KNIGHT To Behold earned a well-deserved Group 2 success when taking the Prix Guillaume d’Ornano at Deauville, adding to a prior victory in the Listed Derby Trial Stakes at Lingfield Park. The Neil Jones owned and bred three-year-old will now have his sights trained again on a Group 1 prize after he failed to sparkle in either the Derby at Epsom or at the Curragh. He holds an entry in the Arc in October.

A son of Sea The Stars (Cape Cross), Knight To Behold is from a family that Jones has had a long association with. He raced three siblings in Ireland, all trained by John Oxx and all winners. Best of these was Beauty O’Gwaun (Rainbow Quest) and she won the Group 3 Blue Wind Stakes. Angelonmyshoulder (King’s Best) won as a two-year-old for Jones and Oxx and he was later a multiple winner and stakes-placed in the USA. The third Oxx trained winning sibling was Missy O’Gwaun (King’s Best).

They are all out of the unraced Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer) mare Angel Of The Gwaun and her tally of six winners also includes the very smart Japanese runner Cosmo Meadow (King’s Best). Sold for €50,000 as a yearling at Goffs to Big Red Farm, he won the Group 3 Diamond Stakes in Tokyo and the Listed Manyo Stakes at Kyoto and earned £1 million in the process.

The most recent offspring of Angel Of The Gwaun is a yearling colt and he is already named Angel On High (Dark Angel). Angel Of The Gwaun is an own-sister to Let The Lion Roar (Sadler’s Wells), third in the Group 1 Derby at Epsom, and a half-sister to the Group 1 St Leger winner Millenary (Rainbow Quest). Millenary was trained for Jones by John Dunlop and how appropriate it is that the owner continues the family connection, having Knight To Behold with John’s son Harry.

Sea The Stars is having yet another excellent year and this week his daughter Sea Of Class established strong claims to follow in her sire’s footsteps and she is a leading fancy for the Group 1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. She joins York hero Stradivarius as a 2018 Group 1 winner for the stallion, while Knight To Behold is one of a trio of Group 2 winners this year by the Gilltown Stud resident, joining Crystal Ocean and Night Music. Sea The Stars’ sixth crop are two-year-olds and his Group 1 tally is now nine, additions to those mentioned above being Cloth Of Stars, Harzand, Mekhtaal, Zelzal, Sea The Moon, Taghrooda and Vazira.