MIKKI Isle, a five-year-old son of three-time champion sire Deep Impact, won the Group 1 Mile Championship last weekend, adding to his 2014 win at the same level in the NHK Mile Cup. This recent success was his eighth and he has now won almost four times his purchase price as a yearling in Japan.

Deep Impact was twice Horse of the Year in Japan, won the Triple Crown, has sired about eight champions and is fast heading towards 100 stakes winners in his career. Yet the son of Sunday Silence is only 14 years of age. Beaten twice in a 14-race career, he is out of the German Group 1 winner Wind In Her Hair and she was runner-up in the Epsom Oaks. Sunday Silence was himself a sire phenomenon after a career that saw him win the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and the Breeders’ Cup Classic. His other sons include Daiwa Major, Heart’s Cry, Hat Trick, Zenno Rob Roy, and many, many more. Deep Impact is undoubtedly the heir apparent.