CACIQUE (IRE)

5 h Danehill - Hasili (IRE) (Kahyasi (IRE))

Owner/Breeder: Juddmonte Farms
Trainer: Bobby Frankel

Cacique's victory at Belmont on Saturday, beating the ex-Dermot Weld inmate Relaxed Gesture and the current Weld star Grey Swallow in a three-way photo finish for the Grade One Manhattan Handicap, created a little piece of breeding history.

Cacique is the fifth foal out of the now 15-year-old Kahyasi mare Hasili who was trained by Alex Pantall to win a Listed race at Nantes as a two-year-old. Hasili can lay claim to be the best broodmare in the world at present.

Her record of producing four Group or Grade One winners from her first five foals (the one 'failure' was Dansili, who was placed in six Group Ones) is certainly unsurpassed and there could well be more still to come.

Cacique's full-brother Dansili - whose record as a sire is becoming more and more credible - was Hasili's first foal. He was a Group Two winner, whose placed efforts included the French 2000 Guineas and Breeders' Cup Mile.

Dansili's year-younger full-sister, Banks Hill, was trained by Andre Fabre to win the Group One Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot and went on to capture the Grade One Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf at Belmont during a glittering career.

Heat Haze, a three-parts sister by Green Desert, collected a pair of Grade Ones in the US, while Intercontinental emulated her full-sibling Banks Hill last year when winning the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare (again at Belmont).

Cacique, a Group Two winner for Fabre in France, looks to have a productive year ahead of him, while his full-brother, Champs Elysees, was beaten five lengths into tenth place behind Darsi in the French Derby but - if emulating his siblings - can be expected to improve with age.

Modern-day great

Hasili's grand-dam, Sookera, who captured the 1977 Cheveley Park Stakes in Robert Sangster's colours, was purchased some 25 years ago by Khalid Abdulla. The product of a mating with High Line, Hasili's dam Kerali was a winner for trainer Jeremy Tree with a Timeform rating of 88.

If Sangster and the Coolmore camp were to subsequently rue Sookera's sale to Abdulla, the positions were reversed when it came to Cacique's sire Danehill.

In late 1989, Coolmore and John Messara's Arrowfield, respectively the dominant breeding groups of the time in Europe and Australasia, paid Abdulla a reported £4 million for the son of Danzig, winner of Haydock's Group One Sprint Cup.

In January 1995, Coolmore bought out Arrowfield's 60 per cent share in Danehill for US$10.2 million, giving the then nine-year-old a valuation of over $18 million. Messara had wanted to rest the stallion in Australia after his fifth season but Coolmore had already sold northern hemisphere nominations.

By the time of Danehill's death during the 2003 covering season, he had firmly established himself as one of the greatest modern-day stallions, a reputation done no harm after his liaisons with the outstanding broodmare Hasili.