Sunday’s French Oaks winner Valyra is the latest classic winner for the Aga Khan from a mare with links to Lomar Park sire Valixir.

Valyra (3f Azamour – Valima by Linamix) was the $26 outsider of the Aga Khan’s three runners in the French Oaks but she sprang a $26 surprise to down the favourite Beauty Parlour (Deep Impact) by three-quarters of a length.

Valyra is out of Valima, a Listed winner of the 2005 Prix Imprudence at Maisons-Laffitte.  Her second dam is a half-sister to G1 Breeders Cup Mile winner Val Royal and the dam of Valixir.

Valixir (Trempolino) peaked at four with G1 triumphs in the Prix d’Ispahan and Queen Anne Stakes.  He retired to Lomar Park in 2007 but covered a restricted book due to E.I.  Recent LR WATC Melvista Stakes winner Lethal Jones leads his first-crop winners.

The Aga Khan’s operation breeds from its own stock but his latest French Oaks winner is from a family developed by the late Jean-Luc Lagardère.  His Highness bought Lagardère’s bloodstock holdings, which numbered close to 200 horses, for a reported 50 million euros.

“It’s great to have achieved this great mixture of lines and to have classic winners,” the Aga Khan said at Chantilly.  “When I bought the Lagardere stock, the big problem was how best to blend the lines.”

The combination has also provided the Aga Khan the likes of Valixir, Siyouni (G1 Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere) and this year’s G1 Prix Saint-Alary winner Sagawara.

Valyra is the first Group 1 winner by Gilltown Stud sire Azamour.  The son of Night Shift carried the Aga Khan’s silks to G1 victories in the St James’s Palace Stakes, Irish Champion Stakes, Prince of Wales’s Stakes and King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes.

Valyra claimed a record-breaking seventh Prix de Diane (French Oaks) for the Aga Khan.  He had equalled the previous record of six held by Auguste Lupin when Sarafina was successful in 2010.