Fourth elite winner for Harbinger as Blast Onepiece lands Arima Kinen

Blast Onepiece became the fourth elite winner for sire sensation Harbinger by winning the Arima Kinen at Nakayama on Sunday, adding his name to an illustrious roll of honour that includes Deep Impact, Gentildonna and dual winner Orfevre.

The race result is evidence of how dominant Shadai Stallion Station is in Japan, with Blast Onepiece followed home by seven other offspring of Shadai stallions, with King Kamehameha colt Rey De Oro in second and six-year-old Heart's Cry entire Cheval Grand in third.

The winner has a light pedigree for a Group 1 winner, though is a grandson of Tsurumaru Glamor, a Listed-placed half-sister to the Grade 2 Nakayama Nikkei Sho scorer Al Nasrain, who amassed over ¥300 million (£2.14m / €2.37m) in career earnings.

Harbinger - who will command a fee of ¥6m (£42,700 / €47,400) next spring - sired his first top-flight winner when Deirdre landed the Shuka Sho at Kyoto in mid-October last year.

The runaway King George winner did not have long to wait for his second and third either, with Mozu Katchan successful in the Queen Elizabeth II Commemorative Cup and Persian Knight prevailing in the Mile Championship, both run at the same course the following month.

The highest rated son of Dansili on Racing Post Ratings with a mark of 135, Harbinger was purchased by the Yoshida family to stand at Shadai in 2011, and he was crowned champion first-season sire in Japan in 2014 with progeny earnings in excess of ¥260m.

Harbinger is another feather in the cap for Dansili as a sire of sires with his sons Rail Link, Strategic Prince and Zoffany all having supplied winners at the highest level, while the latter's most expensively bred crop will hit the track in 2019.

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