The Last Lion shows Stack is not just a top-notch trainer

Tommy Stack’s retirement naturally evokes memories of Red Rum, whom he partnered to Grand National victory in 1977, as well as his Classic-winning fillies Las Meninas and Tarascon. But, like plenty others in the training game, he also dipped his toe into racehorse breeding, and did so with great success.

The Last Lion, whose brave win in Saturday’s Middle Park Stakes came just a day before Stack announced his retirement from training, is the second Group 1-winning two-year-old within the past three years to boast a connection to the Stack family following The Wow Signal, the Prix Morny and Coventry Stakes winner of 2014. While The Wow Signal was bred solely by Liz Stack out of Muravka, The Last Lion was bred in partnership with Barronstown Stud, themselves in the midst of a purple patch thanks to fellow Pattern scorers Simple Verse and Toulifaut. Incidentally, both horses boast a connection to Choisir - The Last Lion is a ninth Group 1 winner by the stallion, now a permanent resident in Australia, while The Wow Signal was one of the first good horses sired by his son Starspangledbanner, whose early years at stud were beset by fertility problems.

One of the most admirable campaigners of the season, The Last Lion has been true to type in that he descends from a family noted for its two-year-old success. His sixth dam, for example, is Ballisland, the joint champion two-year-old filly of 1948 by virtue of wins in the Cherry Hinton Stakes and Seaton Delaval Plate.