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The Prix Morny was expected to see Cranford Cliffs prove himself a superstar.  Instead he finished only third behind narrow winner Arcano.  Arcano is now unbeaten in three runs after winning a Newmarket maiden and the Group 2 July stakes also at Newmarket.  His win wasn’t visually impressive and more improvement will be required if he is to be considered a serious Guineas prospect for next year, although the time of the race set a new track record.

 We are still learning about Oasis Dream and Arcarno’s dam Tariysha was unraced. She is by the outstanding performer Daylami who apart from Irish Derby winner Grey Swallow failed to live up to expectations at stud and is now plying his trade in South Africa. It is early days to assess him as a broodmare sire but he is also broodmare sire this Summer of Group winner Summer Fete (by Pivotal). 

Arcarno’s granddam Tarwiya was a very useful filly for John Oxx at both two and three years of age. At two she had eight runs (unusual for a John Oxx inmate), she took five runs to break her maiden but by the end of the season her cv included wins in a Listed race, the Group 3 C.L Weld stakes and a second place in the Group 1 Moyglare stakes.  She failed to win at three but did manage a very respectable third to Marling in the Irish 1000 Guineas. At stud she has produced a few winners but nothing of significance. One of her non-winning daughters Tahara is the dam of Godfrey Street who won a Flying Childers. Given the pedigree, a price of 90,000 Guineas seemed right when Arcano was offered at the Tattersalls October sales. It is a nice balanced pedigree with the only inbreeding being Mill Reef 4×4 and the Northern Dancer 4X5 that appears in Oasis Dream’s pedigree. Given the way Arcarno stayed on to win, connections might be tempted to step him up to 7 furlongs for the Dewhurst or alternatively they may target the Middle Park which his sire won in 2002.

Arcano is the Spanish word for mystery but there is no mystery about the source of his talent. Oasis Dream has been the story of the Summer, producing a multitude of Group winners across a range of distances.  Twelve months ago it was clear that the best sire in Britain was Pivotal followed by Dansili- now Oasis Dream has overtaken Dansili and Pivotal’s position is under threat.  As the table below shows, since the start of July, Oasis Dream has sired the winners of 10 Group races. He has had three Group winning Two year olds (Misheer, Arcarno and Showcasing), Midday and Arcarno were Group 1 winners and Aqlaam and Main Aim were runners up in Group 1’s. It is a remarkable sequence of success and these results were produced from crop fees of £25000 to £30000.  Recession or not, I expect him to stand for c.£60k next year, he has large crops in the pipeline, he seems to work with all sorts of distaff lines and it seems that only premature death can stop him becoming a hugely significant European sire.