IT was a weekend of celebration at Blue Gum Farm in Victoria after the two-year-old filly She Will Reign brought her record to four wins in five starts with an impressive success in the Group 1 Golden Slipper Stakes. The AUS$20,000 yearling purchase has now banked more than AUS$2.5 million for her syndicate owners.

This was the second Group 1 winner for her exceptionally well related sire. She follows in the hoofprints of Whisky Baron who won the Group 1 Kenilworth Sun Metropolitan Handicap and they are two of nine stakes winners for the son of Encosta De Lago who retired to stud in 2010. He has sired these winners from small enough books of mares, but that level of support is set to rocket after this latest Group 1 success surely.

Manhattan Rain won the AJC Sires Produce Stakes at two and reached the frame in all of his six starts that year. While he failed to add to that tally at three, he performed with distinction against some of the best runners around, finishing second to So You Think in the Group 1 Cox Plate (and beating Zipping among others) and third to Starspangledbanner in the Group1 Caulfield Guineas

It is interesting to note that his nine stakes winners at stud include the produce of mares by Sinndar, Exceed And Excel, Flying Spur, Redoute’s Choice and Sadler’s Wells, all of which are well known here in Europe.

Manhattan Rain is one of many stars sired by Encosta De Lago, twice a champion sire in Australia. The Group 1 winner is responsible for more than 110 stakes winners and he is a son of Sadler’s Wells’ full-brother Fairy King. Manhattan Rain is no less well related on the dam side of his family, and it is hardly a surprise that he has become a Group 1 sire.

One of three Group 1 winners for his two-year-old winning dam Shantha’s Choice, Manhattan Rain shares that honour with the champion racehorse and three-time champion sire Redoute’s Choice (by Danehill) and that sire’s own-brother Platinum Scissors. Shantha’s Choice came agonisingly close to joining one of the world’s most select groups when Manhattan Rain’s full-brother Echoes Of Heaven was runner-up in the Group 1 South Australian Derby.

Encosta De Lago works so well with this family and two of Manhattan Rain’s half-sisters have produced stakes winners by him. The Rock Of Gibraltar Group 3 winner Sliding Cube bred the Group 2 winning colt Rubick, while the group-placed Danehill mare Monsoon Wedding is dam of two stakes winners by him.

She Will Reign’s victory could not have come at a better time for Yarraman Park stud in Scone who will sell her half-sister at the Inglis Yearling Sale. That offering by Shamus Award is just the second produce of her dam, a dual winner including at two years, by the Red Ransom sire Charge Forward.

Shamus Award was the champion three-year-old colt in Australia and this is his first crop. He won the Cox Plate and VRC Australian Guineas and is a son of Snitzel (by Redoute’s Choice).