WHEN Audubon Park won the Listed Prix Rose de Mai at Saint-Cloud on March 6th, to give trainer Francis-Henri Graffard his first stakes win of 2025, could the Frenchman have ever imagined that he would have the season that has transpired?

I am sure that he had hopes of a rewarding year, given the support he has from so many of racing’s leading owners and breeders, but last weekend’s Group 1 double took Graffard’s tally of successes at this level in 2025 to nine, with eight different horses. He has saddled six Group 2 winners, 14 winners of Group 3 races, and the winners of 13 listed races this season alone. That’s 42 stakes wins in total. Little wonder that he is celebrated as one of racing’s greatest talents.

Graffard’s Group 1 double on Sunday came courtesy of the Al Shaqab homebred Sahlan, a three-year-old son of Wootton Bassett (Iffraaj) out of the German listed winner Wasmya (Toronado), and the five-year-old German-bred Goliath (Adlerflug).

Sahlan becomes the sixteenth Group 1 winner sired by Wootton Bassett, and his fifth of 2025. The Coolmore sire is back in Australia where he will stand this spring at a record fee of A$385,000 (about €220,000), a little less than his €300,000 fee in Tipperary. He stood for A$71,500 during his first two seasons down under, 2021 and 2022, A$93,500 in 2023, while his fee last season was not revealed, though it was thought to be in the region of A$275,000.

Sahlan’s win in the Group 1 Prix du Moulin de Longchamp comes after victory in the Group 3 Prix Daphnis on his previous outing. Given his ground preferences, connections are more likely to aim him for the Breeders’ Cup later in the year, and the good news is that he is set to continue to race at four. Shalan has brought his branch of a very good family to prominence.

Lamorlaye

Al Shaqab’s involvement with Sahlan’s family began in 2013 when they paid €200,000 for the three-year-old winner Lamorlaye (Danehill Dancer) at the Arqana December Sale. That season she had raced six times, winning at Craon over six and a half furlongs. Five of her first six foals are winners, the other did not race, and Sahlan’s dam Wasmya is her sole stakes winner. Wasmya too was trained by Graffard, and ran up a sequence of three wins at three.

After two victories at Maisons-Laffitte, she was sent to Germany to contest the Coolmore-sponsored Listed Baden-Baden Cup over seven furlongs, earning her first blacktype.

Down the field in the Group 1 Prix de la Foret, Wasmya was second in the Listed Prix Maurice Zilber at ParisLongchamp, but then she failed to place again, having been sent to England to contest a Group 2 at Royal Ascot and a Group 3 at Goodwood. Sahlan’s two-year-old half-sister Demah (Mehmas) is with Graffard, while Wasmya has two colts, a yearling and foal, by Starspangledbanner (Choisir) and Mehmas (Acclamation).

Wasmya’s dam Lamorlaye is not finished yet. Wasmya has two group-placed siblings, Wahdan (Siyouni) and Talbah (Style Vendome), a three-year-old half-brother Luan (Sea The Stars) in training in England, a two-year-old half-sister by Zelzal (Sea The Stars) in training in France, and a yearling half-sister by Mehmas (Acclamation).

Valuable blacktype

Lamorlaye’s two winning half-sisters include the Grade 2 US-placed Jazzique (Kingman). Their dam Love To Dance (Sadler’s Wells) failed to win, but got a valuable piece of blacktype when beaten eight lengths into third in the Group 2 Irish National Stud Blandford Stakes on the eleventh of her 12 starts. She sold at five for $1,050,000. Love To Dance is a half-sister to two champions in Dylan Thomas (Danehill) and Queen’s Logic (Grand Lodge), and to a third Group 1 winner in Homecoming Queen (Holy Roman Emperor). Queen’s Logic is grandam of Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup winner Big Evs (Blue Point), while Homecoming Queen is dam of Group 1 Moyglare Stud Stakes winner Shale (Galileo).

Love To Dance placed five times without winning, as did her half-sister Remember When (Danehill Dancer). However, the latter was runner-up in the Group 1 Oaks, and is dam of five stakes winners, among them the Group 1 Derby winner Serpentine (Galileo), Group 2 winner and Group 1 runner-up Wedding Vow (Galileo), and Group 3 winner and Group 1 Oaks third Bye Bye Baby (Galileo).

Goliath coming back to his best

CHAMPION older horse in Europe last year, much was expected from Goliath (Adlerflug) this year after his victory in 2024 in the Group 1 King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes. He won that race with consummate ease, beating Bluestocking by more than two lengths, and they were immediately followed home by Rebel’s Romance, Sunway, Auguste Rodin, Luxembourg and Dubai Honour.

As a gelding, Goliath could not race in the Arc which Bluestocking won. Instead, he took a Group 2 at ParisLongchamp before competing in Group 1s in Japan and Hong Kong. After starting his 2025 European season with a Group 3 win, it was a mixed bag for Goliath until the weekend, when he took the scalp of Dubai Honour in the Group 1 Grosser Preis von Baden. Goliath and Barney Roy are the only geldings to win the race in the last decade, and the other eight went on to stud.

With no stud prospects for Goliath, a long racing career ahead will be the wish for connections. The five-year-old is the best of four winners, the first four foals, out of Gouache (Shamardal). That mare was a listed winner at four in Hoppegarten, and sold in 2023 for €200,000.

At the time Gouache was dam of two winners, Goliath having won a listed race at Clairefontaine. His rise to greatness last year saw Gouache reoffered at Goffs, with a tremendous covering by Baaeed (Sea The Stars). Then the dam of three winners, and with Goliath a Group 1 winner, she was unsold at €5 million.

Goliath has two winning full-sisters, the latest Go Flying (Adlerflug) who won in Germany this year at three. There is an unraced two-year-old half-sister Grande Merci (Magna Grecia) with Victoria Head in France, and the Baaeed that Gouache was carrying is a filly. In between the latter two is a yearling filly by Blackbeard, and she graces Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale next month.

Proved themselves

Gouache is the third stakes winner for her dam Guantana (Dynaformer), herself a dual listed winner in Germany and pattern-placed. Her two stakes-winning siblings proved themselves outside Germany too, and Guantana had a perfect record at stud, her five foals having won.

Guantana had two Group 1 winning siblings. Half of the six wins for Guignol (Cape Cross) were achieved in Group 1 races in Germany, while Guiliani (Tertullian) won once at that level. They were among seven winning offspring of Guadalupe (Monsun), and her biggest win was taking the classic Group 1 Oaks d’Italia.

Adlerflug (In The Wings) died four years ago. Owned and bred by Gestüt Schlenderhan, he was an impressive winner of the Group 1 German Derby and runner-up in the Group 1 Grosser Preis von Baden at three, and the following year added the Group 1 Deutschland-Preis. He never stood for more than €16,000 in his 12 years at Schlenderhan where he sired nine Group 1 winners, among them In Swoop who won the Group 1 German Derby and ran second to Sottsass in the Arc.

Another son of Adlerflug is Torquator Tasso and he was second to In Swoop in the German Derby, later winning the Group 1 Grosser Preis von Berlin. In 2021 he would go on to win the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.