Hasili's (pictured) most recent addition to the training ranks, Raise The Flag, could not be more perfectly named. The offspring of Juddmonte's incomparable broodmare have constantly hoisted the union flag over foreign soil and once again it flutters proudly in the USA, where Champs Elysees has added yet another Grade One victory to the record of this excellent family, writes Emma Berry.
The five-year-old's half-length win over Obrigado in the Hollywood Turf Cup Stakes on Saturday takes his own Stakes record to two at the highest level in North America this year - his other Grade One victory coming in the Northern Dancer Breeders' Cup Turf Stakes over the border at Woodbine - plus a score in the G2 San Marcos Stakes and last year's win in the G3 Prix d'Hedouville at Longchamp when still trained by Andre Fabre. Like his full siblings Intercontinental, Cacique and Banks Hill, and half-sister Heat Haze, Champs Elysees started life with France's master trainer before switching to an equally adept handler, the New Yorker Bobby Frankel. It is an arrangement that works well. Hasili's children have amassed 11 Group or Grade One wins between them - nine of which have been in the US or Canada. Only Banks Hill has secured top-flight wins in Europe, in the Coronation Stakes at Royal Ascot and the Prix Jacques le Marois at Deauville.
Among Hasili's six Stakes-winning offspring, only Dansili has no G1 tag next to his name, his best win coming in the G2 Prix Muguet as a four-year-old. He has, however, more than made up for this omission from his race record by becoming one of the hottest young sires in Europe. He stands alongside Cacique at Banstead Manor Stud in Newmarket and the brothers have recently been joined by Dansili's Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe winner Rail Link.
Dansili's daughter Price Tag won the G1 Matriarch Stakes in 2006 - a race which was plundered by the family three years in a row, his sisters Intercontinental and Heat Haze winning the previous renewals. Two of his sons, Rail Link and Zambezi Sun, have claimed the G1 Grand Prix de Paris and the British-trained Passage Of Time became his first juvenile Group One winner when landing the Criterium de Saint Cloud in 2006. Her success caused another banner to be raised, this time the coat of arms of her trainer Henry Cecil, whose custom it is to fly the flag above his Warren Place stables after each Group One win.
Not only does Fabre currently have Raise The Flag, Hasili's three-year-old son of Sadler's Wells, in his care but this season he has also trained Ideal World, a colt of the same age by Kingmambo out of Banks Hill. Ideal World has garnered black type for another subset of the family, winning the Listed Prix Pelleas at Compiegne before being nosed out by Prix du Jockey-Club winner Vision d'Etat in the G2 Prix Niel at Longchamp. Raise The Flag has not been so highly tried: just one run to date saw him finish sixth in a Longchamp condition race in April, but it is a family that improves with age as do the stock of his sire, so let's hope there's more to come from the colt.
Now 17, Hasili was a four-time winner herself, including landing the Listed Prix des Sablonnets, but it is through her outstanding produce record that her name has been well and truly etched into thoroughbred breeding folklore. Heat Haze is the only one of her Stakes winners not by Danehill, though she is by fellow Danzig stallion Green Desert. It is to this line that Hasili will return next year: her planned partner for 2009 is Green Desert's superb sprinting son Oasis Dream, whose mating with Hasili's full-sister Arrive resulted in the Group Three winner Visit, who continued the family's association with the Matriarch Stakes when running third to Cocoa Beach on 30 November.
In the interim, during a sojourn in the US she has visited Storm Cat, and has a yearling filly by the now pensioned doyen of the American stallion scene. Hasili was not covered in 2008 but has a filly foal on the ground by another of Prince Khalid Abdullah's homegrown stallions, Empire Maker. The 2003 Belmont Stakes winner is the product of Juddmonte's equally impressive matriarch, Toussaud, the dam of Stakes-winners Chester House, Honest Lady, Chiselling and Decarchy. The fusion of these two great families is truly a prospect to savour.
