‘Pretty certainly the best young sire in the world’

As a Classic winner from the sole crop of the cherished Dubai Millennium, plenty was expected of Dubawi when he retired to Dalham Hall Stud in 2006.

Sometimes a horse saddled with the weight of hope can fail to live up to such expectations but, if anything, Dubawi has exceeded them.

No fewer than seven individual G1 winners have emerged from that much-awaited first crop, conceived at £25,000, and another two have been added to the list from his second crop.

A Guineas winner himself, it was fitting that Dubawi should come up with a Guineas winner so early in his career, with Makfi lifting the English 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket in May 2010.  He and another of Dubawi’s G1 winners, Poet's Voice, are both already at stud and doing their bit to continue the sireline, with the first foals of Poet’s Voice due early in the new year.

Monterosso, a Darley-bred member of Dubawi’s first crop, stayed in training and emulated his illustrious grandsire with victory in the world’s richest race, the Dubai World Cup, in March, while another of his contemporaries, Lucky Nine (formerly known as Luck Or Design), has advertised his sire’s prowess overseas, with three G1 victories in Hong Kong and a recent win in the G2 Jockey Club Sprint at Sha Tin on Sunday taking his earnings past the £2.5 million mark.

We can almost certainly expect to see Dubawi making his mark as a broodmare sire in years to come, too, and not just in Europe. Three of his G1 winners are fillies – Dubawi Heights, Secret Admirer and Happy Archer. The last two named were both bred in Australia, with Secret Admirer staying in the country to race while Happy Archer was exported to South Africa. The Britsh-bred Dubawi Heights took America by storm, winning the G1 Gamely Stakes and G1 Yellow Ribbon Stakes before being sold at Fasig-Tipton to Japan’s Shadai Farm for $1.6 million.

This year has seen another 15 Group races go the way of Dubawi’s offspring in Hong Kong, Italy, Germany, Australia, Turkey, South Africa and the UK.

Hunter’s Light joined Monterosso in the elite G1 tier when landing the Premio Roma at Capanelle at the beginning of November. The Darley-bred played his part in helping Godolphin to secure the champion owner title for 2012, with victory in the G3 Rose of Lancaster Stakes at Haydock in August followed by another international strike, this time in the G2 Anatolia Trophy in Turkey. The globetrotter also finished runner-up to French superstar Cirrus Des Aigles in the G2 Prix Dollar at Longchamp.

Interestingly, both Hunter’s Light and Monterosso have Barathea as their broodmare sire, with the latter being out of the Australian-bred G1 winner Porto Roca and Hunter’s Light a son of Portmanteau, whose dam Dayanata is a sister to Darshaan. The Dubawi-Barathea nick currently boats a 91 per cent strike rate for winners to runners, while another noted successful cross for Dubawi is with daughters of Green Desert. Makfi, Lucky Nine, and 2,000 Guineas runner-up Dubawi Gold are all bred on this cross.

At the end of another busy yearling sales season, Dubawi’s average for 61 sold stands at £110,625 – more than five times his 2010 fee of £20,000. That average remains high because season by season his results on the track add to his burgeoning reputation around the world. From just four crops to have raced, Dubawi’s tally of stakes winners now stands at 46, and there’s surely even better to come as among the mares covered by him in 2012 are the G1 winners Ouija Board, Speciosa, Chinese White, Ghanaati, Gossamer and Rebelline. Also in that stellar book is Makfi’s dam Dhelaal and Porto Roca.

At Darley, we’re proud to be able to consider him a home-grown success story, but we’re not the only ones singing his praises. As the respected pedigree analyst Bill Oppenheim said in his TDN column: "Dubawi is pretty certainly the best young sire in the world". Who are we to argue with Bill?