TWENTY years ago Halling won the Coral Eclipse Stakes for the second time, in so doing becoming the fifth dual winner of the race which was first run 130 years ago this year. That victory also came on the 20th anniversary of the bookmakers taking over sponsorship of the race.

This year Hawksbill continued his steady climb towards the top of the classic generation with victory, and completes a decade of outstanding results for the race which pitches the classic generation against older horses. Since 2007 the winners of the race read like a who’s who – Notnowcato, Mount Nelson, Sea The Stars, Twice Over, So You Think, Nathaniel, Al Kazeem, Mukhadram and Golden Horn all preceding this year’s winner.

When the race was first run at Sandown in 1886 it was the richest race staged in Britain, thanks to the prize fund of £10,000 being donated by Leopold de Rothschild. This was double the value of the Derby. The race was won by the six-year-old Bendigo who went on the following year to land the Champion Stakes.

Bendigo first came to prominence as a three-year-old when he ran in the Cambridgeshire and won it, starting as the complete outsider at 50/1 and carrying just 6st 10lb.

In 1892 Orme won the first of his consecutive Eclipse Stakes, and he was followed by Buchan (1919 and 1920), Polyphontes (1924 and 1925) and Mtoto (1987 and 1988). In 1995 Halling won his initial Eclipse Stakes and the victory had a special significance as it was the first Group 1 win in Britain for the now famous Godolphin royal blue silks.

HISTORY REPEATS

It is interesting that history repeated itself with Halling because, just like the first winner of the Eclipse, Halling landed the Cambridgeshire as a three-year-old, then in the care of John Gosden.

Many would have bet against such a success, given that Halling was beaten on his first three starts before travelling to Ripon and Doncaster to land his first two victories. Then he extended the winning sequence to three with the Cambridgeshire triumph before heading to the sunshine and Dubai for the winter.

There he won three times before returning to England, this time under the care of Saeed bin Suroor, to beat Singspiel a neck in the Eclipse Stakes. Five weeks later he won his eighth on the trot when he added the Group 1 Juddmonte International to his rapidly blossoming CV.

Another winter in Dubai saw him return a little earlier to European racing as a five-year-old and he won the Group 1 Prix d’Ispahan en route to completing another Eclipse/Juddmonte International double. He rounded off his career with a second-place finish to Bosra Sham in the Champion Stakes and retired to stud, winner of 12 of his 18 starts and with earnings of just short of £850,000.

A son of Diesis and bred by Cyril Humphries, Halling embarked on a career as a stallion at Dalham Hall Stud, and then in 2004 he headed for three seasons to Emirates Stud Farm in Dubai where the Group 1 winner Cutlass Bay was the most notable of his winners bred in the UAE.

DEATH

He returned to Dalham Hall and was retired from stud duties in 2014, and was euthanized in early February of this year due to the infirmities of old age. His death came in the year following the Irish Derby success of one of his best runners, the John Gosden-trained Jack Hobbs. In total Halling sired four Group 1 winners, the others being Cavalryman and Empoli.

He has had more than 50 stakes winners as a sire and his final crop, numbering just a handful, are three-year-olds of 2016.

His daughters have also played a part in ensuring that Halling’s name will remain in pedigrees for some time to come, producing the Grade 1 winners Vale Of York and Folk Opera, winners respectively of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and the E P Taylor Stakes.

Hawksbill’s victory on Saturday was a fifth Eclipse Stakes in the Godolphin silks, following Halling who won it twice, Daylami and Refuse To Bend. Sheikh Mohammed also won it twice with Pebbles and Opera House, while his brothers Sheikh Hamdan and Maktoum Al Maktoum have been in the winners’ enclosure on four other occasions.

The Group 1 race is named after Eclipse, the undefeated racehorse who raced in the late 1700s. He won 18 times and later became a very successful stallion, today appearing in the pedigree of most leading thoroughbreds.

In addition to this notable race which is run in his honour, the major racing awards in America are named after him.