With the highest World Rankings rating of 127 in that category and the equivalent top Timeform figure of 132 in Racehorses of 2008.

His five Group 1 victories that season included the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot, the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes and the Juddmonte International. He has an outstanding pedigree and is a half-brother to 2013 Epsom Derby winner Ruler Of The World.

Duke Of Marmalade has made an excellent start to his career as a sire, with some 56 individual winners from his first two crops scoring in over 100 races and total earnings exceeding €1,500,000. He already has nine blacktype winners to his credit, more than New Approach or any other second crop sire, with his daughter Venus De Milo one of the best three-year-old fillies of 2013, winning the Group 3 Give Thanks Stakes and twice being second in Group 1 events, the Irish Oaks behind Chicquita and the Yorkshire Oaks. Quaduna carried off the Group 3 Premio Verziere in Milan and Duke Of Marmalade also has seven different listed winners in Ireland, France and Germany.

There has been consistently strong demand for his yearlings and they have fetched prices up to 340,000 guineas. Last year, 83 of his third crop of yearlings were sold at an average of €43,467, so he should have plenty of two-year-old winners in 2014.

Duke Of Marmalade was very quickly into his stride at two years old, winning at the Curragh and second in his other two starts, including a neck defeat by Strategic Prince in the Group 2 Vintage Stakes at Goodwood.

Never out of the first four in six starts in 2007, Duke Of Marmalade would have done even better in his second season if he not had to race twice against his stablemate Dylan Thomas and twice against Excellent Art. He was second to them in both the Irish Champion Stakes and the St James’s Palace Stakes.

With those two rivals retired to Coolmore, Duke Of Marmalade won five consecutive Group 1 events in 2008, starting with the Prix Ganay at Longchamp and then the Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh. At Royal Ascot, he ran away with the Prince of Wales’s Stakes by four lengths, before returning to Ascot to defeat Papal Bull and Youmzain in the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes.

Then in the Juddmonte International, which had to be transferred from York to Newmarket, Duke Of Marmalade completed his five-timer, with the Epsom Derby hero New Approach three lengths behind him.

One of the very best sons of Danehill, a male line in which Coolmore has almost a monopoly, Duke Of Marmalade is a big, strong, impressive individual standing 16hh and seems an ideal mating for mares by Sadler’s Wells and his sons. He is one of five winners produced by his dam Love Me True, a group-placed winner in Ireland who is also the dam of the impressive 2013 Epsom Derby hero Ruler Of The World. By another truly outstanding stallion, Kingmambo, Love Me True is inbred 3x3 to the leading American sire Raise A Native.

Lassie’s Lady, the grandam of Duke Of Marmalade, bred nine winners, including the Grade 2 Sanford Stakes victor Bite The Bullet. She was by Alydar out of the sensational broodmare Lassie Dear, a graded stakes heroine among whose 12 winners was the champion sprinter Wolfhound, while she is also the grandam of such stars as A.P. Indy, Summer Squall, Lemon Drop Kid and Statue Of Liberty, all of which became successful stallions.

DUKE OF MARMALADE (IRE)

Race record: Champion older horse in Europe in 2008. Winner of six races and £1,388,454, from 2-4 years, from 7-12 furlongs, inc. King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes, Ascot, Gr.1, Juddmonte International Stakes, Newmarket, Gr.1, Prince of Wales’s Stakes, Royal Ascot, Gr.1, Prix Ganay, Longchamp, Gr.1, and Tattersalls Gold Cup, Curragh, Gr.1; 2nd in Irish Champion Stakes, Leopardstown, Gr.1 and St James’s Palace Stakes, Royal Ascot, Gr.1; 3rd in Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, Ascot, Gr.1; 4th in 2000 Guineas, Gr.1 and Irish 2000 Guineas, Gr.1.

Stud record: Retired to stud in 2009. Sire of 56 winners of over 100 races and more than €1,500,000 in his first two seasons, inc. Venus De Milo (Give Thanks Stakes, Cork, Gr.3, 2nd in Irish Oaks, Curragh, Gr.1, Yorkshire Oaks, York, Gr.1), Quaduna (Premio Verziere, Milan, Gr.3), Alive Alive Oh (Salsabil Stakes, Navan, L), Count Of Limonade (Celebration Stakes, Curragh, L, 3rd in Gallinule Stakes, Curragh, Gr.3), Childa (Prix Rose de Mai, Saint-Cloud, L), Wannabe Better (2 listed wins), etc.

Stands at: Coolmore Stud, Fethard, Co Tipperary.

Contact: 052 6131298

Website: www.coolmore.com.

Fee: €10,000 (October 1st).