The Lion Sleeps but Pride Lingers

On this weekend six years ago Roaring Lion got the better of Saxon Warrior (Jpn) to win the G1 Coral-Eclipse Stakes by a neck. This was a truly golden era for John Gosden's stable, with Enable (GB), Stradivarius (Ire), Cracksman (GB) and Too Darn Hot (GB) among Roaring Lion's fellow residents at Clarehaven. 

Saxon Warrior had been the only horse to beat Qatar Racing's Roaring Lion in an otherwise spotless juvenile campaign. After winning the G2 Royal Lodge Stakes, Roaring Lion was second to the Ballydoyle star – who would end up a Guineas winner – in the G1 Racing Post Trophy. 

The reversal in the Eclipse heralded the start of a glorious run of four Group 1 victories for Roaring Lion, which took the son of Kitten's Joy to York for the Juddmonte International, to Leopardstown for the Irish Champion Stakes and then Ascot, where, in the colours of Qatar Racing, he won the Queen Elizabeth Stakes on a big day for his owner's Qipco sponsorship brand. 

The Breeders' Cup Classic at Churchill Downs just a few weeks later proved a bridge too far but nonetheless Roaring Lion retired to Tweenhills Farm & Stud as one of the most exciting stallion prospects of 2019. Tweenhills owner David Redvers could see his grey head each morning from his kitchen window and he would hand-walk him daily in preparation for the covering season ahead. It was hard not to feel Redvers's pain when, after just one season in Gloucestershire, Roaring Lion succumbed to colic not long after arriving in New Zealand for his first shuttling stint.

It is too fanciful to think that Roaring Lion could follow the example of one-crop wonder Dubai Millennium (GB) in leaving a son as influential as Dubawi (Ire). But he is already represented by a stallion son in Dubai Mile, bred by Lady O'Reilly's Skymarc Farm and his sole Group 1 winner to date. The flashy chestnut  landed the Criterium de Saint-Cloud in 2022 after finishing second in the G2 Royal Lodge Stakes, and was later fifth and ninth in the 2,000 Guineas and Derby. He has just covered his first book of mares at Manton Park Stud.

Roaring Lion's top female performer is David Howden's homebred Running Lion (GB), the recent winner of G2 Duke of Cambridge Stakes at Royal Ascot, taking her tally to five. Trained by John and Thady Gosden, she was bred at Tweenhills, as was Running Lion and another of the sire's Pattern winners, the G3 Lester Piggott Fillies' Stakes heroine Queen Of The Pride (GB), who is a leading fancy for Saturday's G2 Lancashire Oaks. 

At Haydock it will also be worth paying attention to the Aga Khan-bred Sheradann (Fr), who won three in a row last year for Francis Graffard and was bought for €250,000 by Stephen Hillen for Fitri Hay. He makes his first start for 266 days in the competitive Old Newton Cup alongside another treble winner for the sire, Iron Lion (GB).

In similar vein is another Tweenhills/Qatar production, Middle Earth (GB), who took the important Melrose Handicap last year before winning the Listed Noel Murless Stakes and returning at four to win the G3 Aston Park Stakes. Qatar Bloodstock owns the colt in partnership with Ciaron Maher, who will eventually take over training duties from the Gosdens and reportedly has designs on the Melbourne Cup.

On the eve of this year's Eclipse at Sandown, a timely reminder of Roaring Lion was provided by his grey son Lion's Pride (GB), who took third in the Listed Gala Stakes in the hands of Kieran Shoemark. From a terrific Hascombe & Valiant Studs family and trained, as his sire was, at Clarehaven, Lion's Pride is a half-brother to Gold Cup winner Courage Mon Ami (GB) (Frankel {GB}).  A consistent performer, he is already a black-type winner and has finished in the first three on each of his starts.

Embesto (GB) meanwhile represents Sheikh Ahmed Al Maktoum and Roger Varian and made an eye-catching start last year when winning a maiden and a novice race and later dead-heating with Mighty Ulysses (GB) in the G3 Sovereign Stakes. He looks set to reappear at Glorious Goodwood, while Newmarket's July meeting this coming week could feature the aforementioned Running Lion and Middle Earth.

From 107 foals on the ground from that lone crop, Roaring Lion has to date had 88 runners and 51 individual winners. Ten of those have earned black type, and he has 6.8 per cent stakes winners to runners. That record will only improve so far, but with some unexposed staying types among his offspring we may yet see another stakes winner or two emerge.

Will he leave a lasting legacy at stud? Probably not. But for those of us lucky enough to have watched Roaring Lion at the races during that special summer, or from time to time at exercise on Newmarket Heath, he leaves a memorable impression, not to mention the regret that he was gone far too soon.