Third top-level winner for Frankel as Mozu Ascot strikes in Yasuda Kinen

Japan has proved to be a happy hunting ground for dual world champion Frankel as a sire and it proved so again on Sunday when his son Mozu Ascot was a last-gasp winner of the Grade 1 Yasuda Kinen at Tokyo.

In a blanket finish to the mile contest, where a number of horses were in with a chance, it was the Yoshito Yahagi-trained Mozu Ascot who came with a late withering run to get up on the line and deny Aerolithe (a filly by Kurofune) by a neck.

Jane Lyon's Summer Wind Farm bred Mozu Ascot out of the Grade 2-winning Hennessy mare India, who has also produced the Listed-winning sprinter Kareena.

India herself is a half-sister to US stakes winner Pilfer - the dam of Grade 1 winner and young sire To Honor And Serve, Grade 1 heroine Angela Renee and the stakes-winning Elnaawi.

Mozu Ascot is one of two elite level winners for Frankel to emerge in Japan with the other being the talented filly Soul Stirring - who became the first top-level winner for the sire thanks to her victory in the Hanshin Juvenile Fillies in December 2016.

Banstead Manor Stud resident Frankel has now supplied three Group/Grade 1 winners from his first crop with the third of the trio being Cracksman, who added the Coronation Cup to his haul on Friday.

The ten-year-old has now supplied 25 stakes winners overall and is standing this year's breeding season at a career-high fee of £175,000.

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