Daylami
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Daylami

Daylami (20 April 1994 – 5 April 2023) was a Thoroughbred Champion racehorse and sire who was bred in Ireland, but trained in France, Dubai and the United Kingdom. In a career which lasted from 1996 until 1999, he raced in five different countries and won seven Group 1/Grade I races. His 1999 performances earned him the United States' Eclipse Award for Outstanding Male Turf Horse and the Cartier Racing Award for European Horse of the Year.

Daylami, a "powerful" grey horse, standing 17 hands high, was bred in Ireland by his original owner, the Aga Khan, who also bred both of his parents.

Daylami's sire, Doyoun, won the 2,000 Guineas and finished third in the Derby, before a stud career in which he produced the winners of over two hundred races. His most notable offspring, apart from Daylami, was the Breeders' Cup Turf winner Kalanisi.

Daltawa, from whom Daylami inherited his grey coat, was also the dam of the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe winner Dalakhani. She was a member of one of the families established by Marcel Boussac and eventually acquired by the Aga Khan.

He was first sent into training with Alain de Royer-Dupré at Chantilly. At the end of his three-year-old season he was bought by Godolphin and transferred to the stable of Saeed bin Suroor. His two most frequent jockeys were Gerald Mosse, and, after the move to Godolphin, Frankie Dettori.

Like many grey horses, Daylami changed in appearance as he aged. In his earliest races he had a dark, iron-grey appearance but looked almost white by the time of his retirement.

Daylami did not appear on the racecourse until the September of his two-year-old season, when he won a minor stakes race at Longchamp. Three weeks later, he was moved up in class and won the Listed Prix Herod at Évry. On his final start of the year he was moved up to the highest class to contest the Group One Critérium de Saint-Cloud. Starting favourite as part of a two-horse Aga Khan entry, Daylami was sent into the lead in the straight, but was caught in the closing stages and beaten three quarters of a length by Shaka.

As a three-year-old, Daylami was campaigned exclusively over one mile. He began by winning his first Group race, beating Loup Sauvage by two lengths in the Prix de Fontainebleau at Longchamp in April. Three weeks later, he beat the same horse, by the same margin, over the same course and distance to win the Group One Poule d'Essai des Poulains on soft ground, with Godolphin's Bahamian Bounty, winner of the Prix Morny and Middle Park Stakes, finishing last of the six runners. Although he had been entered in the Derby, Daylami's connections made it clear that the colt would be kept to shorter distances.

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