A new top-level winner for Pivotal as Brando takes centre stage

Cheveley Park Stud stalwart Pivotal supplied his 26th top-level winner on Sunday when his son Brando ran out a convincing winner of the Prix Maurice de Gheest at Deauville. The son of Polar Falcon has supplied two previous winners of the 6½f Group 1; Somnus in 2004 and Regal Parade in 2010.

The five-year-old Brando could be spotted going conspicuously well soon after halfway, and having quickened to lead inside inside the final furlong he kept on well to see off the fast-finishing Aclaim by half a length.

The gelding, who shares his name with an American actor, may have gained his biggest win across the Channel, but his grounding is decidedly British.

He was bred by Nicholas and Jane Forman Hardy's Car Colston Hall Stud in Nottinghamshire, and is by the British-bred Pivotal, who has spent 21 seasons on duty at Cheveley Park Stud in Newmarket - where he was available to breeders at £40,000 earlier this year. His dam, the Silver Hawk mare Argent Du Bois, is also a product of the Forman Hardys' production line.

Sunday's success is not the first time a member of Argent Du Bois' immediate family has tasted top-level success in France, as Brando's half-sister Sant Elena, a Listed-placed daughter of Efisio, is the dam of Reckless Abandon, whose two Group 1 wins included success in the 2012 renewal of the Prix Morny.

Other notable performers from Brando's immediate family include Vintage Stakes winner War Decree, a grandson of his Grade 1-winning half-sister Ticker Tape, and the Listed-placed pair Toofi and Encore L'Amour, both of whom are out of Royal Applause half-sisters to Brando.

Argent Du Bois has a yearling colt by Cape Cross, who is due to be offered at Tattersalls later this year.

Further back it is the family of Car Colston Hall's foundation mare Wiener Wald, a Woodman daughter of dual Grade 2 winner Chapel Of Dreams, who is perhaps best known as the dam of Racing Post Trophy winner Crowded House.

Brando himself has twice been through the sales ring, first when bought by Horse Park Stud for 52,000gns in 2013, before Church Farm Stables reoffered him at the 2014 Tattersalls Craven Breeze-Up Sale, where he was signed for at 115,000gns by Stephen Hillen and trainer Kevin Ryan - for whom he has made all of his 20 career starts.

Brando has now won seven times, including the Group 3 Abernant Stakes earlier this year and the 2016 running of the Ayr Gold Cup.

But despite his blueblooded pedigree and high-class race record, the five-year-old won't be joining Pivotal's growing number of sire sons, having been gelded after his two-year-old campaign.

View Sunday's results