Trillium provides a notable sales season boost with Molecomb win

Around 24 hours after the catalogue was revealed for next month's Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale, a significant new update will be needed for the printers.

It will come for lot 113, an Iffraaj colt who is a half-brother to Wednesday's Markel Molecomb Stakes winner Trillium and due to be consigned by Highclere Stud on behalf of the Keswick family's Rockcliffe Stud at the event running between August 23 and 24.

Trillium is the latest juvenile Group winner for Coolmore's very much in form stallion No Nay Never, whose 22 individuals to strike at that level also include the recent Prix Robert Papin winner Blackbeard and Little Big Bear, who collected the Anglesey Stakes at the Curragh a day earlier to add to his prize in the Windsor Castle Stakes at Royal Ascot.

View result and watch the replay here

No Nay Never's flagbearer in the older division, the ultra-reliable July Cup winner Alcohol Free, ran a brave race on the same Goodwood card in attempting to defend her Qatar Sussex Stakes title, battling on for third behind the Shadwell phenomenon Baaeed.

Trillium is the third foal out of the Invincible Spirit mare Marsh Hawk, who was a very smart juvenile herself who won twice, finished second in the Dick Poole Stakes at Salisbury and then fourth in the Group 1 Fillies' Mile behind Together Forever in 2014.

Rockcliffe Stud had earlier bought into a Hesmonds Stud family which includes the Queen's top-class Carlton House on the page under Trillium's fourth dam, through Trillium's stakes-placed granddam, Asaawir.

A half-brother to Mohawk King, who had also shown early promise for the Richard Hannon stable before moving Stateside, Trillium has come a long way for the same yard very quickly and only made her racing debut when finishing second in a maiden at this course on June 17.

One win at Newbury later and she showed a striking turn of foot close to the stands' rail under Pat Dobbs on Wednesday, quickening past colts including hot favourite and recent Dragon Stakes winner Rocket Rodney to win in style.

Last year at Goodwood, Rockcliffe's star product, Snow Lantern, was third in the Sussex after landing the Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket. She is famously a Frankel daughter of the brilliant grey 1,000 Guineas and multiple Group 1 winner Sky Lantern.

"It’s absolutely fantastic for the stud, she’s a homebred," said Ed Sackville, a racing and bloodstock adviser to the family.

"They were offered a lot of money for the dam after she won her maiden by seven lengths at Newmarket; she was also a homebred, but the Keswick family turned it down. Thank God they did because they’ve been rewarded with what looks like a very nice, very exciting prospect going forward.

"She'll be a nice broodmare for them too. We’ve still got the mare, she’s young and there's plenty to look forward to with her. The half-brother is for sale at Doncaster; the reserve has just gone up!"

Iffraaj was also an interesting link to another of the day’s winners as his daughter State Occasion maintained her progressive profile in the European Breeders Fund EBF Fillies' Handicap.

Forest Of Dean wins at Glorious Goodwood in 2019 - today it was the turn of his younger sister State OccasionCredit: Mark Cranham (racingpost.com/photos)

Her brother, Forest Of Dean, had been a laughably impressive winner of a valuable handicap at this meeting three years ago and has been seen sporadically since for the John and Thady Gosden stable.

State Occasion is trained, like her dam Forest Crown was, by Ralph Beckett and hails from Car Colston Hall Stud's keynote Wiener Wald family, a branch of which also includes its Group 1 flagbearer Brando and another very fine sprinter in Reckless Abandon.

Beckett said: “Her owners [the Eclipse Partnership] will want me to look for some black type and we will get there eventually. There are a couple of fillies’ Listed races on the Polytrack in the autumn, we might plan that route. I think ten furlongs is her gig, and there is also a race in France.”

Forest Crown, who was stakes-placed on several occasions herself, has provided her Nottinghamshire farm with some six-figure yearlings including a Wootton Bassett colt bought for 200,000gns by SackvilleDonald at Tattersalls Book 1 last October.

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