GALILEO had no horse up to classic standard in his final small crop of three-year-olds, but on Oaks day at Epsom he reminded us of his power and potency when his son Jan Brueghel won the Group 1 Coronation Cup with a never say die victory. Last year the colt was rated the best three-year-old stayer in Europe after his success in the Group 1 St Leger.

This year’s Group 1 Derby was billed as being one of the best chances for another great, Dubawi, to get his first winner of the race, but it was not to be. Instead, Galileo’s influence was evident again as his Derby-winning son Australia delivered, his own son Lambourn endorsing the strength of the Group 3 Chester Vase form with a fine victory. He was followed home that day by Lazy Griff, and once again he occupied the runner-up spot.

Lambourn is a home-bred by Coolmore, and was winning the Derby 11 years after his sire Australia, and 24 years after Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) landed the classic. The latter holds the record for most winners of the race as a sire, responsible for five. We all know the importance of the Derby to Coolmore, and Aidan O’Brien was saddling his eleventh winner of the race.

Bookended by Larkspur in 1962, and Golden Fleece 20 years later, Vincent O’Brien trained six winners.

A listed winner at two in France, Lambourn chased Delacroix home in the Group 3 Ballysax Stakes at Leopardstown before staking his Epsom claims with a comfortable victory in the Group 3 Boodles Chester Vase.

In recent years the Ballysax has been a more reliable guide to Epsom glory, and Harzand won at Leopardstown in 2016 before adding the Irish equivalent to his curriculum vitae.

First winner

Lambourn is the first winner for Gossamer Wings (Scat Daddy), a fast two-year-old who was beaten a whisker in the Group 2 Queen Mary Stakes by the subsequent Group 2 winner and Group 1 runner-up Signora Cabello. Though she placed in the Group 2 Flying Childers Stakes, Gossamer Wings didn’t train on. Her first foal at stud, Enthralling (Galileo), was put with Donnacha O’Brien, and her length and a half third to the Group 1 winner Opera Singer in a Leopardstown maiden at two seemed to mark her out as a filly with potential. Sadly, she didn’t realise that promise in her five later starts.

After the birth of Lambourn, Gossamer Wings has had two colts by Frankel; the two-year-old is named Action and is unraced. Gossamer Wings has 10 winning siblings, and three of them were successful at stakes level. Her full-sister Lavender Chrissie (Scat Daddy) won a stakes race at Zia Park in the USA over eight and a half furlongs and is now a winner producer. Even so, she fell in value from $400,000 in 2019 to $33,000 four years later.

Gossamer Wings’ two other stakes-winning siblings are Baby J (J Be K) and Laureate Conductor (Bernstein). The first-named won a Grade 3 and a listed race, both at Belmont as a three-year-old and both over six furlongs. She sold for $280,000 the following year and has produced many winners at stud, but none that have earned any blacktype.

Laureate Conductor stretched to nine furlongs for his biggest win, and to 10 furlongs to finish third in the Grade 1 Secretariat Stakes.

Another level

Lambourn has taken his female family to another level, and justified the $500,000 that M.V. Magnier outlaid on his dam as a yearling. The bay is a sixth Group or Grade 1 winner for Australia, and that impeccably bred Derby winner, a son of the outstanding Ouija Board (Cape Cross), stood for just €10,000 this year at Coolmore, his lowest fee since retiring to stud in 2015 for €50,000. His career at stud has been a bit of a rollercoaster, though his ability to get quality runners is not in doubt.

This year’s juveniles by Australia represent his eighth crop here, and he has 46 stakes winners so far, with just over half of them gaining their most important success in either a group or graded stakes.

Group 1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud winner Broome emerged in his first crop, while his second included three top-level winners, Mare Australis, Order Of Australia and Galileo Chrome. Ocean Road won the Grade 1 Gamely Stakes and she came from Australia’s third crop, and they are all his winners at the top table until Lambourn.

Derby winner takes the Belmont too

SOVEREIGNTY gave Godolphin its first win in the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby, but skipped an attempt on the Triple Crown when missing the Preakness Stakes.

The homebred son of Into Mischief (Harlan’s Holiday) was back for the third leg, the Grade 1 Belmont Stakes run at Saratoga for the second year. He again had Journalism in second place, three lengths in arrears, and is now top of the pile among the US three-year-olds, though fans of his conqueror in the Florida Derby, Tappen Street, will argue otherwise.

This was Sovereignty’s fourth win in seven starts. He had his first win at two on his third outing in the Grade 3 Street Sense Stakes at Churchill Downs. On his first start this year, he impressed when taking the honours in the Grade 2 Coolmore Fountain of Youth Stakes at Gulfstream Park before having to give best to Tappan Street, also a son of Into Mischief, in the Grade 1 Florida Derby. Sovereignty was the third Kentucky Derby winner in five years for his sire.

The 20-year-old Into Mischief is one of America’s preeminent stallions, and Spendthrift Farms’ flagship sire covered for a fee of $250,000 this year. Six-time champion sire in the USA, Into Mischief has sired 175 stakes winners, and 25 of these have been at racing’s highest order. His third Grade 1 winner this year was the recent winner of Saratoga’s Woody Stephens Stakes, the three-year-old colt Patch Adams.

Sovereignty is the best of five foals from the unraced Crowned. For a long time, that daughter of Bernardini (A P Indy) looked to have been an expensive failure, having cost John Ferguson, on behalf of Godolphin, $1.2 million as a yearling at Keeneland.

Her appeal at the time was obvious, being by a Darley sire and out of Mushka (Empire Maker), winner of the Grade 1 Spinster Stakes and runner-up in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Ladies Classic. Mushka had been a sales star herself, realising $1.6 million as a yearling and $2.4 million at three.

Fifth offspring

Crowned died last year after foaling her fifth offspring, now a yearling colt by Nyquist (Uncle Mo). Three of her first four foals were named, all are full-siblings, and the other pair is made up of a two-year-old winner and a placed runner. The number of foals out of Crowned matches that produced by Mushka, though the latter suffered from fertility issues. Three of Mushka’s five were winners, one of which was placed in a stakes race.

Mushka was one of three winners from the stakes winner Sluice (Seeking The Gold), and the only one of them to earn any blacktype. Sluice was a daughter of a really special racemare in Lakeway (Seattle Slew). Trained by Gary Jones for her owner-breeder Michael Rutherford, Lakeway won half of her 14 starts, and was out of the frame just once. She had a special season as a three-year-old when she ran six times, all Grade 1 races, before being injured in August.

Before she was forced to take a break from racing at three, Lakeway won four times, namely the Hollywood Oaks, Santa Anita Oaks, Hollywood Oaks and Las Virgenes Stakes, and was runner-up twice, including in the Kentucky Oaks. Lakeway returned to racing after more than a year and won a Grade 2. Four of her five winning offspring earned blacktype, though Sluice was the only one to win at that level. Lakeway’s daughter Flying Spur (Giant’s Causeway) was third in the Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks.