Harzand off the mark with first winner as Lady Joanna strikes in Poland

Dual Derby hero Harzand is off the mark with his first two-year-old winner.

The Gilltown Stud-based freshman sire's breakthrough runner was Lady Joanna, who won a six and a half-furlong event for newcomers at the Sluzewiec racecourse in Warsaw, Poland, on Saturday.

Lady Joanna is trained by Maciej Jodlowski for Westminster Race Horses, who bought the filly with Tomas Janda for €30,000 at last year's Goffs Orby Yearling Sale.

She was bred by Airlie Stud and Sonia Rogers and is the eighth foal and sixth winner out of Listed Hoppings Stakes winner Classic Remark, a daughter of Dr Fong and Premio Lydia Tesio heroine Claxon.

Claxon was also dam of Nassau Stakes runner-up Cassydora, who later produced stakes winners Ernest Hemingway, South Sea Pearl and Toulifaut, and Listed-placed Clarietta, who went on to produce black-type scorers Law Power and Perfect Clarity.

This is the excellent Hesmonds Stud family that also counts Broome, Projection, Rostropovich, Zimzalabim and Zoffany among its members – as well as this season's Lingfield Derby Trial and Queen's Vase runner-up Berkshire Rocco.

Harzand, trained by Dermot Weld and regularly partnered by Pat Smullen, carried his breeder the Aga Khan's silks to victory in the Derby at Epsom and the Curragh.

The son of Sea The Stars has a first crop of 72 two-year-olds to go to war with this year, including Plume Noire, a half-sister to Irish 1,000 Guineas heroine Jet Setting; Mirrie Dancers, a three-parts brother to Atalanta Stakes winner Lavender's Blue out of Group 1-placed Beatrice Aurore; and Zarkan, a half-brother to the great Zarkava.

Harzand stood at Gilltown Stud this year at a fee of €8,000.

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