Breakthrough Group winner for Slade Power as Raffle Prize lands Queen Mary

Slade Power supplied his first black-type winner at Royal Ascot on Wednesday when his second-crop daughter Raffle Prize wore down the Wesley Ward-trained Kimari to claim the Group 2 Queen Mary Stakes.

The Mark Johnston-trained filly was bred by Godolphin and carried the colours of Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum, the son of Sheikh Mohammed. She joins the likes of Lady Aurelia, Attraction and Blue Duster on the five furlong contest's roll of honour.

The result is a welcome shot in the arm for the stallion profile of Slade Power, who began his second career at Kildangan Stud at a fee of €20,000 in 2015. Having failed to supply an all-important headline talent such as Raffle Prize in his first crop, he stood the latest breeding season at just €7,500.

Slade Power at the Darley stallion parade at Dalham Hall StudCredit: Edward Whitaker

Raffle Prize is one of 30 winners sired by Slade Power, whose other stakes performers are the Group 3-placed Bruce Wayne and the Listed-placed pair Strings Of Life and Jack's Point.

Royal Ascot success runs deep through Raffle Prize's male line, as Slade Power beat Due Diligence to land the 2014 Diamond Jubilee Stakes and he is by Dutch Art, who won the 2006 Norfolk Stakes. Dutch Art is in turn a son of Medicean, who landed the 2001 Queen Anne Stakes.

Raffle Prize is the sixth foal out of Summer Fete, another Darley homebred whose own racing career was capped by winning the Group 3 Oak Tree Stakes. Raffle Prize is the best of four winners produced by Summer Fete, who also has a yearling filly by Exceed And Excel in the pipeline.

Pivotal: increasingly influential as a broodmare sireCredit: Edward Whitaker

If a change of fortunes was needed for Slade Power, the same cannot be said of Pivotal's broodmare sire reputation, as Raffle Prize is just the latest example of the talents his daughters possess as producers.

The Cheveley Park Stud stalwart was crowned champion broodmare sire for the first time in 2018, and has been in red-hot form again in that department this season, having been represented by the likes of Coronation Cup scorer Defoe, dual 1,000 Guineas heroine Hermosa and Tattersalls Gold Cup victress Magical, who also finished runner-up in the Prince of Wales's Stakes.

Raffle Prize is bred on an extension of the Dutch Art-Pivotal cross that has already produced horses such as Baccarat, Mabs Cross and Zonderland. A variation of that nick is also responsible for another Cheveley Park Stud resident in Garswood, who is by Dutch Art and out of a mare by Kyllachy, a stallion son of Pivotal.

More Royal Ascot news:

A pedigree in pictures: Circus Maximus becomes Galileo's 78th Group 1 winner

Queen's Vase hero Dashing Willoughby has a pedigree full of pertinence

Another Group 1 gelding and Scat Daddy's legacy: day one breeding angles