Great work continues with regally-bred Tarima leading the charge for Aga Khan Studs winners

The legacy the late Aga Khan IV has bequeathed to his family and the wider racing and bloodstock community is an enormous one, with the beginning of the Flat season bringing that into sharp relief just two months after his passing.

In a seven-day spell at the end of March, 11 runners carrying the instantly recognisable green and red silks were saddled by the Aga Khan's roster of trainers in France and Ireland and seven of them won. Only one of the 11 failed to finish in the first three. 

The good results have continued into April with the success of Princess Zahra Aga Khan's Mandanaba in the Group 3 Prix Vanteaux on Sunday. The first Group winner by Ghaiyyath is out of her owner-breeder's triple Group 1 winner Mandesha while Azimpour, in the colours of Princess Zahra's late father, was second in the Group 3 Prix la Force. 

In Dubai the evening before, Calandagan was runner-up in the Dubai Sheema Classic while at Deauville on Tuesday, Blue Point colt Keran filled the same position in a Listed sprint.

It is a remarkable run of form and one Pat Downes, manager of the Aga Khan's Irish studs, sees as a reminder of the late Prince Karim's enduring influence and as a link between the past and the future of the operation under the direction of Princess Zahra Aga Khan.

"Indeed it is strange [working without the late Aga Khan] because we have never known anything other than his presence there, to do the work with us, to give us pointers and to shape the direction we are going but he put solid foundations in place and Zahra will take it forward. We must carry on in his memory, for everything he put in place and for his legacy," Downes says.

Pat Downes is the Aga Khan Studs' long-serving representative in Ireland Credit: Goffs

How that legacy reaches into the history of the Aga Khan Studs and simultaneously promises a golden future was perfectly encapsulated at Leopardstown with the debut success of Tarima in the three-year-old fillies' maiden.

Trained by Dermot Weld, the daughter of Lope De Vega is a sister to a pair of fillies who earned seven Group/Grade 1s between them and while a decent maiden is exciting, nobody is getting carried away with dreaming of a third top-level sibling even though she holds an entry in the Irish Oaks, least of all the wise Downes.

"She was quite backward last year and we got to get a bit of work into her in the autumn, only a little bit, but what we saw we liked," he recalls. "We went into winter thinking she would be a nice three-year-old maiden in spring.

"It was lovely to go to the races and see her win the way she did. It wasn't Chris's [Hayes] plan to be where he was, he got a bit of interference when they left the stalls so he said he'd have to sit and suffer out the back. She put the race to bed very well I thought."

Tarima's three-parts sister Tarnawa excelled at ten and 12 furlongs with the daughter of Shamardal earning her first Group 1 over the longer trip in the Prix Vermeille and her second over two furlongs shorter in the Prix de l'Opera before stepping back up to 12 furlongs with victory in the Breeders' Cup Turf.

A chestnut like Tarima, she was also placed in Group 1 company at both of those distances, notably when an unlucky runner-up in the Irish Champion Stakes and narrowly failing to catch Torquator Tasso in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.

The Aga Khan Studs' Dubawi half-sister to Tarnawa and Tahiyra as a foal

The four Group 1s in which their Siyouni half-sister Tahiyra triumphed were a trio over a mile as a three-year-old and the seven furlongs of the Moyglare Stud Stakes as a juvenile, with Tahiyra's victories including the Irish 1,000 Guineas for Weld and Hayes.

Looking at Tarima's debut, it would appear she is more in the mould of Tarnawa than Tahiyra despite the race being over a mile.

Downes agrees with that assessment.

"I think that's probably fair. Discussing it with Dermot Weld that was exactly our impression, that she's probably leaning towards more the quality of Tarnawa than Tahiyra but we will see. It took a while for Chris to pull her up the other day, so she certainly wasn't stopping."

Inevitably with such stellar siblings and an eyecatching debut, questions of Group races, even Classics, form a topic of conversation but, as ever with the Aga Khan Studs, the virtue of patience remains enshrined in their approach.

"We don't know where she will go yet, we want to see how she comes out of the race. Whether we step up in trip for her next start or not, I don't know," he says.

Tahiyra's family has been in the fold for almost five decades but her Cape Cross dam, who has produced four winners from four runners and was a talented racemare herself with two Listed successes over a mile and a half for John Oxx, has lifted the pedigree to prominence. 

