Dark Angel polishes his halo at Royal Ascot with Group 1 double

One stallion achieved a feat beyond all others at Royal Ascot 2024, siring a Group 1 double that bookended the meeting. The sire in question is Yeomanstown Stud's stalwart source of top-level talent Dark Angel.

His eight-year-old son Khaadem recorded back-to-back successes in the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes for Jim and Fitri Hay and Charlie Hills to embellish Charyn's breakthrough Group 1 success in the opening race of the meeting; the Queen Anne Stakes.

They are two of the 17 individual Group 1 winners Dark Angel has sired and his record at Royal Ascot is exemplary. In addition to Charyn and Khaadem, he has sired Battaash and Lethal Force, who both triumphed at the highest level at the Berkshire venue, and Lethal Force is the sire of Commonwealth Cup winner Golden Horde.

Khaadem is a Yeomanstown Stud homebred for the O'Callaghan family and Charyn is also a family breeding success as the first Group 1 and Royal Ascot winner bred by Guy O'Callaghan's Grangemore Stud.

The elder of the two by four years, Khaadem is a full-brother to Listed Two-Year-Old Trophy winner Log Out Island who was runner-up at Royal Ascot in the Norfolk Stakes. They are the best two winners of the four Dark Angel foals to have raced out of White Daffodil, a winning Footstepsinthesand half-sister to Listed Carnarvon Stakes winner Lady Links, dam of Oh So Sharp Stakes winner Selinka who has produced the Group 3 winner Hit The Bid.

The family has enjoyed success at the Royal meeting too as Cork and Orrery Stakes winner and sire Bold Edge is a half-brother to White Daffodil's dam Sparky Song.

Khaadem and Oisin Murphy winning the Queen Elizabeth II Jubille StakesCredit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

Khaadem was sold by Yeomanstown Stud to Shadwell for 750,000gns at Book 1 and his two-year-old full-sister Daffodil Day is in training with Clive Cox for Hot To Trot Racing and Yeomanstown Stud, helping to raise awareness and funds for the Irish Cancer Society.

Charyn also has a two-year-old full-sister and she was sold by Grangemore Stud to Nurlan Bizakov, who owns Charyn, for 850,000gns at Tattersalls last October. His Sumbe organisation had purchased Charyn for 250,000gns two years previously and is the second Group 1-winning son of Dark Angel that Bizakov has raced.

Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere and Criterium International winner Angel Bleu, out of a full-sister to Highland Reel, Cape Of Good Hope and Idaho retired to Sumbe's french base at Haras de Montfort et Preaux for the 2024 season.

For good measure Dark Angel is also the broodmare sire of one of the meeting's most spectacular winners; Bedtime Story whose triumph in Saturday's Chesham Stakes eclipsed that of stable companion Fairy Godmother in Friday's Albany Stakes. Coolmore's homebred Frankel filly also replaced Fairy Godmother at the head of ante-post lists for next season's 1,000 Guineas.

Bedtime Story is the fifth foal out of Mecca's Angel, who won the Nunthorpe Stakes for Michael Dods in 2015 and 2016 and is the third winner Mecca's Angel has produced for Coolmore. 

Her three-year-old Galileo filly Content won the Group 3 Staffordstown Stud Stakes at the Curragh last October while her first foal, Hudson River by Galileo won a two-year-old maiden on debut.

Mecca's Angel is a full-sister to Group 3 Criterion and Chipchase Stakes winner Markaz and the mare were bred by Yeomanstown Stud and Doc Bloodstock out of the Listed Lansdown Fillies’ Stakes second Folga by Atraf.

More bloodstock stories from Royal Ascot

Inisherin maintains stellar family record as Shamardal claims another Group 1 from his final crop 

O'Brien family's joy as Porta Fortuna cements Royal Ascot breeding double in Coronation Stakes