“VOW And Declare has won it for Australia; they’re on top of the world,” was the cry of race-caller Matt Hill as a wall of horses crossed the line at the finish of the 2019 Group 1 Lexus Melbourne Cup.

Vow And Declare had turned around the host country’s luck and repelled a host of pesky invaders, keen to win one of the world’s most famous races. Yes, an Australian bred, owned and trained gelding was the hero of the hour, but he owed a great deal of his success to European influences.

Unraced at two, Vow And Declare had a good three-year-old season, winning the Group 3 Tattersalls Cup and a listed race at Flemington, while he was runner-up in the Group 1 Queensland Derby. This season, at the age of four, he announced his Cup intentions when runner-up in the Group 1 Caulfield Cup, prior to his outstanding success in the ‘race that stops a nation’.

He is yet another Group 1 winner for his sire, the former Coolmore and Ashford Stud-based Declaration Of War. The son of War Front (Danzig) stood his first season in Ireland, the natural home for a horse whose seven European victories included the Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes and Group 1 Juddmonte International as a four-year-old. He made the frame in three other top-level events, the Coral Eclipse Stakes, Sussex Stakes and Breeders’ Cup Classic.

Declaration Of War covered 160 mares in his first year in Ireland at a fee of €40,000, and that crop, now four-year-olds, includes last year’s classic hero Olmedo, winner of the Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Poulains-French 2000 Guineas, the Group 2 Gran Premio di Milano winner Assiro, dual Group 3 winner in Ireland, Actress, and the US Grade 3 winner Speed Franco. Incidentally, they were all foaled in a different country – France, Britain, Ireland and the USA respectively.

Moved to Kentucky where his fee started for the two seasons at $40,000, dropped in 2017 to $35,000 and finally, in 2018, to $25,000, his first crop was headed by Grade 3 winner Opry. His current crop of juveniles includes the Grade 1 Summer Stakes winner Decorated Invader who was fourth in the recent Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf. Another born in 2017 is the Group 3 Acomb Stakes winner Valdermoro.

Last season Declaration Of War made a breakthrough in the southern hemisphere when his daughter Winning Ways, out of a Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) mare, took the Group 1 Queensland Oaks, but the current season eclipses that, with Vow And Declare’s biggest success coming days after Warning, also out of a Galileo mare, captured the Group 1 Victoria Derby.

Last October Coolmore America confirmed that Declaration of War would stand the 2019 breeding season at the Japan Bloodhorse Breeders’ Association’s Shizunai Stallion Station on the island of Hokkaido.

On the dam side of Vow And Declare’s pedigree, there is also an Irish and British influence, though you have to go back a few years to find it.

In 1977 Loralane was foaled at and bred by the Oppenheimer’s Hascombe and Valiant Studs. She was a daughter of the great Airlie/Grangewilliam Stud sire Habitat (Sir Gaylord). Managed by Captain Tim Rogers to become a leading sire, Habitat was unraced at two but he proved to be the best European miler of 1969, winning the Lockinge Stakes and the Wills Mile in England and travelling to France to win the Prix Quincey and the Prix du Moulin.

Loralane’s racing prowess did not quite match that of her sibling, the Group 1 1000 Guineas winner On The House (Be My Guest), but she did win a race at three, landing a maiden over seven furlongs at Newmarket when trained by Harry Wragg and ridden by Lester Piggott.

At stud she enjoyed moderate success, nine of her 11 foals making it to the racetrack and half a dozen of them proved to be winners. The best of these was Nuryana (Nureyev) and this listed winner at Ascot has had a major role to play in the continuing success of the Oppenheimer family operation. Her best offspring was the Group 1 Coronation Stakes winner Rebecca Sharp (Machiavellian), while Rebecca Sharp’s unraced half-sister Fleche D’Or is the dam of the 2015 Group 1 Derby and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe winner Golden Horn (Cape Cross), now off to a successful start at stud.

Loralane’s once-raced daughter Young Vic (Old Vic) went to the USA in 1996 and was covered there before being shipped to Australia. She was carrying a filly, Youthful Presence (Dehere), who never ran but has been sensationally successful at stud. Youthful Presence has four stakes winning offspring, and they include the Group 1 South Australian Derby winner Kidnapped (Viscount), and the Group 1 Epsom Handicap winner Haukari (Reset).

Young Vic, born in 1992, still has some young stock to run for her, but her seven winners to date are headed by Group 3 winner Walking Or Dancing (Favelon) and the listed wining mare Irongail (Canny Lad). Another of her daughters is the Group 1 runner-up Aim For Gold (End Sweep) and she has two stakes-placed offspring among her five successful progeny. One of that quintet is a daughter of Testa Rossa (Perugino), Geblitzt, and her five wins, from the age of three until she was six, preceded her now career at stud.

Geblitzt is the dam of Vow And Declare, her third produce, and he was foaled two years after Lycurgus (Star Witness). His six victories include a listed race at Caulfield. This year Geblitzt foaled a filly by Shalaa (Invincible Spirit).