MIKKI Isle, a five-year-old son of three-time champion sire Deep Impact, won the Group 1 Mile Championship last weekend, adding to his 2014 win at the same level in the NHK Mile Cup. This recent success was his eighth and he has now won almost four times his purchase price as a yearling in Japan.

Deep Impact was twice Horse of the Year in Japan, won the Triple Crown, has sired about eight champions and is fast heading towards 100 stakes winners in his career. Yet the son of Sunday Silence is only 14 years of age. Beaten twice in a 14-race career, he is out of the German Group 1 winner Wind In Her Hair and she was runner-up in the Epsom Oaks. Sunday Silence was himself a sire phenomenon after a career that saw him win the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and the Breeders’ Cup Classic. His other sons include Daiwa Major, Heart’s Cry, Hat Trick, Zenno Rob Roy, and many, many more. Deep Impact is undoubtedly the heir apparent.

Among the progeny of Deep Impact with which we would be familiar, one is the €1.6 million Goffs sale-topper Beauty Parlour who won the French 1000 Guineas, the dual Japan Cup winner Gentildonna, Australian and Japanese Group 1 winner Real Impact, the impressive 2016 Prix d’Ispahan winner A Shin Hikari, 2016 French group-winner Makahari and he is also responsible for no fewer than nine Group 1 winners in 2016.

On the dam side Mikki Isle is the best of four winners, the first four foals, out of the winning Rock Of Gibraltar mare Star Isle. Her dam Isle De France won the Grade 3 Hillsborough Handicap and the Group 3 Prix Minerve, running second also in the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac. By Nureyev, Isle De France is a half-sister to the champion Diamond Biko.

Mikki Isle is bred on similar lines to the Sunday Silence mare Diamond Biko and she, along with Isle De France, are the best of six winners from the Alydar mare Stella Madrid. Four of her six victories came in Grade 1 races, namely the Acorn Stakes, Frizette Stakes, Spinaway Stakes and the Matron Stakes.

Stella Madrid, in turn, is out of the Gallant Romeo mare My Juliet who won 24 of her 36 starts and was champion sprinter in the USA. She bred a second Grade 1 winner in Tis Juliet, a full-sister to Stella Madrid.

Breeders, stallion masters and readers are invited to contact Leo Powell at leopowell@theirishfield.ie with news and updates for the column, and to visit our website www.theirishfield.ie for daily breeding news