SATONO Crown is another colt to have featured in a previous Breeding Insights column and he made it a weekend to remember for Japanese runners when he denied Highland Reel in the Group 1 Longines Hong Kong Vase. Earlier this year he won the Group 2 Kyoto Kinen.

A Group 3 winner as a juvenile on the second of his two starts that year, he added the Group 2 Hochi Hai Yayoi Sho at three and was third in the Japanese Derby last year.

Now a four-year-old Satono Crown is from a family that is very well-known in Ireland. His sire Marju was a stalwart at Derrinstown Stud throughout his stud career, while he is the fifth foal, first colt and second Group 1 winner by Marju produced by the Rossini mare Jioconda. She raced successfully for Lady O’Reilly, winning the Listed Silken Glider Stakes and being group-placed.

Her previous winner at the highest level was the Cheveley Park Stakes winner Lightening Pearl, Ger Lyons’ first Group 1 winner. She also was a Group 3 winner in Ireland as a juvenile. In addition to producing Satono Crown and Lightening Pearl, Jioconda also bred the group-placed Marju filly Jolie Jioconde.

REVITALISED

Jioconda has revitalised a branch of a family that had been very successful both on the racecourse and in the sales ring. Her grandam Lust was a half-sister to the St Leger and Ascot Gold Cup winner Classic Cliché and the Group 1 Prix Vermeille and Yorkshire Oaks winner My Emma.

The latter is also a daughter of Marju and she once sold for 1,300,000gns, while her own daughter Moments Of Joy, by Darshaan, bettered that and sold for 1,650,000gns.

Moments Of Joy won a listed race at Goodwood and her stakes-performing offspring include the dual Group 3 Sagaro Stakes winner Mizzou, a son of Galileo, who also was runner-up in the Ascot Gold Cup.