakes winner. Seven of her 10 foals raced, six won and four were Grade 1 winners, while another was runner-up in a Grade 1.

The aforementioned Close Hatches (First Defence) is actually out of a winning half-sister to Siskin’s dam, Bord Flown. Her exploits earned her the title of champion older mare in the USA a decade ago, while last year Close Hatches’ stakes-winning full-sister Lockdown (First Defence) bred another to be given the same accolade, Idiomatic (Curlin).

That five-year-old is still in training and her 10 wins include four Grade 1s, notably the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, and this year’s La Troienne Stakes.