Blackfriars, the Danehill product who took out the 1999 Victorian Derby for his breeder-owner Robert Sangster (Swettenham Stud), has capped a stellar career as a sire at Durham Lodge in Western Australia by supplying the winners of that State’s Classic double, the Oaks and then the Derby.

  He secured the Oaks success on March 31 when his daughter Pop Culture recorded her fourth win in nine starts. She had won the Listed WA Thousand Guineas on March 3.
 
  Raced by her breeder, R.J. Clarke, and trained at Perth’s Ascot by Colin Webster, Pop Culture is the first winner for Georgia’s Storm, a mare who did not earn at her only start. She is bred on a cross of two imported sires used in the West, Metal Storm (FR) (by Kenmare) and Jungle Boy (GB) and is related to Smokey Island, a Metal Storm winner of 13 races, including eight on metropolitan tracks.

  Like many of the Blackfriars progeny, Pop Culture is proving tough. She has raced four times in the last six weeks for two stakes wins, a stakes second and last Saturday a handy seventh in the 14-runner Derby.

  The Derby was taken out by another tough Blackfriars performer in the Durham Lodge bred and sold Rohan, a bay colt appearing for the seventh time since the beginning of January, a campaign that has included four wins.

  Trained by Vaughn Sigley (Lark Hill) for three owners, including G.R. Kettlewell, his buyer for $61,000 at the Magic Millions Perth yearling sale, Rohan is a brother to two stakes sprinters, including Wynyard Hall, dam of the Durham Lodge bred Stratum filly Darlington Abbey. She is one of Perth’s current star juveniles.

  Rohan’s mother Voltage Pak did not race. She is by the Western Australian bred quality sire Carry a Smile and from Ever Ready, a winner of nine races, including two Group 2s, the West Australian Guineas and VATC Chirnside Stakes, and a Group1 third. She was by Consenting, a dual Group1 second by Century and from one of Star Kingdom’s greatest fillies, Citius. Her nine wins included the VRC Sires’ Produce Stakes, Lightning Stakes, VATC Oakleigh Plate and AJC Doncaster.

  Rohan’s sister Wynyard Hall, one now in foal to the Scenic (IRE) Perth sprinter Universal Ruler, topped the Magic Millions Perth sale on Sunday, selling to Victorian based Mileshan Thoroughbreds for $130,000. At the same sale their mother Voltage Pak realised third highest price, $90,000 – to local buyer William Robinson. She should have an early foal by Blackfriars in the spring.

  The mares were among 48 offered in the complete unreserved dispersal of Durham Lodge. Seven were by Blackfriars and eleven by the deceased Scenic.