Lanwades Stud has announced the death of its leading sire Selkirk.  Aged 25, he passed away two years after being pensioned by the Newmarket nursery.

Selkirk has sired 15 Group 1 winners among 90 individual stakes winners.  A son of Sharpen Up, he was trained by Ian Balding for owner-breeder George Strawbridge and developed into a top-class miler winning the G1 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot in his final start as a three year-old.

Kept in training as a four-year-old in 1992, Selkirk added the G2 Lockinge Stakes and G2 Challenge Stakes and narrowly failed to gain a second Group 1 when going down by a head to Marling in a memorable Sussex Stakes.

“He was just the most wonderful horse to have around – he had a beautiful temperament,” Balding recalled.  “He was a real good horse, we had three seasons of him and it was just a pleasure.

“He was a bit unlucky, too.  He was just a gallop short for that wonderful race he had with Marling in the Sussex Stakes.  He had a bit of a setback and wasn’t 100% and that showed in the last couple of yards.”

Selkirk has also come to the fore as a broodmare sire with his daughters producing Group 1 winners Quiff, Mount Nelson, Simply Perfect and Termagant.