Mirage Dancer becomes 20th Group winner for world champion Frankel

Mirage Dancer became Frankel’s 20th Group winner from just three crops of racing age when running away with the opening Group 3 Glorious Stakes at Goodwood on Friday.

Already a Listed winner over course and distance, the four-year-old added further glory to the already incredible record of his second dam, Juddmonte’s blue hen Hasili, who died earlier this year.

Sent off the 6-5 favourite under Ryan Moore to step up from his second place in the Group 2 Princess Of Wales’s Stakes at Newmarket last time out, Mirage Dancer took the lead and command of the race with two furlongs to run and galloped out strongly to claim victory from the Lemon Drop Kid entire Red Verdon.

Race result, replay and analysis

Trained by Sir Michael Stoute for Prince Khalid Abdullah’s operation, Mirage Dancer is from the first crop of Juddmonte’s unbeaten world champion Frankel. That crop has produced Group 1 winners Soul Stirring, Cracksman and Mozu Ascot and 15 Group winners in total.

Frankel’s second crop includes Group 1 St James’s Palace Stakes winner Without Parole, who lost his unbeaten record at Goodwood earlier in the week, and Group 2 winner Rostropovich, second in the Irish Derby on his most recent run.

Mirage Dancer embodies the best of Juddmonte’s bloodlines combining Frankel’s genes with those of Heat Haze. The daughter of Green Desert won two Grade 1s when trained in America by Bobby Frankel – the Beverly D Stakes at Arlington and Hollywood Park’s Matriarch Stakes.

At stud Heat Haze is the dam of three winners, with her five-year-old Dubawi entire Forge third in the Grade 1 Maker’s 46 Mile Stakes at Keeneland earlier this year. His full-sister Radiator was placed at Listed and Group 2 level when trained by Sir Michael Stoute.

Heat Haze has a two-year-old colt by Dubawi and a yearling full-brother to Mirage Dancer and returned to Frankel last year.

She boasts one of the best families in the book as a daughter of Hasili who produced four Group 1 winners at stud and is the dam of Juddmonte’s recently retired top-class stallion Dansili, who was a Group 2 winner on the track but has sired 21 individual Group or Grade 1 winners.

Heat Haze is a three-parts sister to Dansili, three-times Grade 1 winner and sire Champs Elysees, three times Group 1 winning miler Banks Hill, Cacique who struck twice at the top level, as did Intercontinental, and all by Danehill.

Cacique and Champs Elysees have both sired Group 1 winners at stud and Intercontinental is the dam of Group 1 Prix Jean Romanet winner Romantica by Frankel’s sire Galileo.

Speaking after watching Mirage Dancer’s impressive success Lord Grimthorpe suggested that the four-year-old colt could be on his travels with the Melbourne Cup or Grade 1s in Canada mentioned as potential targets.

If you are interested in this, you should read:

Hasili: a meeting with a true legend of the breed