Champion filly Tahiyra with her first foal, a filly by JustifyCredit: Aga Khan Studs

"She's been tremendous," Downes says of Tarana, who is due to foal to Siyouni soon. "We couldn't be happier with her. She's taken a family His Highness bought back in the 70s and given it new life."

Tarana's fourth dam Tremogia was acquired by the late Aga Khan as part of the Dupre dispersal in 1977, when buying Haras d'Ouilly and 82 horses.

As befits the dam of two Group 1 winners and a Listed-placed horse from her four offspring to have run, Tarana has been sent to Europe's best stallions.

"She has a really lovely Dubawi yearling filly and is in foal to Siyouni, with Too Darn Hot lined up for this year," Downes reports.

As for her daughters? 

Tahiyra was sent to Kentucky for her first covering and the filly, foaled in February, is delighting the Aga Khan team.

"Tarnawa has a yearling filly by Siyouni and is in foal to Wootton Bassett. Tahirya foaled a filly by Justify and she's a gorgeous filly, we're really pleased with her first foal. She's smart-looking," he enthuses. 

While Tarnawa awaits her Wootton Bassett foal, Tahiyra returned to Ireland and was covered by the Coolmore stallion.

Their younger sister wasn't the only Classic aspirant among the Aga Khan's magnificent seven winners – seven days previously Cankoura announced herself as a performer of enormous potential for Francis Graffard when making a successful seasonal reappearance at Chantilly.

From the first crop of Persian King, the half-sister to last season's Group 3 Prix de la Grotte winner Candala will be given the chance to prove herself a Prix de Diane contender.

The Aga Khan Studs' Siyouni filly out of the top-class Tarnawa, a Shamardal half-sister to TahiyraCredit: Aga Khan Studs

"Francis will be looking to step her up now and see if she can book a place in the Diane," Downes says of the filly out of Dalakhani daughter Candarliya who was twice a Group 2 winner and runner-up to Treve in the Prix Vermeille.

Kodiac colt Zalari is not in possession of such lofty entries but the three-year-old's success on the same Chantilly card as Cankoura impressed Downes.

"He was a fine horse, he was reared here in Ireland, and had one run last year in Saint-Cloud but got stuck in the mud. We actually sold his dam [Listed winner Zayva, in foal to Space Blues for €11,000] last November in Goffs, Joseph Burke bought her and needless to say he is delighted," Downes adds.

"The team got on a great run there last week, three of them were maiden winners with a couple of Class 1 and 2 winners so we will see now if they can take the step up."

Enduring tradition that marries the glory of the past with the promise of the future.

Classic heroine Rouhiya covered by Sea The Stars

It is impossible to speak with Pat Downes and not inquire after Sea The Stars who is standing for a career-high fee of €250,000 this year.

His comment that the exceptional champion and sire of 22 individual top-level winners is now 19 stops this writer in her tracks.

It is 16 years since he blazed across the summer skies with an unprecedented trajectory from 2,000 Guineas to Derby, Eclipse, Juddmonte International and Irish Champion Stakes through to that astonishing swansong in the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe.

Downes says: "He has a great book again, it's hard to believe he is 19 this year, so we have tightened up his book a little bit in recognition of the fact that he is getting that little bit older but he is in great form and, as ever, very few mares come back to him for a second cover. He makes life quite easy for himself."

Sea The Stars, the master of all he surveys for the Aga Khan StudsCredit: Aga Khan Studs

During his time at Gilltown Stud, Sea The Stars sired the late Aga Khan's fifth and final Derby winner and, for much of the winter, his son The Lion In Winter occupied pole position in the ante-post markets for the 2,000 Guineas and Derby.

Although his Newmarket participation is in some doubt, a Derby triumph for the Aidan O'Brien-trained Acomb Stakes winner would be doubly celebrated among the Aga Khan Studs' team.

"The Lion In Winter came from Sheshoon [Stud, Aga Khan farm] as well, we have his mother here," says Downes of the Sunderland Holdings-bred colt out of Group 3 Pinnacle Stakes third What A Home. 

"They're quite a neat family, not over-big but he was a very well-made colt and I thought winning the Acomb the way he did was quite impressive. It was a shame we didn't get to see him after that but I am looking forward to seeing him wherever he turns up."

With The Lion In Winter advertising the potential of the Sea The Stars-Lope De Vega cross, adding to the evidence provided by last year's Grand Prix de Paris winner Sosie who has Lope De Vega's sire Shamardal as his broodmare sire, Sea The Stars covered the Aga Khan's final Poule d'Essai des Pouliches winner Rouhiya recently.

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