Ebor meeting was but a single chapter in an excellent season for Sea The Stars

In Stradivarius and Crystal Ocean, Sea The Stars has supplied two of this season’s most cherished competitors, both sound, tough horses who can be relied upon to give their best every time.

Yet their performances at York’s Ebor meeting, at which Stradivarius won another Lonsdale Cup and Crystal Ocean fell agonisingly short of victory in the Juddmonte International, merely form a single chapter in an excellent season for Sea The Stars, one that also includes Irish Oaks winner Star Catcher and several notable grandchildren.

It would be doing a disservice to the earlier stages of his stud career to suggest that 2019 will wind up as the stallion’s most accomplished season to date. Those first crop of three-year-olds, led by the Oaks and King George heroine Taghrooda and runaway German Derby winner Sea The Moon, set an almighty bar for those seasons to follow. But subsequent Group 1 winners such as the Epsom and Irish Derby hero Harzand, Zelzal, Mekhtaal and Cloth Of Stars went on to maintain the momentum before Stradivarius, Crystal Ocean and that ill-fated brilliant filly Sea Of Class picked up the baton. All were bred when Sea The Stars stood at €85,000; that figure rose to €125,000 in 2015 and has since settled at €135,000 at Gilltown Stud.