CAPE Cross, a pattern-placed winner from 10 starts for John Gosden, moved to the Saeed bin Suroor stable as a four-year-old and blossomed. The beautifully bred son of Green Desert (by Danzig) won the Group 1 Lockinge Stakes, Group 2 Queen Anne Stakes and Group 2 Celebration Mile, and he was only beaten by a half-length and short-head when third to Taiki Shuttle and Among Men in the Group 1 Prix Jacques Le Marois.

He joined the team at Kildangan Stud – where he remained until his death in 2017, aged 23 – with a pedigree and racing profile that gave him the chance to become a classic sire, something he achieved on multiple occasions. With the results that his progeny accumulated on the track and that their descendants have been achieving, it is fair to say that he was a stallion of influence.