PEARLING left the sale ring at the Tattersalls December Sale in 2011 with a 1,300,000gns price tag around her neck. She cost Tony Nerses that amount on behalf of Saleh Al Homaizi and Imad Al Sagar and the mare was consigned from Highclere Stud. She was carrying her first foal to a Galileo covering.

The foal, a colt, was born in early February and he had quite a record of family success to live up to. Sent to Roger Charlton to be trained, he has compiled an honourable race record that has seen him run 11 times and never finish out of the first four.

The colt is Decorated Knight and this five-year-old entire is surely deserving of a place at stud when his racing days are over. Arguably he could have gone to stud this year as a group-winning son of the world’s greatest stallion, and out of a full-sister to another world-class sire. Perhaps his owners are hoping he can step up further in class and win or place at Group 1 level.

His recent success in the 10-furlong Listed Betway Winter Derby Trial Stakes was his third stakes success from five wins. He had not run since last July when he ran out a two-length winner of the nine-furlong Group 3 Meld Stakes, having previously annexed the Listed Festival Stakes at Goodwood over the same trip as his latest success.

Pearling is a Storm Cat mare who was placed in Canada. Despite not winning she had no trouble finding a place at stud as she is a full-sister to six winners, all of which are stakes performers, and a half-sister to another pair of winners, both of which earned blacktype. The best of the eight stakes performers out of Mariah’s Storm, a Grade 2 winning mare by Rahy, are Giant’s Causeway and You’resothrilling.

Giant’s Causeway was a champion racehorse and is now a triple champion sire. Six of his nine wins were at Group 1 level, namely the Juddmonte International, Eclipse Stakes, Irish Champion Stakes, St James’s Palace Stakes, Sussex Stakes and the Prix de la Salamandre. He was runner-up on all his other starts, an aggregate of a length denying him success in the Irish 2000 Guineas, Queen Elizabeth II Stakes and the Breeders’ Cup Classic, while he also occupied second place in the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket.

Just turned 20 years of age, Giant’s Causeway stands at Ashford Stud where he will cover this year at $75,000 – surely a bargain for one of the world’s leading sires. His offspring have amassed earnings of well over $150 million and his list of top-class winners is far too extensive to reproduce here. However in Europe we will be very familiar with Shamardal, Dalkala, Ghanaati, Intense Focus, Maids Causeway, Rite Of Passage, and Footstepsinthesand.

You’resothrilling won the Group 2 Cherry Hinton Stakes and is already an outstanding success at stud, her first four foals all being stakes performers; the first three are group winners and a pair are classic winners. The quartet, all by Galileo, are Gleneagles, Marvellous, Coolmore and Taj Mahal.

While Pearling realised a huge amount of money in the sale ring, her group-placed Galileo half-sister Hanky Panky did twice as well, selling for 2,700,000gns to John Ferguson in 2015, carrying to Dubawi. Theirdam Mariah’s Storm is also the grandam of the Irish Derby runner-up and Epsom Derby third Storm The Stars, by Galileo’s sibling Sea The Stars. He is out of the unraced Love Me Only, by Sadler’s Wells, and she cost $2.1 million when sold as a three-year-old filly at Keeneland.