Pedigree Pointers: The King reigns after Persian sinks Pinatubo in Prix du Moulin

After four straight Group One victories over a mile in what was an almost unblemished racing career, the most expensive individual to retire to stud in 2015 was none other than Kingman.

His sole defeat, and a narrow one at that, came at the hands of the current second-season-sire sensation Night Of Thunder in the 2000 Guineas. Tables upon whom Kingman later turned in the St James’s Palace Stakes.

And this third-season-sire is proving himself just as much of a sensation. Although we are only experiencing Kingman’s third crop of juveniles, his progeny are continuing to cement him within the upper echelons of the European stallion ranks.

Sunday saw Persian King, Kingman’s first winner at the highest level, reaffirm both his own and his sire’s stature. While immediately afterwards on the same card in Paris another son of Kingman, Chachnak, added a second Group Three win to his CV when taking the Prix du Prince d’Orange.

One would have to be forgiven for underestimating Persian King prior to Sunday’s showdown of Europe’s top milers.

The form of his final start as a juvenile alluded to potential future brilliance (he beat Magna Grecia and Circus Maximus in the Group Three Autumn Stakes at Newmarket), but until last month, even though a dual Group One winner, Persian King had not finished in front of any other European Group One winner.

Three weeks ago he did manage to finish ahead of Classic winner Romanised in the Prix Jacques Le Marois, but was still well beaten by Palace Pier, Alpine Star and Circus Maximus.

Citing unsuitable ground in that equation, Persian King finally lived up to how good we thought he could be on Sunday. Reigniting his appeal, he decisively took a third top-level win in style in the Prix du Moulin, beating the heavyweight field of five multiple Group One winners and three Classic winners.

The €154,000 of winnings that Persian King collected on Sunday added to the progeny earnings keeping Kingman in first place on the third-season-sire leader board. In fact, he is also the leading sire of winners, Stakes winners, Group winners and Group One winners (two, also Palace Pier) within that group.

The only category that Kingman is not leading is “number of Group One performers”, in which he has just three compared to No Nay Never and Australia with six apiece.

His tally of Group winners so far is at the figure of twelve and there are two notable trends amongst them.

Kingman himself is out of the Mr Prospector line mare, Zenda. And remarkably, eight of his twelve Group winning children are also out of Mr Prospector line mares.

Four of Kingman’s best progeny in fact – Palace Pier, Headman, Calyx and Fearless King are all out of such mares (Fearless King actually has a Mr Prospector line dam and grandam).

The second note is Danzig. Kingman is a great-grandson of Danzig and five of his twelve Group winners are out of Danzig line mares.

Two of the Group winners overlap and are out of mares that have got both Mr Prospector and Danzig in their immediate bloodlines - Sunday’s Chachnak and Group Three winner and Group One-placed Sangarius.

Only one of Kingman’s Group winners is not out of a Mr Prospector or Danzig line mare and that is the Group Three winning filly Boomer (Sadler’s Wells line).

So, Persian King?

Persian King is just the second foal out of winning Dylan Thomas mare Pretty Please and therefore represents the latter Danzig statistic, thus being inbred 4x4 to the breed-shaping sire.

It is quite the female family. Pretty Please is a three-part sister to Group One Prix Ganay winner Planteur, who also won four other Stakes races and placed second in the French Derby to Lope De Vega as well as six other placings at the highest level.

The dam of Planteur, Pretty Please and their Stakes winning half-sister Pilote d’Essai, is then a half-sister to the four-time Group Two winner, Policy Maker. That son of Sadler’s Wells also placed four times at Group One level and is the sire of the Willie Mullins star two-mile chaser, Chacun Pour Soi.

This is the family of Group One producing and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe and French Derby winning Peintre Celebre, with staying millionaire Stradivarius featuring further back in the fifth generation.

And with the Champion Stakes and Arc potential next targets for this son of miler Kingman and grandson of sprinter Invincible Spirit, this is the type of family we need to see.

Persian King has stretched out as far as 10 furlongs only once in his career to date and he was beaten two lengths by Sottsass on that occasion in the French Derby.

But his dam Pretty Please’s sole win from only two starts was over 10½ furlongs and Planteur’s Ganay win was over 10½ while he was also less than a length second in the mile-and-a-half Grand Prix de Paris before being disqualified in the Arc. All of Policy Maker’s four Group Two wins were over the Arc distance.

Peintre Celebre and Stradivarius speak for themselves.

Regardless of a potential future win at an extended distance which Andre Fabre seems confident about, Persian King is still a triple Group One winner by one of the hottest young sires in Europe, from the family of several legends. But the prospect is certainly exciting now.