Irish Champion Stakes pedigree preview: Is Onesto the forgotten horse at Leopardstown?

Five winners have gone on to glory in Paris while six have brought up the cross-Channel Champion Stakes double. The roll of honour oozes class. Stallions like Sadler’s Wells and Sea The Stars feature, as well as fabulous fillies and mares including Triptych and Magical (twice).

Oaks winner Ouija Board was a neck second in 2001 and her son Australia filled the same position 13 years on.

Might Broome (Australia) avenge his family and shun the young pretenders? Or perhaps Mishriff will boost his Juddmonte International conqueror Baaeed’s fanbase by getting back to winning ways, in the process righting Vadeni’s wrongs at in the Coral-Eclipse?

Onesto is a son of much-adored Frankel and made it clear the Prix du Jockey Club, where he was fifth to Vadeni, was not his true running when sauntering home in front at Longchamp in the Grand Prix de Paris.

The subscript to this typically deep renewal of the Irish Champion Stakes is seemingly endless. There is Luxembourg on the comeback trail and Stone Age back at the scene of his Derby Trial demolition that propelled him to antepost favouritism for the coveted Epsom Classic.

This is a Group One of monstrous depth, but it is the little French chestnut Onesto who poses the most intrigue.

At this stage if his sire needs an introduction, I would suspect you inhabit somewhere that resembles under a rock.

The reigning champion sire is relishing his most expensive crop of three-year-olds to date with Nashwa, Inspiral, Westover and Homeless Songs heading an accomplished group.

Onesto’s dam Onshore is an unraced daughter of Sea The Stars, who is enjoying a similarly fruitful season, both as a sire and through his daughters as a broodmare sire. As a son of Frankel out of a daughter of Sea The Stars, Onesto is inbred 3 x 3 to Urban Sea, a mare whose achievements really do exceed all the superlatives.

Onshore may have failed to make the track, but her pedigree was such that she still brought 320,000gns at the Tattersalls December Sale when Juddmonte carried out their annual cull. Sent to Frankel for her first mating, the resulting filly, named Lora Padora, was sold for 240,000gns as a yearling. Retired unraced, she went to stud where she produced a filly by leading first crop sire Justify this year.

Onshore’s second foal, a 185,000gns yearling at Tattersalls Book One, was taken Stateside for the spring two year old sales the following year. While 185,000gns is nothing to be sniffed at, it fell markedly below Frankel’s 2020 yearling average of 316,827gns.

The once unassuming little chestnut may have slipped through the net in England, but a :10 flat eighth (10 second furlong breeze) indicated he had the potential to live up to his illustrious pedigree. A bid of $535,000 was required to secure him and Onesto was on his way to Fabrice Chappet in Chantilly.

The diminutive little horse may have failed to turn heads when he came off the box in France, but knowing his pedigree would quickly sort out any misaligned preconceptions. His dam Onshore's half-brother Jet Away (Cape Cross) was a progressive sort, graduating from Listed level in the UK to Group 3 level in Australia.

He returned to Europe for a National Hunt stallion career in Ireland, but rest assured Onesto has done enough to secure his future covering flat mares. Not only is he a Group 1 winner who is seemingly yet to reach his peak, the bottom half of his pedigree is a sight to behold. His grandam Kalima is a daughter of 1988 Derby winner Kahyasi and the High Line mare Kerali. This in turn makes Kalima a full sister to Hasili, one of the great blue hens of the modern era.

Hasili, who was crowned Champion Broodmare in 2006 before her eighth stakes winner was even born, is responsible for no less than five Group One winners. Champion Three Year Old Banks Hill was the first with Classic sire Champs Elysees the fifth.

In between came Breeders’ Cup winner Intercontinental, sire and dual Grade 1 winner Cacique and G1 Beverly D winner Heat Haze, the latter responsible for another Group 1 winning son of Frankel in Mirage Dancer. Hasili’s first foal Dansili (Danehill) is arguably the most famous though he never secured that elusive Group 1.

Though he placed in six Group 1s and was crowned Champion Older Miler in Europe in 2000, he was arguably one of the least accomplished of Hasili’s stakes winners on the track. However, when he retired to his owner breeder Juddmonte’s Banstead Manor, it became clear very quickly he would leave an indelible mark on the breed.

The depth of this family would take hours to dissect. Further down the page is triple Grade 1 winner Leroidesanimaux, sire of Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom.

Featuring as Onesto’s own fourth dam is Joint Champion 2YO filly in Ireland Sookera who won the Group 1 Cheveley Park Stakes. Sookera (Roberto) bred Nunthorpe winner So Factual (Known Fact) who in an unremarkable stud career did manage to sire a blue hen of his own through his daughter Forever Times. Forever Times won six times and is enjoying the exploits of her grandchildren who include Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf winner Newspaperofrecord (Lope de Vega) as well as Irish Derby winner Latrobe (Camelot) to date.

The influence of this family stretches further and wider than Saturday’s hot contest, but at 3.45pm it will be the only one that matters.

2008 Derby winner New Approach (Galileo) emulated his dam, 1986 winner Park Express (Ahonoora), in taking the race and Onesto’s grandsire Sea The Stars was imperious in winning the 2009 renewal. In the absence of Baaeed, it’s a race for the taking and Onesto might be the three year old superstar we are so longing to crown.

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