Azamour (near): Valyra is the first Group 1 winner for the champion

PICTURE: Getty ,  BY BLOODSTOCK WORLD STAFF 3:08 PM 17 JUN 2012

Prix De Diane Longines (Group 1), 3yo fillies

VALYRA (f Azamour – Valima by Linamix)

Bred by Haras De S.A. Aga Khan Scea in Britain

VALYRA, at 25/1 the outsider of the Aga Khan’s three runners in the Prix de Diane, ran down favourite Beauty Parlour (by Deep Impact) to spring a shock in the Chantilly Classic and provide her sire Azamour with a first Group 1 winner.

The son of Night Shift retired to Gilltown Stud as the winner of four Group 1 races for the Aga Khan, including the 2005 King George. So far, he is the sire of 15 stakes winners from four crops of racing age led by a trio of Group 2 winners – Eleonora Duse, Shankardeh and Wade Giles – and last year’s 2,000 Guineas third Native Khan.

Aga Khan: “It’s great to have achieved this great mixture of lines and to have Classic winners”

PICTURE: Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)

The Gilltown Stud resident is also the sire of this year’s Gordon Richard Stakes winner Colombian, who incidentally is bred on the same Linamix cross as Valyra.

The Aga Khan remarked following the race: “In fact it’s an Aga Khan line which comes through the sire Azamour, and the bloodline of Jean-Luc Lagardere in the dam’s family.

“When I bought the Lagardere stock, the big problem was how best to manage the blending of those lines with those very different ones of the ex Boussac and the ex-Dupre, Aga Khan and Lagardere. It’s great to have achieved this great mixture of lines and continue to have Classic winners.”

A product of the Jean-Luc Lagardere bloodstock which has provided the Aga Khan the likes of Siyouni, Valixir and this season’s Prix Saint-Alary heroine and Prix de Diane also-ran Sagawara, Valyra is out of the 2005 Prix Imprudence heroine Valima, who has made an exceptional start to her stud career; Valyra is her third foal and follows last year’s Prix Matchem winner Valiyr and the Listed-placed Valasyra.

Valima is the best of two winners out of a half-sister to top miler Val Royal and descends from Vadlava, also the ancestress of Group 1 winners Valixir and Vadawina.

Racingpost