The bloodlines of Starspangledbanner and So You Think, two horses once separated by less than five lengths in a Caulfield Guineas, have combined to produce the winner of the Group 1 Prix De Jean Prat in France and continue the excellent run of Australasian-bred stallions in the country.
Just seven days after Pride Of Dubai’s star son Dubai Honour won the Group 1 Grand Prix De Saint Cloud, Puchkine, a three-year-old colt by Starspangledbanner, claimed the Jean Prat in an upset victory.
Trained by Jean Claude Rouge, Puchkine, an Irish-homebred for French breeder Alain Jathiere, was an emphatic winner of the Group 1 contest over 1400 metres, a race previously won by Thunder Snow in 2017, who was also an Irish-bred son of another Caulfield Guineas winner in Helmet.
Puchkine is out of Vadyska, a mare by So You Think, giving that Colmore stallion just his second Group 1 winner as a broodmare sire. The first was Golden Slipper winner Fireburn.
Starspangledbanner’s Northern Hemisphere record continues to build and he now has seven Group 1 winners bred from Coolmore’s Irish base, plus one from Australia. It is his fourth Group 1 success as a stallion in France, and his third at Deauville.
Three of his eight elite winners are out of mares either by High Chaparral, or, in the case of Puchkine, out of mares by one of his sons. That is Starspangledbanner’s most prolific nick, with 19 winners out of High Chaparral mares.
Puchkine is from an extended family which has also produced Australian stakes winners Leebaz, Polish Knight, Zebrowski, Euroa Angel and Mr Mozart.
And the possibility of more success awaits Puchkine this campaign.
“Having won one Group 1, I want to win another so we’ll be back here in a month for the Prix Maurice de Gheest. He’ll be up against the older horses, but he has so much speed,” Jathiere told reporters.
Both foaled in 2006, Starspangledbanner and So You Think only met once on the track, when Starspangledbanner won the 2009 Caulfield Guineas and So You Think was an unlucky fifth.
Both would go on to international success on the racetrack and in the stallion barn after being acquired by Coolmore.
Starspangledbanner won the Golden Jubilee and July Cup for Aidan O’Brien, while So You Think won a host of Group 1 races in Ireland for the same stable.
Starspangledbanner has overcome early career fertility issues to become a tremendously consistent producer of stakes horses in both hemispheres, with 42 stakes winners in all, 31 from his base in Ireland.
So You Think had three crops in Ireland, but ceased shuttling there in 2015. In contrast to Starspangledbanner, his primary success has come with his Australian-bred crops, which have contributed 52 of his 56 stakes winners.
Last week, another one-time Coolmore shuttler Pride Of Dubai, was to the fore when his European flagbearer Dubai Honour won the Group 1 Grand Prix De Saint Cloud, his fourth elite success, two of which have come in Australia.
