Hawk Wing found away from the limelight in South Korea

Whatever happened to Hawk Wing, Coolmore's last winner of the Lockinge Stakes before Rhododendron clung on to land Saturday's Group 1 prize?

The answer is to be found in South Korea, in a spacious paddock at the Korea Racing Authority's stud farm on Jeju Island, where Hawk Wing has been resident since BBA Ireland negotiated his sale in 2008, five years after he topped the International Classifications on a mark of 133, a point ahead of the Arc winner Dalakhani.

On the eve of the 15th anniversary of Hawk Wing’s astonishing 11-length success at Newbury, a party of delegates to the Asian Racing Conference in Seoul visited the Jeju site, but only the more inquisitive discovered Hawk Wing.

While KRA officials enthusiastically shepherded guests to watch local champion sire Menifee achieve a late covering and then paraded five of their nine-strong stallion band, Hawk Wing went unheralded, lost in his own thoughts away from the limelight.

The son of Woodman's chequered stud career at Coolmore, marked by Lucky General's near-million-euro haul from a sales race and Bank Of Burden's 17 wins in Scandinavia, plus a season's shuttle to Australia, has been replicated in Korea.

All started well, and Hawk Wing averaged 80 mares in his first four seasons. However, the figure was halved in 2013 and has been reduced to single digits thereafter.

For each of the last two seasons he has visited just one mare – a far cry from might have been expected from a Group 1 winner at the ages of two, three and four, another feat that Rhododendron achieved at Newbury.

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