Colt retained unbeaten record in Irish 2000 Guineas
Siskin (3 c First Defence - Bird Flown by Oasis Dream) - one of the most exciting juvenile colts of last season - preserved his unbeaten record with an extraordinary victory in the Irish 2,000 Guineas (Gr 1, 1m), providing trainer Ger Lyons and jockey Colin Keene with their first Classic success.
The colt came into his Classic season with a perfect record which included a win in the Phoenix Stakes (Gr 1, 6f), with the only blemish coming when he was scratched before the Middle Park Stakes (Gr 1, 6f) after being unruly in the stalls.
After racing near the rear throughout the contest, Keene searched furiously for a gap with two furlongs left to travel. After angling the son of First Defence (Unbridled’s Song) through, what looked like the eye of a needle, the colt showed a blistering turn of foot to beat the Aidan O'Brien-trained Vatican City (Galileo) by a length and three-quarters, while his stablemate Lope Y Fernandez (Lope De Vega) was a further quarter of a length further back in third.
Owned and bred by Juddmonte Farms - who were celebrating their second victory in the Group 1, with brilliant colt Kingman (Invincible Spirit) having carried their famous colours to victory in the 2014 edition of the Irish Classic.
"This means everything, it means 30 years' hard graft for everybody - to win a Guineas was always my number one and hopefully it's the first of many,” an emotional Lyons told Racing TV.
"I'm delighted with the support we are getting from owners and the quality has increased year on year.
"That was hard work and full credit to Colin Keane. You don't get a Guineas handed to you and they both stood up when it was needed. If there was a kink in that horse then he wasn't going to go through that gap.
"Colin is the best there is at the minute. He's only a kid and he's going to keep improving.
"I also want to thank Khalid Abdullah, who is watching in Paris I'm sure. They are the ultimate breeders.
"I was worried about this horse's trip around February and March, but when we went into lockdown then I was confident that the trip wasn't an issue. If we were a sprinter then we were in trouble because we weren't quick enough.
"He's a very easy horse to train and no question he's the best I've trained.”
Lyons said the colt would swerve next week’s Royal Ascot and now be aimed at the Sussex Stakes (Gr 1, 1m) the Glorious Goodwood meeting.
"We'll probably go to Goodwood next for the Sussex, but I want to keep Colin on him and hopefully the 14 days (quarantine) will be gone by then. We are definitely skipping Ascot,” said Lyons.
"We'll have a chat about it, but that was the plan providing he was good enough today.
"I know he gets the mile and I wouldn't draw a line through 10 furlongs at the moment."
The colt is from a very deep Juddmonte Farms family and is out of the winning Oasis Dream (Green Desert) mare Bird Flown, whose half-sister is Listed-winning Lockdown - the colt’s three-quarter sister.
Bird Flown herself is a half-sister to Rising Tornado (Storm Cat), who in turn produced multiple Grade 1 winner Close Hatches (First Defence) and Grade 2 scorer Tacitus (Tapit), while she also counts Listed winner Barsanti (Champs Elysees) as one of her half-siblings.
The colt’s third dam is Group 3 winner and Group 1-placed Monroe (Sir Ivor) - the dam of dual Group 1 winner and successful sire Xaar (Zafonic) and Group 3 scorer Diese (Diesis), who in turn proved herself a successful producer, being the dam of Grade 1 winner Senure (Nureyev), Grade 3 winner Speak In Passing (Danzig) and Listed winner Dexterity (Kingmambo). Diese is also the grandam of Permit (Dansili), who landed the Chairman's Handicap (Gr 2, 2600m) at Randwick in 2012.
Further back this is the same family as Grade 1 winner and successful sire Cityscape (Selkirk) and Group 2 winner Bated Breath (Dansili) - who now stands at Juddmonte Farms’ Banstead Manor in Newmarket, while last year’s St Leger Stakes (Gr 1, 1m6.5f) winner Logician (Frankel) also features on the page.
Siskin is one of three elite level winners for First Defence; the aforementioned Close Hatches and Antonoe, while he is the sire of 12 stakes winners in total.
The son of Unbridled's Song (Unbridled) was sold to stand in Saudi Arabia in 2016.
