Aggressor (horse)

Aggressor was a powerfully-built bay horse bred at the Someries Stud in Newmarket. He was sired by Combat, an undefeated racehorse whose nine wins included the 1947 Sussex Stakes. His dam, Phaetonia won twice and produced, in addition to Aggressor, the Ormonde Stakes winner High Perch and the Discovery Handicap winner Ben Lomond. As a daughter of the broodmare Phaetusa, she was a member of the same branch of Thoroughbred family 10-d which produced The Derby winner Reference Point.[1]

As a yearling, Aggressor was moved to the Blackhall Stud in County Kildare. When Sir Harold Wernher and his trainer Cecil Boyd-Rochfort visited the stud in 1956 they were unimpressed with Aggressor and sent him to the sales.[2] The colt failed to reach his 1,000 guineas reserve price. Wernher then sent the colt to be trained by Towser Gosden at Lewes, but did not enter Aggressor in any of the British Classic Races.[3]

Aggressor was awarded a rating of 130 by Timeform in 1960.[9]

In their book A Century of Champions, John Randall and Tony Morris rated Aggressor a "poor" winner of the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes.[10]

Aggressor was not a notable success as a sire of winners. The most successful of his offspring was the filly Dibidale, who won the Irish Oaks and the Yorkshire Oaks in 1974 and was an unlucky loser of The Oaks, in which her saddle slipped in the closing stages. [11]

Aggressor's daughter Aggravate (who won the Park Hill Stakes) was exported to Walter Jacobs's Fährhof Stud (near Bremen, Germany), where she foaled among others the German champion-racehorse and leading sire Acatenango.