Darley sires Epaulette and Dawn Approach provide Grade 1 one-two

Darley enjoyed a fine result in yesterday's Grade 1 Premiers Champion Stakes as Soqrat, a son of Epaulette, got the better of Dawn Approach's Alyaasaat in the Greyville feature.

The pair, trained by Mike De Kock and owned and bred by Sheikh Hamdan’s Shadwell Stud, hail from the first Australian-bred crops of their sires and it was Soqrat, Grade 2-placed most recently, who swept down the outside to score from his stablemate and become Epaulette's first elite level scorer.

Race result

The winner is out of the Hussonet mare Elzeeza, who hails from the extended family of top Hong Kong sprinter Lucky Bubbles and has also produced the juvenile winner Akhlaaq, by Hard Spun.

Reverse shuttler Epaulette, who stood for €7,000 at Darley's Kildangan Stud in Ireland this year, was himself a dual Group 1 winner over 1,400 metres in Australia and is a half-brother to another Darley stallion in Helmet.

He has stood at Kildangan Stud every year since 2014 except for 2015, when he had a year at Dalham Hall Stud in Newmarket. He has produced a pair of Group 3 winners in his native Australia, Khulaasa and Meryl, and has produced 23 winners from 57 runners in Great Britain.

Those three Group winners from his first crop sees him tie Exceed And Excel in that regard and is a figure that cannot be bettered in the southern hemisphere by any other Danehill-line stallion.

He will stand for a fee of A$27,500 when he returns to Darley's Kelvinside Stud in New South Wales.

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