CAPE Cross, a pattern-placed winner from 10 starts for John Gosden, moved to the Saeed bin Suroor stable as a four-year-old and blossomed. The beautifully bred son of Green Desert (by Danzig) won the Group 1 Lockinge Stakes, Group 2 Queen Anne Stakes and Group 2 Celebration Mile, and he was only beaten by a half-length and short-head when third to Taiki Shuttle and Among Men in the Group 1 Prix Jacques Le Marois.

He joined the team at Kildangan Stud – where he remained until his death in 2017, aged 23 – with a pedigree and racing profile that gave him the chance to become a classic sire, something he achieved on multiple occasions. With the results that his progeny accumulated on the track and that their descendants have been achieving, it is fair to say that he was a stallion of influence.

Five of his 13 Group 1 scorers, among a total of 118 stakes winners, won classics. Sea Change landed the New Zealand 1000 Guineas and Derrinstown Stud’s freshman sire Awtaad – whose yearlings made up to 350,000gns in Newmarket and up to €400,000 in Goffs – won the Irish 2000 Guineas. However, his other classic stars established Cape Cross as a sire you wanted on your side at Epsom.

Ouija Board – the dam of Derby hero Australia (by Galileo) – got the first of her seven top-level wins in the Oaks, whereas Timeform’s 140-rated superstar Sea The Stars won the Derby and has sired the Derby hero Harzand (yearlings made up to 130,000gns in 2019).

Then Golden Horn made the Derby the first of his four top-level victories, and in 2018, Masar (by New Approach), a son of Cape Cross’s Group 2 UAE Derby-winning daughter Khawlah, won the same Epsom classic. Golden Horn, a Timeform 134-rated champion, stands at Dalham Hall Stud, had a string of six-figured yearlings in the ring last year and made a promising start as a freshman sire.

West End Girl won the Group 3 Sweet Solera Stakes, Festive Star won a listed contest in Italy, and Gold Maze finished third in the Group 2 Beresford Stakes, these results coming among a double-digit tally of first-crop juvenile winners.

He is out of a half-sister to the Group 1 Coronation Stakes heroine Rebecca Sharp (by Machiavellian) and from an internationally successful family, and my piece on him for The Irish Field in the spring of 2015 showed why he would likely stay the Derby distance.

His is a pedigree associated with talented three-year-olds and older horses, which makes his juvenile results more notable, and it is this coming summer and autumn that we will begin to see what the best of his early progeny can really do.

GOLDEN HORN (GB), Bay 2012. Champion 3yr old colt in Europe in 2015. Won seven races, £4,438,651, from 1 mile to 1½ miles, at 2 and 3 years including, Coral Eclipse Stakes, Sandown Park, Gr.1, Investec Derby Stakes, Epsom Downs, Gr.1, QIPCO Irish Champion Stakes, Leopardstown, Gr.1, Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, Longchamp, Gr.1, Betfred Dante Stakes, York, Gr.2, Feilden Stakes, Newmarket, L, also placed second in Juddmonte International Stakes, York, Gr.1, Longines Breeders’ Cup Turf, Keeneland, Gr.1.

Retired to Stud in 2016, and sire of the winners of 12 races, and £221,468, including WEST END GIRL (GB), FESTIVE STAR (GB), Gold Maze (GB)

Stands at: Dalham Hall Stud, Duchess Drive, Newmarket, Suffolk, CB8 9HE, England.

Contact: Liam O’Rourke, Sam Bullard, Dawn Laidlaw, Franziska Schaertlin Coffey, Antonin Pelsy, Claudia McDougall, Lucie Botti, David Appledon

Telephone: +44 (0)1638 730070

Email: hello@darley.co.uk

Web: www.darleystallions.com

Fee: £40,000