CHAMPION sire of 2025, and with a slight lead over Frankel in this year’s race, Darley’s Night Of Thunder (Dubawi) has his eighth European crop of two-year-olds racing now. He went to stand for a season in Australia, and that single crop there gave him a Group 1 winner in the shape of Queensland Derby hero Kukeracha.

Night Of Thunder made an outstanding start in Europe with his first crop, as it contained two fine racemares in four-time Group 1 winner Highfield Princess, and Pretty Polly Stakes winner Thundering Nights. If the latter’s race record did not match that of the ill-fated Highfield Princess (who died at the age of seven without having any offspring), Thundering Nights managed to have a single foal, this year’s three-year-old Thundering On (Frankel), winner of the Group 1 Oaks. Strangely, Thundering Nights also died at the age of seven.