THUNDER Snow’s failure to compete in the Kentucky Derby this year is fading into the background as the season continues and he laid that memory to rest last weekend when he won his second Group 1, the one-mile Prix Jean Prat. Bred by Darley and carrying the Godolphin colours, Thunder Snow landed the Group 1 Criterium International last autumn, and in the process gave his sire Helmet (Exceed And Excel) his first winner at the highest level.

Helmet and Excelebration are two sons of Exceed And Excel (Danehill) to have Group 1 winners in Europe this year. Kidangan Stud resident Exceed And Excel is a potent sire of two-year-olds and he excelled himself at the same age, winning four of his five starts. They included the Sires’ Produce Stakes over seven furlongs and the Champagne Stakes over a mile. The following year he won the Group 1 Caulfield Guineas in a record time. He is a half-brother to Epaulette who has his first runners this year.

Helmet stands at Dalham Hall Stud and was on show to visitors at the stallion parade in Newmarket this week. Thunder Snow is his best runner, while other group-winning sons and daughters include the 2017 Italian 2000 Guineas winner Anda Muchacho, and southern hemisphere runners Limestone and Archives. Three more of his sons are winners at listed level.

Thunder Snow is the fourth foal, fourth winner and fourth stakes winner for his Dubai Destination (Kingmambo) dam Eastern Joy. The previous three are all fillies and they are Ihtimal (Shamardal) who won the Group 2 May Hill Stakes in addition to the Group 3 UAE Oaks and 1000 Guineas, Group 3 winning juvenile First Victory (Teofilo) and the listed winner and Group 1 Sun Chariot Stakes runner-up Always Smile. Additionally, Ihtimal was placed in the 1000 Guineas at Newmarket.

In training at present is a two-year-old filly by Shamardal out of Eastern Joy, named Winter Lightning, while the dam has a colt foal, just her second son, by Dubawi.

Eastern Joy is one of 11 winners from the Nureyev mare Red Slippers. She was raced by Robert Sangster and following her first win was bought by Sheikh Mohammed in 1991. A half-sister to the Irish Derby and Epsom Oaks winner Balanchine (Storm Bird) and an own-sister to Group 2 winner and Epsom Derby third Romanov, Red Slippers went on to win the Group 2 Sun Chariot Stakes in Sheikh Mohammed’s maroon colours.

At stud the best of Red Slippers’ winners was West Wind (Machiavellian) and she won the Group 1 Prix de Diane (French Oaks), was runner-up in the Prix Vermeille and on her only start in Ireland ran third to Peeping Fawn and Speciosa in the Group 1 Pretty Polly Stakes.