WITH Frankel dominating the headlines all year, his stud companion Kingman (Invincible Spirit) was just getting on with things, though up to the end of September he had not had a Group 1 winning son or daughter in 2022.

Sire of the excellent Persian King, a classic and triple Group 1 winner, in his first crop, Kingman got an even better son in his second crop, five-time Group 1 winner Palace Pier. That 2017 group of foals also numbered Domestic Spending among them, and that gelding has won three Grade 1 races in the USA. Last year Schnell Meister gave Kingman his fourth top-level winner.

Well, the anxious wait for another Group 1 winner has come to an end and, like the buses, two come along at the same time. On Arc weekend in ParisLongchamp, Kingman’s son Kinross won the Prix de la Foret, and less than a week later Commissioning remained unbeaten as she annexed the Group 1 Fillies’ Mile and established herself among the best of her sex and generation.

Interestingly, Commissioning is the first female among Kingman’s half-dozen Group/Grade 1 winners, and she is a great racing and breeding success story for Bahrain’s Shaikhs Isa Salman and Abdulla Al-Khalifa. They raced her dam Sovereign Parade (Galileo) after splashing out 480,000gns for her as a yearling.

After winning her maiden on her debut, Sovereign Parade raced just once more, in the Group 2 Ribblesdale Stakes, and went to stud.

Disbelief

Now here is something that will have lots of you shaking your heads in disbelief. At the Tattersalls March Online Sale this year, Sovereign Parade’s unraced three-year-old daughter Three Oceans (Fastnet Rock) sold to Jake Warren’s Highclere Agency for 1,800gns.

Yes, that’s correct, 1,800gns. Now Three Oceams is a half-sister to a Group 1 winner and potential champion! Commissioning’s yearling half-brother by Fastnet Rock (Danehill) was withdrawn from this week’s yearling sale in Newmarket.

Sovereign Parade is one of seven winners out of Dialafara (Anabaa), a winning Aga Khan-bred filly who was sold at three for €175,000 to Mags O’Toole. All of Dialafara’s winners are by Galileo (Sadler’s Wells) and they are headed by the Coolmore National Hunt sire Capri, winner of the Group 1 Irish Derby and the St Leger at Doncaster. His first crop are yearlings.

Other winners out of Dialafara include Group 3 winner and Group 1 Irish Oaks-placed Passion, Group 3 winner Cypress Creek, this year’s Grade 3 winning hurdler at the Cheltenham Festival, Brazil, and this season’s winning juvenile Tower Of London, housed at Ballydoyle.