John Oxx: Stars of the future

It's almost five years since Sea The Stars first appeared on a racecourse for John Oxx.

It was July 13 2008 and he finished fourth under Mick Kinane, the only jockey who would ever ride him, in a Curragh maiden. Those that beat him; Driving Snow, Black Bear Island and Straight Forward, were the only three horses to ever finish in front of him on the racecourse.

His record as a two-year-old was good. He subsequently eased to victory in a Leopardstown maiden before landing the Group Two Beresford Stakes at the Curragh by half-a-length from stablemate Mourayan.

But his three-year-old career was perfection. One that even the mighty Frankel cannot claim to match in terms of the quantity and versatility of Group One achievements.

The gorgeous son of Cape Cross won the 2000 Guineas, the Derby, the Coral-Eclipse, the Juddmonte International, the Irish Champion Stakes and the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in an astonishing season, the like of which we will be lucky to see again.

Destined for greatness from birth, Sea The Stars was sired by champion miler Cape Cross, winner of the Lockinge and Queen Anne, out of Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe winner Urban Sea, the dam of English and Irish Derby and King George winner Galileo.

No wonder there is a sense of anticipation ahead of Sea The Stars' first crop strutting their stuff on the racetrack.

Oxx, the man who masterminded Sea The Stars' career, has 13 of his progeny in training. And the patient approach he adopted with his 2009 champion will be in evidence with his offspring too.

"I'm never excited by two-year-olds, I wait until they run a bit," Oxx told sportinglife.com. "I won't be pressing them too hard and we'll wait and see what they do on the track.

"We're a month or so behind with our juveniles due to illness. We wouldn't have any early ones anyway and it wouldn't have any great effect on my Sea The Stars two-year-olds who you wouldn't expect to be out early.

"But they're a nice bunch in general. They're showing a lot of promise with a nice fluent action and they seem to have a bit of length to that fluency too. Crucially, plenty seem to have his really good temperament as well which is so important.

"He seems to be passing on the attributes you'd like to see being passed on and now we just have to wait and see with time and maturity what levels of ability they have, but the early signs are promising."