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Chester Vase winner Sir Dragonet has a pedigree tailor made for Derby test

Ballydoyle colt is by Camelot and descended from Urban Sea

Sir Dragonet: from the most effective Derby family in the stud book
Sir Dragonet: from the most effective Derby family in the stud bookCredit: Alan Crowhurst

Sir Dragonet's sensational eight-length victory in the Group 3 MBNA Chester Vase on just his second start on Wednesday saw him slashed to a best priced 5-1 for the Investec Derby next month.

The Aidan O'Brien-trained colt – who had taken a Tipperary maiden by three lengths on debut a fortnight ago – needs to be supplemented for the Epsom Classic, a race for which his pedigree is tailor made.

Sir Dragonet is from the second crop of Camelot, who won the 2012 Derby in between his other Classic victories in the 2,000 Guineas and Irish Derby.


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Camelot was, moreover, one of a record-equalling four individual Derby winners by Montjeu, along with Motivator, Authorized and Pour Moi. The last-named supplied a Derby winner of his own in Wings Of Eagles.

Camelot pressed his own claims as a future Derby sire of note when his first three-year-olds last year included Latrobe, winner of the Irish version for Joseph O'Brien.

Sir Dragonet becomes the 16th stakes winner for the stallion, along with two other top-level scorers besides Latrobe – Athena and Wonderment – and a leading hope for the Oaks in Latrobe's sister Pink Dogwood, a convincing winner of the Listed Salsabil Stakes last month.

The colt hails from an immediate family that has thrown up three winners of the Derby this millennium, boasting as he does the extraordinary Urban Sea as his third dam.

Urban Sea produced Derby winners Galileo and Sea The Stars, and is fourth dam of last year's victor Masar.

Galileo and Sea The Stars have both sired Derby winners – New Approach, Australia and Ruler Of The World for the former, Harzand for the latter – while New Approach supplied Masar, meaning he was inbred 3x4 to the Arc heroine.

Sir Dragonet traces his line to the outstanding matriarch of the modern era as the first foal of Sparrow, a Ballyogan Stakes third by Oasis Dream out of All Too Beautiful, a daughter of Sadler's Wells and Urban Sea who won the Middleton Stakes and finished second in the Oaks.

That makes Sparrow a half-sister to Cheshire Oaks winner and Oaks runner-up Wonder Of Wonders, Italian Listed winner Victory Song and All For Glory, the unraced dam of Oaks third Alluringly.

Camelot – available at Coolmore for €40,000 this year – has worked when grafted on to this wonderful family before, in the case of Belmont Oaks winner Athena, who is out of Urban Sea's Group 3-placed daughter Cherry Hinton.

Athena's half-sister Wading is the dam of Just Wonderful, a staying-on sixth in the 1,000 Guineas on Sunday and an Oaks possible herself.

Sparrow has a two-year-old colt by Australia with Aidan O'Brien and a yearling colt by Camelot, and she visited Caravaggio last year.

Sir Dragonet, bred by Orpendale, Wynatt and Chelston, adds to the growing list of talented horses inbred to late Coolmore juggernaut Sadler's Wells.

His inbreeding is expressed as 3x3, as Sadler's Wells appears twice in the third generation – as sire of both Montjeu and All Too Beautiful.

Other stars closely inbred to Sadler's Wells include dual Arc winner Enable, dual Grand National laureate Tiger Roll and Camelot's exciting but ill-fated son Sir Erec.


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Published on 8 May 2019inNews

Last updated 09:40, 9 May 2019

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