Twenty Years On, It’s Still Dubawi’s World

[Wandering Eyes]

Twenty years ago, Dubawi claimed his third Group 1 victory in the Prix Jacques Le Marois. On Sunday, Sajir, his third-generation male-line descendant, claimed his own first top-level win, also in Deauville, when lowering the colours of hot favourite Lazzat in the Prix Maurice de Gheest.

In TDN on Friday, Ted Voute told Adam Houghton how the team behind Prince Faisal and his homebred Sajir were “quietly quite excited” in the build-up to a race which could seal Sajir's place at stud. Well, they can be loudly very excited now, after the four-year-old's decisive win in the Normandy sunshine. Soft-ground lover? You know what that say: good horses go on any ground.

Prince Faisal's association with Sajir's Ballylinch Stud-based sire Make Believe has been well documented. He bought the colt from the first crop of Makfi, who was in turn from the first crop of Dubawi, as a foal from breeder Simon Hope of Aston Mullins Stud. Make Believe went on to emulate his Classic-wining forebears by winning the Poule d'Essai des Poulains followed by the Prix de la Foret. He then threw the mighty Mishriff in his own first crop.

Make Believe remains an extremely useful stallion, and stood at the enticing fee of €8,000 this year. Appropriately, it is Prince Faisal who has had the greatest success with his own stallion, being responsible for both his Group 1 winners to date. Mishriff will be one of the next young sires to come under scrutiny at the foal sales later this year, and Sajir will surely now join him at stud eventually somewhere in Europe.

The weekend's results have served a strong reminder that, at 23, Dubawi remains an incredibly dominant force. Godolphin's Rebel's Romance claimed his eighth Group/Grade 1 success at the age of seven in the Grosser Preis von Berlin, a race he first won three years ago. In the process he gave young jockey Billy Loughnane his first Group 1 success.

More notably from the Darley/Godolphin perspective however, was a first Group 1 winner for another youngster. Dubawi's son Space Blues has his first two-year-olds in action and is now the first of his fellow freshman sires to break through at the top level thanks to Power Blue's victory in the Keeneland Phoenix Stakes for Amo Racing. For good measure, on the same afternoon, Dance To The Music, a full-sister to Space Blues, stamped her name on the ledger of Classic prospects for 2026 with her victory in the Newsells Park Stud Sweet Solera Stakes, a race won in the last two seasons by Lake Victoria and Fallen Angel, the latter by another son of Dubawi in Too Darn Hot.

Then there's Dubawi's French-based sire Zarak, a precious son of the great Zarkava, who is now among the most in-demand members of the French stallion ranks. On Saturday, the Aga Khan homebred was represented by the winner of the G3 Prix Dubai Racing Club at Deauville, Marquis, and farther afield by Laurelin, who took the GII Saratoga Oaks for Graham Motion and Newstead Stables, while another three-year-old daughter, Koffi Kick, landed Sunday's Listed Hoppegartener Stutenpreis.

Everywhere we looked this weekend, Dubawi was somewhere, his prevalence ensuring that his sire Dubai Millennium will not fade from the breed anytime soon, however unlikely that may have seemed at his untimely demise in the first flush of his own stud career.

The post Twenty Years On, It’s Still Dubawi’s World appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

View the full article