By champion sire Frankel from Golden Slipper winner Mossfun, Emirates Park homebred Dajraan is bred in the purple as they say and posted his first Black Type win at Rosehill on Saturday when scoring a dashing victory in the GRoup III ATC Festival Stakes (1500m).
Trained by Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott, Dajraan started his career in the UK where he was born and came to Australia last year with two wins from eight starts.
He won at Warwick Farm in January and then showed some potential in subsequent starts in Group company, but appears a stronger and more settled conveyance this preparation.
Dajraan was primed with two recent trials and raced up on the pace for Tim Clark before kicking on to win by a length and has now won four races with the $2million Ingham (formerly Group II ATC Villiers Stakes (1600m) his target race.
"It was great to win for His Excellency and for Emirates Park,'' Adrian Bott said.
"They have been very patient with this horse and when he came back for the spring we had a few goals for him but he disappointed first-up.
"So, we went back to the drawing board and put together a program that included this race and hopefully now onto The Ingham in two weeks.
"Dajraan is back on track now and has come back a different horse this time in. He's been more settled in his work.
"He has always had a great turn of foot and we were able to see that today because he settled so well.
"Whatever the reason he has returned in a great frame of mind and hopefully he can really go on with it now.
"He's a phenomenally-bred horse and he's still an entire so hopefully there is a lot more to come from him.''
Dajraan is the best of two winners from Golden Slipper winner Mossfun, who started her stud career in the UK for Emirates Park but is now back in Australia.
She has a two year-old filly by I Am Invincible called Mathkhoora that’s has been retained by Emirates Park and given to Team Hawkes, who also prepared her mother Mossfun. She has had one barrier trial finishing second at Randwick last month.
Mossfun has a yearling colt by I Am Invincible that will be offered by Emirates Park at Magic Millions 2023 as Lot 153 and she produced a filly by Capitalist this spring before going to Tassort.
Dajraan is the 106th stakes-winner for champion sire Frankel, who had an Australian stakes double on Saturday with the Yulong bred and owned mare My Whisper winning the Group III MRC Summoned Stakes at Caulfield.
Frankel has had five stakes-winners in Australia this season.
