Diolite
British-bred Thoroughbred racehorse
Diolite (1927 – 1951) was a British Thoroughbred racehorse and sire. He was arguably the best British two-year-old of 1929, when he won three of his five races including the Coventry Stakes and the Molecomb Stakes. In the following year he won the 2000 Guineas and finished third when favourite for the Epsom Derby. He remained in training for another two years but won only one more race. After his retirement from racing he became a very successful breeding stallion in Japan.
Background
Diolite was a "well made" bay horse "of medium size, with a good action" bred by C W Birkin. As a yearling in October 1928 he was offered for sale at Doncaster and bought for 480 guineas by Hugo Hirst. The colt was sent into training with Fred Templeman at Lambourn in Berkshire.
Diolite was probably the best horse sired by Diophon, who won the 2000 Guineas in 1924. Diolite's dam Needle Rock also produced Lady Kroon, the female-line ancestor of Lavandin.
“Diolite” enters the record as british-bred Thoroughbred racehorse. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Diolite, British-bred and Thoroughbred can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Diolite” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Diolite, British-bred and Thoroughbred provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q11316729. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1927, 1951, 1929 and 2000.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Diolite” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.