Group 1 juvenile strikes for Blue Point and Justify on stunning Longchamp afternoon

As Blue Point nears being crowned this year's champion first-season sire of Britain and Ireland, he gained a further commendation with a maiden Group 1 winner in the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere on Arc day at Longchamp.

Rosallion was already one of the Kildangan resident's four stakes-level scorers when landing the Pat Eddery Stakes at Ascot, while Blue Point is also responsible for the power-packed Flying Childers, Molecomb and Windsor Castle winner Big Evs.

Richard Hannon's representative is a homebred for Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum out of an unraced New Approach daughter of his magnificent mare Reem Three, also the dam of a gilded collection of winners including Triple Time, Ostilio, Cape Byron and Ajman Princess.

Star sprinter Blue Point sits a dozen ahead of his nearest rival on winners, Soldier's Call, and more than £250,000 in front of Too Darn Hot, who sired the Group 1 Moyglare winner Fallen Angel, in terms of British and Irish prize-money standings.

Meanwhile Justify, who has already chalked up 18 individual black-type scorers across his first two crops, including a pair of Grade 1 winners in America, had a first European Group 1 after the spectacular solo performance from Opera Singer in the Prix Marcel Boussac.

To follow Aidan O'Brien's explosive Justify colt City Of Troy, Curragh Group 3 winner Opera Singer flew right away to enter next year's Classic calculations herself. She was bred by the late Evie Stockwell, mother of Coolmore supremo John Magnier, and is a half-sister to the acclaimed breeder's top-level winners Hit It A Bomb, who won the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf, and Brave Anna, who took the 2016 Cheveley Park Stakes.

Asked about his crop of Justifys, O'Brien told Sky Sports Racing: "Unbelievable. The minute they go past seven furlongs they just take off."

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