MARKAZ got back to winning ways at Newcastle last weekend when he landed the Group 3 Chipchase Stakes over six furlongs in the colours of Hamdan Al Maktoum. The £200,000 DBS (now Goffs UK) Premier Yearling Sale graduate is an own-brother to the Group 1 winner Meccas’s Angel, and they are the first two offspring of the listed-placed Atraf mare Folga.

Mecca’s Angel was sold as a yearling for just 16.000gns and the daughter of Dark Angel has been a revelation as a racemare. She was followed by Markaz, while the third produce of Folga is the two-year-old Dark Angel filly Dirayah and she sold to Oliver St Lawrence in Book 1 of the Tattersalls October Sale last year for 825,000gns.

Waiting in the wings is a yearling full-sister to these three.

Folga was not shy when it came to racing, starting no less than 35 times, and she won six times and was placed on 10 occasions. These included a second-place finish in a listed race at Bath behind Enticing. She is the second best of 10 winners for her dam Desert Dawn and the best of them was the Bikala filly Desert Kaya who won a listed race at Deauville and was placed in a similar event at Saint-Cloud.

Desert Dawn was no slouch and this daughter of Belfort won the Group 3 Prix d’Arenberg at Longchamp and a listed race at Sandown Park. She was stakes-placed as a juvenile and finished second in the Group 3 Norfolk Stakes at Royal Ascot. She was trained by Lord John Fitzgerald. These more recent group wins in the family have seriously upgraded the dam line as the next two generations contain just a pair of minor stakes-placed runners in the USA.

Markaz was bred in partnership by father and son, Gay and David O’Callaghan, and is one of many star performers for Dark Angel whom they stand at Morristown Lattin Stud. Darley last year bought into the son of Acclamation who is also the sire of Group 1 sprinter Lethal Force. Dark Angel was fully booked this year at €60,000.

On the same day that Markaz won his group race, the sire had listed winners at Newmarket (Nations Alexander in the colours of Gay’s brother Noel) and Gabrial at Windsor.