Pedigree Pointers: Cassie Tully introduces us to Group One winning juvenile Lucky Vega

When demolishing the Keeneland Phoenix Stakes on Sunday, Lucky Vega became the first juvenile Group One winner of 2020.

So, who is he?

Bred by Kilcarn Stud, the €110,000 foal pin-hook purchased by Yulong Investments as a yearling for €175,000 is a son of Lope De Vega out of the unraced Cape Cross mare Queen of Carthage.

Is there anything drastically significant here? Well, let’s begin with the damsire Cape Cross.

The late Darley sire is a fascinating subject who never quite settled at the upper echelons of the stallion ranks in terms of a consistent quantity of top-level produce.

But those top-level winners that he did sire, well, no amount of superlatives can quite describe their impact on the racecourse.

Sea The Stars, Ouija Board, Golden Horn. Not your average Group One winners to say the least.

And with regards to the broodmare sire realm, parallels can be drawn and Cape Cross is well respected in this field. He is the broodmare sire of 37 individual Group winners, a figure which contains 11 top-flight scorers. Nothing to be snuffed at of course, but his percentage of Group performers leaves him just a touch below the heavyweights of Galileo and Pivotal.

Quality of produce is key, however.

Daughters of Cape Cross have produced triple Group One and dual Derby hero Australia, the five-time Group One winning filly Laurens, dual Group One winner Serious Attitude, 2018 Epsom Derby hero Masar. And now this year, not only was he in the broodmare sire spotlight for another Derby descendant when Santiago took the Irish Classic in June, but now for a six-furlong juvenile Group One winner.

Nearly all of Cape Cross’s top progeny as a broodmare sire are multiple Group One performers. No pressure.

Onto Lope De Vega, the sire of our latest racecourse star.

Lope De Vega was the first top level winner for his sire Shamardal, whom he emulated by winning both the French Guineas and French Derby.

He is notably inbred 3x3 to the dual Group One winning juvenile and Group One producing sire, Machiavellian and since retiring to Ballylinch Stud in 2011 at a fee of €15,000, Lope De Vega has gone from strength to strength.

Dewhurst winner Belardo emerged from his first crop of juveniles, adding to the tally that gave his father leading-first-season-sire status.

And after Belardo’s feats in 2014, Lope De Vega’s fee hiked to €40,000. A figure which has reached the six-digit sum of €100,000 for 2020 due to a number of top performers in the interim.

Of Lope De Vega’s 28 Group winners in the Northern Hemisphere, sixteen of them won Group races as two-year-olds. Four of them at the highest level – The aforementioned Belardo, Capla Temptress who won the Grade One Natalma Stakes at Woodbine in the States, Newspaperofrecord the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies’ Turf winner, and our horse in question, Sunday’s Phoenix Stakes hero, Lucky Vega.

But he also has a Classic winner in the Irish 2000 Guineas, Phoenix of Spain. And both Belardo and Newspaperofrecord went on to add another Group One to their tallies as four-year-olds.

The Right Man and Zabeel Prince were top flight winners for their sire at five and six years old respectively. The Right Man winning the Meydan Al Quoz Sprint and Zabeel Prince winning the Prix d’Ispahan at ParisLongchamp.

Two-year-olds, Classic horses and elders. Fillies and colts, no bias. No qualms here.

A side-note to point out with Lope De Vega, however, is his particular affinity to Danzig line mares and especially with Danehill.

Of Lope De Vega’s 28 Northern Hemisphere Group winners, 14 of them are out of Danzig line mares (including five of his eight Group One winners).

That is exactly 50%, and even more specifically, eight of those fourteen Group winners are out of mares by Danehill or sons of Danehill.

Lucky Vega is yet another representative of this statistic, although he is a product of the Green Desert branch of Danzig rather than the Danehill branch.

Two of the previous Danzig line Group winners were from this branch, but Lucky Vega is the first out of a Cape Cross mare (there was one Listed winner, She Is No Lady).

Queen Of Carthage, the Cape Cross mare.

Quite the substantial percentage of Lucky Vega’s genes come from this mare and her female family, so we most definitely will not give the male lines all of the credit.

As mentioned, Queen Of Carthage did not race herself, but she is a daughter of the Group One Prix de l’Opera and dual Group Two winning mare, Satwa Queen.

Lucky Vega is the sixth foal and third winner out of his dam, and the first to gain black-type. Although, Queen of Carthage’s first foal, Lady Clair, did place fourth in the Group Two Lowther Stakes at York.

She is a three-part sister to Listed winner Important Time, the only Stakes performer out of Satwa Queen, who herself is a half-sister to a fellow French Group One scorer Spadoun and Listed scorer Anbella. The latter whom is the grandam of Gussy Mac, the son of Dark Angel who won the Listed Dragon Stakes at Sandown on his third career start in July this year.

The family stems further back to the Group Three winning mare Light of Realm, whose daughters have branched to produce USA Grade One winner Desert Blanc and this year’s 2000 Guineas runner up Wichita, as well as Group One Prix du Cadran winner Mille et Mille in another branch.

Many of the significant performers in Lucky Vega’s pedigree are relatively recent and the importance of this particular Group One winner in Europe today cannot be overstated due to the fact that he is completely free of both Sadler’s Wells and Danehill bloodlines.

Lucky Vega’s grandfather Shamardal and paternal half-brother Belardo both won the Dewhurst before going on to their further Group One successes.

Wherever he goes next, we will be watching.