THE Aga Khan’s Harzand deserves great credit for completing the Derby double at Epsom and the Curragh in 2016, especially as in doing so he ran up a sequence of four consecutive wins, which is also quite an unusual event.
This impressive brown son of Sea The Stars embarked on his stud career at Gilltown Stud in Co Kildare the next year at a very reasonable fee and his first crop of foals brought some very good prices last autumn. Mount Coote Stud received €60,000 for a colt at Goffs November, where The Castlebridge Consignment sold a filly for €35,000, while one of their colts by Harzand made 34,000gns at Newmarket.
After a promising fifth of 16 runners in his sole outing as a two-year-old, Harzand was soon in action the next season, sent by his trainer Dermot Weld to contest the Blackwater Stakes over 10 furlongs at Cork in the last week of March. Harzand cantered home 16 lengths clear of the second, Sword Fighter, who went on to win the Queen’s Vase at Royal Ascot and the Group 2 Curragh Cup. Two weeks later, Harzand added the Group 3 Ballysax Stakes at Leopardstown, defeating Idaho by a length and a quarter, with Beacon Rock another seven lengths away.
These were two impressive wins, but Harzand was only third favourite for the Group 1 Derby Stakes at Epsom early in June. Eighth at Tattenham Corner, he surged ahead a furlong from home to score by a length and a half from U S Army Ranger and Idaho, with a gap of five lengths back to Wings Of Desire.
Idaho, who scored in the Group 2 Great Voltigeur Stakes at York in August, again found Harzand too good for him in the Group 1 Irish Derby at the end of June, where these two were again almost four lengths clear of the other runners. Finally, Harzand was out of the first three in his last two outings, the Group 1 Irish Champion Stakes and the Group 1 Arc de Triomphe, after suffering interference each time.
In the World Rankings for 2016 Harzand was rated the European champion three-year-old colt at a mile and a half on 121, 2lbs above Idaho and U S Army Ranger.
Harzand is one of the best sons of the brilliant Sea The Stars, the European champion colt in 2009 winning Group 1 races in six consecutive months, including the Epsom Derby and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. By Green Desert’s son Cape Cross, Sea The Stars is a half-brother to 10 times champion sire Galileo and he is already sire of 48 blacktype winners, including Stradivarius and Oaks heroines Taghrooda and Sea Of Class.
Hazariya, the dam of Harzand, won the Group 3 Athasi Stakes and this daughter of Xaar is also dam of the Group 3 Silver Flash Stakes winner Harasiya and listed scorers Hazarafa and Haripour. Harzand’s pedigree is free of both Sadler’s Wells and Danehill.
HARZAND (IRE), Brown 2013. Champion 3yr old in Europe in 2016 (11-13f.). Won four races, £1,535,850, from 1 mile 2 furlongs to 1½ miles, at 3 years including, Dubai Duty Free Irish Derby, Curragh, Gr.1, Investec Derby Stakes, Epsom Downs, Gr.1, P W McGrath Memorial Ballysax Stakes, Leopardstown, Gr.3.
Retired to Stud in 2017, first crop now yearlings.
Stands at: Gilltown Stud, Kilcullen, Co Kildare, Ireland
Contact: Pat Downes or Julie White
Telephone: +353 45 48 12 16
Email: pat.downes@agakhanstuds.com
Web: www.agakhanstuds.com
Fee: €10,000