IT was a good weekend for Dalham Hall Stud resident Sepoy as his daughter Khukri won the Listed Coolmore Stud Power Stakes at Navan for the in-form Jessica Harrington stable, a day after Dabyah staked her classic claims in the Group 3 Dubai Duty Free Stakes at Newbury, the race we know better as the Fred Darling Stakes.

Dabyah was earning her first stakes success on her fourth outing. She won her first two starts last year and was then thrown in at the deep end when contesting the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac where she was a highly creditable third.

Sepoy, a son of Elusive Quality, was twice champion is Australia, being the best juvenile seen there for many decades when he won the Group 1 Golden Slipper and the Blue Diamond Stakes. He was the champion sprinter the following season. His first European crop not only includes Dabyah and Khukri, but also the Group 3 heroine Kilmah and stakes winner Baileys Showgirl.

Dabyah was bred by Rabbah Bloodstock in Ireland and sold as a yearling for 100,000gns. She is the better of the two winners to date for her Machiavellian dam Samdaniya, herself a minor winner at three. The other is the multiple scorer Samtu, a now six-year-old gelded son of Teofilo. Samdaniya is one of 10 winners for her Group 3 winning, Group 1 Prix Vermeille runner-up dam Cloud Castle, a daughter of In The Wings.

That roll of honour of winners includes a trio of stakes-winning fillies in Queen’s Best (by King’s Best), Reverie Solitaire (by Nashwan) and Urban Castle (by Street Cry). The first pair are also notable as the dams of stakes winners. Queen’s Best won the Group 3 Winter Hill Stakes, was runner-up in Ireland in the Group 2 Blandford Stakes and she is the dam of last year’s Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf winner Queen’s Trust, by Dansili.

Within the first three generations of Dabyah’s family are a number of notable performers, including Group 1 winners Warrsan, Luso and Avenir Certain, last year’s smart juvenile and new sire Mehmas, the Group 1 runners-up Hattan and Needle Gun, and the top-class National Hunt runner Nichols Canyon.