Delve into the unlikely breeding of Sea The Stars' latest Group 1 winner

Sea The Stars added a 13th Group 1 winner to his already top-class stud record on Saturday when his son Fifty Stars came with an irresistible late run to claim the Australian Cup at Flemington by half a length.

Regal Power, one of six elite winners by Coolmore Australia's rising star Pierro, was back in second, with Melbourne Cup hero Vow And Declare, a son of Declaration Of War, a further three-quarters of a length away in third.

Although Fifty Stars became Sea The Stars' first top-flight winner in Australia, the five-year-old entire was in fact bred in Ireland by Airlie Stud.

He was offered by his breeder at Book 2 of the Tattersalls October Yearling Sale, where John Foote went to 110,000gns to secure him on behalf of southern hemisphere-based connections.

Fifty Stars, who is from Sea The Stars' fifth crop, boasts a fairly unusual pedigree for an Australian Group 1 winner, as he is a half-brother to Willie Mullins' Grade 1-winning novice hurdler Whiskey Sour, a son of the much-missed Jeremy.

The pair are out of Swizzle Stick, an unraced Sadler's Wells half-sister to Viztoria, winner of the Group 2 Park Stakes at three and a daughter of the Italian Listed scorer Viz, who was also bred by Airlie Stud and raced by the nursery's owner Sonia Rogers.

Fifty Stars is the second Group 1 winner by Sea The Stars out of a Sadler's Wells mare, joining Oaks and King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes heroine Taghrooda.

The cross has been responsible for five other stakes winners, including Group 2 scorers Knight To Behold, winner of the Prix Guillaume d'Ornano, Oleander Rennen victor Raa Atoll and Storm The Stars, who claimed the Great Voltigeur and finished third in Golden Horn's Derby.

Other Group 1 winners sired by Sea The Stars include the likes of Crystal Ocean, Harzand, Star Catcher and champion stayer Stradivarius. The son of Cape Cross and Urban Sea, who won six consecutive Group 1s during an exceptional three-year-old season, is standing at the Aga Khan's Gilltown Stud at a fee of €150,000.

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