Front running sprinter Zaratone’s dashing win in the $100,000 Starlight Stakes (1100m) at Rosehill Gardens on Saturday August 13 was an epitaph for his mother’s sire King’s Theatre.

It was the grey geldings first appearance since a fifth in the Weetwood at Toowoomba in March and since King’s Theatre died at 20 in Ireland in June.

King’s Theatre is the Sadler’s Wells winner of the Royal Ascot King George V1 & Queen Elizabeth and English and Irish Derby runner up who paid five visits to Glenlogan Park in Queensland, leaving over a hundred winners. They included Royal Code (in Melbourne won three Group 2s and second in two Group1s) and I Rock My World (two Group 2 efforts in New Zealand were a win in the Wellington Guineas and a second in the Avondale Guineas).

His best performer on the flat got in Ireland was King’s Drama, a leading middle distance performer in America, but he was represented by two Grade1 jump winners in 2010 in Great Britain. Described as a truly versatile sire, he has been one of their leading jumps sires in the past two years.

The best runner anywhere in the world to date out of a King’s Theatre mare appears to be Zaratone, a winner now of 14 of 29 starts, including Saturday’s Starlight Stakes and three in succession in Sydney earlier in the year.

Raced by four owners, including his breeder Ian Frykberg, and trained at Canberra by Nick OIive, Zaratone is by the Storm Bird grandson Zariz (by former Widden shuttler Mukaddamah) and is the first winner from seven foals – two raced – produced by the placed King’s Theatre mare Comeback Queen.

He is one of some 126 winners by Zariz, a sire who started his stud career at Riverdene, Wagga Wagga but who has now moved to the Lamont’s long established nearby Kooringal, the major breeding farm in the NSW south west.

Other good horses by Zariz (current fee $5,500) have included Lazer Sharp (won South Australian Derby, VRC St Leger; second Moonee Valley Cup) and others who have won in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart, Launceston, New Zealand and Malaysia.

In a 20 start career, Zariz himself was one better sprinters of his time, winning seven metropolitan races over his 2 and 3-year-old campaigns, including four stakes, the AJC San Domenico, Up and Coming, STC Heritage and BTC Club Sprint at Doomben.

He was placed in four other stakes and handy mid field in the VRC Newmarket, Doomben10,000 and Gold Coast Magic Millions 2YO Classic.