A trio of stakes winners for Frankel

Verbier, Left Sea and The Euphrates all registered Listed wins this weekend for their sire Frankel, with Verbier and The Euphrates achieving blacktype success for the first time.

Taken from the The European Bloodstock News, 27th- 28th July 2024:

Frankel filly Verbier had not won since her debut last year, but made a welcome return to the winner’s enclosure on Friday evening when running out a decisive winner of the Listed Lyric Fillies’ Stakes at York. One of two in the 10 and a half-furlong contest for Ralph Beckett, the four-year-old was held up at the back of the field by Rossa Ryan as Zarabanda and Bolsena (Kingman) shared the lead, setting a decent tempo. Verbier made smooth progress from three furlongs out to form a line of five fillies in with a shout in the last quarter of a mile, but, where others couldn’t, she kept up the gallop all the way to the line to prevail by a length and a quarter from Karmology, with Fakhama (Kingman) the same distance further back in third.

Carrying the colours of her breeders Wertheimer & Frere, Carlos Laffon-Parias’s Left Sea landed Saturday's Listed Prix du Pays d’Auge at Clairefontaine. The four-year-old tracked the leader for much of their 1800m journey. She was ridden forward as the field turned for home, hitting the front with around 200m left to travel and staying on to win by a neck, fending off Markus Münch’s Euboa into second. Dilawar, a seven-year-old Dubawi gelding who won the Gr.3 Prix Quincey at Deauville in 2021, was a length and a quarter adrift back in third.

This is a second blacktype victory for the daughter of Frankel, who recorded a three length success in last year’s Listed Prix Melisande at Longchamp. The filly has also been placed at Gr.3 level, when finishing the runner-up in July’s Gr.3 Prix de Psyche at Deauville.

A few hours later, earning a second career success and first since his maiden at the same track last year, The Euphrates led the Listed Marble City Stakes field from start to finish for Billy Lee at Gowran Park yesterday in the colours of Peter Brant for a partnership that includes Peter Brant, Westerberg and the Coolmore partners. Rousted along in the early stages to take up the running, the 6/4 favourite dictated the race to suit under Billy Lee and did so to perfection, holding the fast-finishing Kinesiology and Bellezza at bay in the closing stages, finishing half a length and a neck adrift in second and third respectively.

His stamina was utilised to good effect and on this evidence, he is entitled to progress further now he has found the winner’s enclosure once again. He is bred to be useful and clearly has the looks to match, commanding a yearling price of 800,000gns from M V Magnier and White Birch at Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale. He is out of the Flaming Page Stakes third Auld Alliance and becomes the third Stakes winner by Frankel out of a Montjeu mare, the same cross as the Gr.1 Oaks winner Anapurna.

Auld Alliance was a 550,000gns Tattersalls December Sale purchase in 2013 as a maiden and went on to earn her all-important blacktype in America for this colt’s breeder Bobby Flay. From the well known Ballymacoll Stud family, she is a half-sister to the Gr.1 King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes winner and sire Golan, who also won the Gr.1 2000 Guineas, and his full second in the Gr.1 Derby. There is an abundance of stamina and class in the pedigree, as she is a daughter of a winning half-sister to the Gr.2 Great Voltigeur Stakes winner Bonny Scot, who was also placed third in the Gr.1 St Leger, a race that could be on this colt’s agenda following this likeable winning effort.  last year.