Is Star Of India the real star at Ballydoyle?

MAGICAL Lagoon, the Jessica Harrington-trained winner of the Group 3 Flame Of Tara Stakes in late August, is a rarity in 2021, the only blacktype winner among Galileo’s juvenile crop. The late Coolmore stalwart is odds-on to have a number of Group 1 winners among his current crop of two-year-olds, and one of these could well be Star Of India.

The manner of his debut victory over seven furlongs at Leopardstown at the weekend suggests that he could be more than useful, and his breeding gives him an extra edge too. He is a son of the greatest sire of the modern era, Galileo (Sadler’s Wells), and he is the sixth winner for the American stakes winner Shermeen, a daughter of Desert Style (Green Desert).

Star Of India was bred by David and Diane Nagle at Barronstown Stud and the couple acquired Shermeen five years ago for 450,000gns. Her main attraction was the fact that she was dam of the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes winner Sudirman (Henrythenavigator), and he also ran second in the Group 1 National Stakes. Since the Nagles acquired Shermeen she has bred this year’s Group 3 Hampton Court Stakes runner-up Roman Empire (Galileo), while this spring she had a colt foal by No Nay Never (Scat Daddy).

Shermeen is a full-sister to the dual listed-winning juvenile Mister Manannan (Desert Style), and he was placed in the Group 2 Flying Childers Stakes. He won 10 races in all, and among the countries in which he was successful was Norway, and that was where his dam Cover Girl (Common Grounds) was a listed winner.

Star Of India traces to his fourth dam Paradise Bird (Sallust), and through different branches of the family she is also ancestress of a number of well-known winners in recent times, this year’s classic winner Mother Earth (Zoffany) being one.