Showcasing throws a double six with Dice Roll

A big year for Whitsbury Manor Stud hotshot stallion Showcasing has got off to a spectacular start with one of his sons scorching to a wide-margin success in an important French Classic trial on Monday.

Dice Roll expended little effort in taking up the running a long way from home in the Group 3 Prix Djebel at Deauville but he never came back to the field, and he finished five lengths clear of runner-up Magic Bibou (by Panis) with Batwan (Kendargent) a length and three quarters in third.

Sacred Life, an unbeaten son of Siyouni who had featured prominently in the betting for the 2,000 Guineas, was a disappointing fourth with the trip to Newmarket off the cards.

Dice Roll, trained by Fabrice Chappet for Giacomo Algranti, had won a valuable sales race for graduates of the Arqana October Yearling Sale last September in deep ground and excelled on the heavy going once again in the Djebel, a heat won by Al Wukair, Charm Spirit, Style Vendome, Makfi and Le Havre in recent years.

Read moreStand by for a bold show from Showcasing's upgraded juvenile crop in 2018

He will now head for the Poule d'Essai des Poulains when the contest returns to Longchamp next month.

Showcasing's feat of coming up with a colt with such solid Classic credentials will be particularly pleasing for his supporters as this year's three-year-olds are the last conceived at his cheapest fee of £4,500.

It was later in 2014, when those three-year-olds were bred, that Showcasing announced himself an exciting talent with stakes winners Accipiter, Capella Sansevero and Toocoolforschool among a large haul of winners in his first two-year-old crop.

In the following year, when the two-year-olds of 2018 were conceived, the sire's fee was increased to £15,000.

By way of comparison, Showcasing covered 116 mares in 2014, four of them black-type winners, to produce a crop of 81 foals. As well as Dice Roll, the group includes black-type performers De Bruyne Horse, Out Of The Flames and Shalailah.

In 2015 he was sent 130 mares including 11 black-type winners, which resulted in a crop of 99 foals. The yearling average price for those rose to 85,000gns in 2017, up from 44,000gns in the preceding year.

Showcasing's fee at Whitsbury Manor has since soared higher still, to £35,000 in 2017 and 2018, after being represented by more and more high-class horses including the top sprinters Quiet Reflection and Tasleet.

Dice Roll was bred by the Swiss stud Gestut Zur Kuste and is the fourth foal out of Schlague, a daughter of Pulpit who won over 1m4f in France.

Schlague is out of Si Je N'Avais Plus, a Listed-placed half-sister to Dibenoise, the dam of Group 1 winners Corre Caminos and Recital, and is closely related to smart jumpers L'Unique and Me Voici.

The dam also has a yearling filly by Elusive City and she features among the debut book of mares being covered by European champion Almanzor at Haras d'Etreham this year.

You might infer from Dice Roll's price-tag at Arqana in October 2016 that he is a good-looking sort, as he sold to Amanda Skiffington for €130,000, whereas none of his siblings to have gone through the ring before that had made any more than €28,000.

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