Article Date: 12-June-2012
Group 1 star and phenomenal broodmare Darara (by Top Ville) has died. She was 29.
She was bred by H H the Aga Khan and it was in his colours that she won the Group 1 Prix Vermeille at Longchamp in 1986. Her first foal was the prolific stakes winner Dariyoun (by Shahrastani) and then she went on to produce a remarkable and rarely seen total of four individual Group/Grade 1 winners.
Darazari (by Sadler's Wells) won the Group 1 Ravnet Stakes in Australia having previously taken the Group 2 Prix Maurice de Nieuil in France. When he was a yearling his dam was sold in Goffs for 470,000Irg and bought by Lord and Lady Lloyd-Webber's Watership Down Stud in Berkshire. Five of her subsequent foals were blacktype horses.
Kilimanjaro (by Shirley Heights) was runner-up in the Group 2 King Edward VII Stakes and he was followed by Rhagaas (by Sadler's Wells) who finished third behind Montjeu in the Group 1 Prix du Jockey-Club (French Derby). Then came Diaghilev (by Sadler's Wells) who won the Group 3 Prix La Force before going to Hong Kong where, under the name River Dancer, he won the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Cup.
Remarkably the pair that can be called Darara's best were her final two foals: Dar Re Mi and Rewilding.
Dar Re Mi (by Singspiel) won the Group 1 Dubai Sheema Classic, the Group 1 Yorkshire Oaks and the Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes. She is now a member of the broodmare band at Watership Down Stud and her first foal is an Oasis Dream (by Green Desert) colt born this year. She was then bred to Dubawi (by Dubai Millennium).
Rewilding (by Tiger Hill) also won the Group 1 Dubai Sheema Classic, to which he added victory in the Group 1 Prince of Wales's Stakes before his tragic death several weeks later. The previous year he had been third behind Workforce in the Derby before easily winning the Group 2 Great Voltigeur Stakes at York.
Darara, a half-sister to the classic star and influential stallion Darshaan (by Shirley Heights), was a rare gem whose accomplishments at stud have guaranteed that she will never be forgotten.
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