Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee hero Lazzat helps sire on fire Australia notch a notable Royal Ascot Group 1 double

Registering a Group 1 winner at Royal Ascot is a big achievement for any stallion, which makes Australia’s accomplishments this week all the more noteworthy.

The Coolmore resident has enjoyed a highly productive June, as Lambourn’s Derby heroics were followed by the gritty victory of Cercene in Friday’s Coronation Stakes.

And on Saturday Australia showed he is a force to be reckoned with in the female side of the family too, as he was represented as the broodmare sire of Lazzat, who was not for passing in the Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes.

Cercene became the seventh Group/Grade 1 winner sired by Australia, who has spent the most recent covering season at a discounted fee of just €10,000. The filly was bred by the China Horse Club from the Acclamation mare Tschierschen.

There is plenty of Royal Ascot form in the pedigree as not only is Cercene, a €50,000 Crampscastle Bloodstock yearling purchase, a half-sister to 2021 Britannia Stakes scorer Perotto, but her dam is a sibling to the granddam of Queen Anne Stakes hero Accidental Agent.

Australia is the sire of 73 black-type performers, and is also the damsire of a further nine stakes horses.

Lazzat became his first Group 1 scorer as broodmare sire when running away with last year’s Prix Maurice de Gheest, when the son of Territories still raced in the Sumbe silks of his breeder, Nurlan Bizakov. The four-year-old was purchased privately by Wathnan Racing in the lead up to Royal Ascot.

Lazzat might be the only Group 1 winner on Australia’s damsire stats page at present, but he is not the only Group 1 performer.

Australia stood the most recent breeding season at Coolmore for €10,000

Australia has also been represented in this department by the Group 2-winning miler Dancing Gemini, who was below form in the Queen Anne but had previously finished a narrow runner-up to Lead Artist in the Lockinge Stakes.

Godolphin’s star-crossed homebred Ancient Truth was also out of one of Australia’s daughters. The Group 2 Superlative Stakes winner finished a close third in the Dewhurst Stakes in the final outing of his ill-fated four-race career.

Australia was only just inside the top 50 on the British and Irish broodmare sires’ table heading into Saturday. However, with his oldest daughters still only nine, and having covered sizeable books at fees of up to €50,000 earlier in this career, there is every reason to believe we will be hearing much more about his achievements as a damsire over the coming seasons.

The only other stallions to notch a Royal Ascot victory as both sire and broodmare sire were Lope De Vega and Wootton Bassett.

Lope De Vega’s double came during the final few races of the meeting. Son Noble Champion sprang something of a surprise in the Group 3 Jersey Stakes before a much more fancied success from Sober, by Camelot out of the Lope De Vega mare Burma Sea, in the concluding Queen Alexandra Stakes.

Wootton Bassett’s son Carmers maintained his rapid progress to land the Group 2 Queen’s Vase, while Quai De Bethune, by Persian King and out of Wootton Bassett’s daughter Edavanna, struck in the Golden Gates Stakes.