Plucked from a claimer, the most obscurely bred Oaks winner imaginable

Chad Brown is lauded as America’s king of the turf, receiving prodigious European talents including Stacelita and Flintshire and helping them to flourish in another continent.

There have been plenty of others, such as Newspaperofrecord and Sistercharlie, but few will have had as obscure a back story as his latest big-race winner Shantisara, who landed the Jockey Club Oaks Invitational at Belmont last Saturday.

Even on initial evidence, she would be considered an unlikely recruit to the New Yorker's stable. A daughter of Coulsty, who was standing for €4,000 at Rathasker Stud at the time of the filly’s conception, she edged out another from her own barn from the opposite end of the price and pedigree spectrum in Higher Truth, sired by the redoubtable Galileo and who cost 500,000gns at Tattersalls Book 1.