Military Order to follow in the footsteps of his brother Adayar in the Derby?

Galileo and Sea The Stars managed it earlier this century, becoming the first since Blakeney and Morston in 1969/1973. Following his win in Saturday’s Derby Trial at Lingfield, can Military Order also follow in his brother Adayar’s hoofprints by winning the Derby? Unlike those other two pairs of Derby winners who were by different sires, Military Order and Adayar are both by Frankel and you have to go right back to Persimmon in 1896 and Diamond Jubilee four years later for the last pair of full brothers to win the Derby.

Breeding the same mare to the same sire is no guarantee of getting the same result, far from it in most cases, but in terms of physique the strong, attractive Military Order certainly takes after his older brother who made a successful five-year-old reappearance in the rearranged Gordon Richards Stakes at Newmarket the weekend before. If anything, Military Order takes a better record to Epsom than Adayar did two years ago as he went one better on the polytrack on Saturday than Adayar did when the Derby Trial was run on the usual turf course at Lingfield.

Sent off the 6/5 favourite, Adayar kept on well in the 2021 Derby Trial but went down by a length and a quarter to Third Realm who was to finish only fifth behind him at Epsom. Adayar had also finished second in the Classic Trial at Sandown prior to that, so had won only one of his four starts prior to the Derby, a maiden at Nottingham on his second start at two.

Military Order, on the other hand, has now won his last three starts. He too got off the mark at the second attempt at two, winning a novice at Newmarket which stablemate Hurricane Lane had won two years earlier. Military Order reappeared with a win at Newbury last month in a valuable novice contest which replaced a conditions race which had also been won by Hurricane Lane who completed his own Derby preparation by winning the Dante Stakes. That made Hurricane Lane Charlie Appleby’s apparent first string for Epsom but he could finish only third behind 16/1-shot Adayar who was the outsider of Godolphin’s three runners that year.

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Adayar went on to prove himself a top-class colt, becoming the first Derby winner since his grandsire Galileo to win the King George and then salvaging something from a largely lost four-year-old campaign by finishing second in the Champion Stakes. Adayar is much the best of his dam Anna Salai’s first four foals but the return to Frankel, already the sire of 2000 Guineas winner Chaldean this season, has seemingly come up trumps again.

Between Adayar and Military Order, Anna Salai produced the filly Bedouin Queen, by Teofilo, who showed just fair form in a couple of maidens last autumn but now has very obvious appeal as a broodmare. Anna Salai’s first foal, Anna Sophia (by Sea The Stars) finished fourth on her only start in France, while her second foal Indian Road (by Invincible Spirit) also remained a maiden.

Anna Salai is by Dubawi and, not surprisingly, Frankel has been a popular choice for Dubawi mares, with the likes of last year’s Irish 1000 Guineas winner Homeless Songs and the Gordon Richards Stakes and September Stakes winner Mostahdaf other good horses bred on the same cross.

Anna Salai went very close to becoming a classic winner herself as she was collared only in the last strides of the Irish 1000 Guineas by Bethrah to be beaten a head. Trained previously by Andre Fabre, for whom she gained her only win in the Group 3 Prix de la Grotte at Longchamp, Anna Salai didn’t show the same form in her subsequent starts for Mahmood Al Zarooni. Incidentally, she wasn’t the only filly involved in that finish of the Irish 1000 Guineas to become the dam of a Derby winner; close behind her in fourth was Remember When, dam of the runaway 2020 winner at Epsom, Serpentine.

Fabre also trained Anna Salai’s dam Anna Palariva who was sent off favourite for the Prix Marcel Boussac in 1997, having won both her first two starts, including the Group 3 Prix d’Aumale, but she beat only one home and didn’t race again. However, she proved a very successful broodmare for Sheikh Mohammed, producing ten winners, five of them being smart with Timeform ratings between 111 and 115.

Like Anna Salai, two more of those were by Dubawi, namely Anglophile, a stayer on the all-weather, and Seniority whose biggest win came in the Golden Mile at Goodwood when trained by William Haggas for the Queen. Anna Palariva’s other notable winners were Advice, winner of four listed races in France for Fabre, and Iguazu Falls who was a former winner at the Derby meeting himself, in the listed Surrey Stakes over seven furlongs, while one of her unraced daughters became dam of the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere winner National Defense.

All of the first three mares in the bottom line of Military Order’s pedigree were Group 3 winners as great grandam Anna of Saxony won the Park Hill Stakes at Doncaster. The family has flourished in recent generations, particularly for Sheikh Mohammed and Godolphin, though it has its origins in Germany where Anna Paola – Anna of Saxony’s grandam – was champion filly in the early 1980s. As well as several other ‘Annas’ among her descendants, there’s also a very well-known ‘Annie’; Champion Hurdle winner Annie Power was another of her granddaughters. The 2018 1000 Guineas winner Billesdon Brook is from the same family, and so too is Helmet, a Group 1 winner for Godolphin in Australia but best known in the northern hemisphere for siring dual Dubai World Cup winner Thunder Snow.

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