THE four-day Royal Ascot meeting in 1983 saw some memorable winners, with many of today’s Group 1 races being Group 2s or 3s at the time.

In fact, there was just a pair of Group 1 races, the Gold Cup being won by Lord Porchester’s homebred Little Wolf ridden by Willie Carson, while the Bill O’Gorman-trained Sayf El Arab beat Soba by three lengths in the King’s Stand Stakes.

Other winners during the week were Valiyar (Group 3 Queen Anne Stakes), Horage (Group 2 St James’s Palace Stakes), Chief Singer (Group 2 Coventry Stakes), Flame Of Tara (Group 2 Coronation Stakes), Precocious (Group 3 Norfolk Stakes), Shareef Dancer (Group 2 King Edward VII Stakes), Head For Heights (Chesham Stakes), and Teleprompter in the Britannia Handicap.

The achievement of the week was that of the Moyglare Stud-bred, Frank Dunne-owned and trained Stanerra, The five-year-old daughter of Guillaume Tell won on the first and last days, Tuesday and Friday, landing the Group 2 Prince of Wales Stakes by four lengths, and then adding the Group 2 Hardwicke Stakes in which she beat Electric and Be My Native. Brian Rouse was in the saddle on both occasions.

It was a memorable meeting for Willie Carson. On Wednesday he started the day with success on Tecorno in the Group 3 Jersey Stakes, won the Gold Cup on Thursday, and landed a double on Friday with Teleprompter and when on board Sandalay in the concluding Queen Alexandra Stakes.

He was also in the winners’ enclosure on the opening day, sporting the silks of Sheikh Mohammed aboard the John Dunlop-trained High Hawk in the Group 2 Ribblesdale Stakes.

Bred at Elizabeth Burke’s Stackallen Stud, High Hawk (Shirley Heights) was sold as a yearling to the Curragh Bloodstock Agency for 31,000gns, and she proved to be the best of the 10 winners out of Sunbittern (Sea Hawk), a three-time two-year-old winner who got blacktype then thanks to being fourth in the Cheveley Park Stakes. That changed in 1990, and since then only the first three qualify.

While none of Sunbittern’s other winners came anything close to High Hawk in terms of ability, many of her daughters have had a pronounced influence on racing and breeding. Her daughter High Tern (High Line) bred the 1998 Group 1 Derby winner High-Rise (High Estate), and other notable descendants from that dual winner include none other than Dubawi (Dubai Millennium), one of the greatest sires of the modern era.

Amazingly well

High Hawk’s and High Tern’s winning half-sister Seriema (Petingo) bred the Grade 1 winner Infamy (Shirley Heights – a cross that worked amazingly well with the family).

However, it is a couple of High Hawk’s full-sisters who have done even better than their siblings. High Spirited (Shirley Heights) may have bred nothing better than a couple of group winners (how bad!), but through her daughters and beyond we have got Group 1 winners Virginia Waters (Kingmambo), the 1000 Guineas winner, Chachamaidee (Footstepsinthesand), and the three-time top-level winner Space Blues (Dubawi), a sprinter who stretched to win the Breeders’ Cup Mile.

Another full-sister to High Hawk was the winning Dunoof (Shirley Heights), and she bred a single group winner, but is third dam of the 2018 Group 1 Henkel Preis der Diana-German Oaks winner Diamanta (Maxios).

This brings us back again to High Hawk. Her Ribblesdale Stakes win, almost four decades ago, was the third of six victories that year, a season which saw her face the starter 10 times, and she was never out of the money. She went to Royal Ascot after finishing runner-up in the Group 1 Oaks d’Italia, and following the Ribblesdale she finished second to Give Thanks in the Group 1 Irish Guinness Oaks.

High Hawk reversed places with the Jim Bolger filly in the Group 2 Park Hill Stakes, added the Group 3 Prix de Royallieu, and rounded off her career with a well-deserved Group 1 win in the Premio Roma. While she was one of the best of her generation on the racecourse, High Hawk was also to prove herself in the breeding shed.

She had 10 winning offspring, matching the achievement of her own dam, and she was especially successful when mating with Sadler’s Wells (Northern Dancer). Four of her sons by that Coolmore champion won group races, and went to stud. However, one stood head and shoulders about the rest. He was In The Wings (Sadler’s Wells).

Outstanding

Only raced at three and four, In The Wings had an outstanding second season when he won the Group 1 Coronation Cup, the Group 1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud, and rounded off the year with victory in what was his most valuable race, the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Turf. At stud he became a multiple Group 1 sire.

Among the 10 winners out of High Hawk, her daughter Arlette (King Of Kings) was not one of the stars. She ran seven times, won twice at two, on her debut at La-Roche-Posay and also at Angouleme, and she added a third success at three when successful in a handicap at Cholet. Arlette is proving to be a better broodmare, with six winners from eight runners.

The best is Alexandros (Kingmambo), a Group 3 winner in France and the USA and runner-up to Virtual in the Group 1 Lockinge Stakes. Six years after Alexandros came Autumn Lily (Street Cry), and she won three of her five starts at two, enough to get her into the Godolphin breeding programme.

Autumn Lily has visited some of the best stallions available, and in July she was sold at Tattersalls to Mark McStay’s Avenue Bloodstock for 125,000gns, carrying to Masar (New Approach). At the time McStay said: “The Masars are nice and she comes from one of the great families of High Hawk, In The Wings, and Alexandros is up there too. It is a family I know very well from my time at Darley and Godolphin.

Commercial prospect

“She is a very nice mare, a nice commercial prospect, and if the yearling comes out looking like she does we will be in good shape. She has bred a Group 1 performer already and these pedigrees don’t come up very often. You have to bid bravely to get them; I am sure my client will be delighted.”

Well, the pedigree has got much better, thanks to the Group 1 performer McStay mentioned. He is Botanik, a son of Golden Horn (Cape Cross), who had been just shaded by Gear Up in the Criterium de Saint-Cloud at two. The now four-year-old gelding is currently in the form of his life, and has won all but one of his five starts this year.

In early August Botanik won the Group 3 Prix de Reux at Deauville, and last weekend he went one better, capturing the Group 2 Grand Prix de Deauville. Can he take one more step forward and land a Group 1? He is already the first son or daughter of Golden Horn to win at Group 2 level, and is one of a dozen stakes winners for the sire who has recently left the Darley roster.