Versatility key to Dubawi landing his first sire's championship in 2022

Dubawi finally gets his time at the top

After years of domination by Galileo, the sires’ championship in Britain and Ireland has entered a new era in the last couple of seasons.

Galileo died in the summer of 2021 and later the same season his title passed to his son Frankel. But it wasn’t his for long. Frankel had another excellent year in 2022 but it wasn’t enough to repel the challenge of Dubawi who has been waiting patiently as Galileo’s heir apparent for most of the last ten years.

Dubawi was runner-up to Galileo for a sixth time in 2020 so his first championship, gained at the age of 20, was long overdue. But Dubawi’s breakthrough also brought to an end a much longer period of domination; that of the Northern Dancer sire line. Galileo’s twelve championships couldn’t quite match the record of fourteen set by his own sire, Northern Dancer’s son Sadler’s Wells, who was champion for the first time in 1990. Caerleon, Danehill and Danehill Dancer were also champion sires in the era dominated by Sadler’s Wells and Galileo. You have to go back to 1989, therefore, when Blushing Groom was champion thanks largely to the exploits of Nashwan that season, for the last champion sire who didn’t have Northern Dancer on the top line of his pedigree.

Dubawi comes instead from the Mr Prospector line, via Seeking The Gold, a dual Grade 1 winner on dirt and runner-up in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, and the outstanding but tragically short-lived Dubai Millennium. Beaten only once in ten starts, over a trip beyond his best in the Derby, Dubai Millennium died from grass sickness after siring just one crop of foals. But they came from an excellent book of mares that included the smart filly Zomaradah whose wins for Luca Cumani included the Oaks d’Italia, the E. P. Taylor Stakes and the Premio Lydia Tesio.

It was Zomaradah who was to produce the best foal from Dubai Millennium’s unique crop, Dubawi. Unbeaten in three starts at two, including in the Superlative Stakes and National Stakes, Dubawi proved best at a mile at three, winning the Irish 2000 Guineas and Prix Jacques le Marois. Dubawi followed in his sire’s footsteps at Deauville, he too making a successful return to a mile after failing to stay in the Derby where he nonetheless fared better than Dubai Millennium had done at Epsom, finishing third behind Motivator and Walk In The Park.

Dubai Millennium sired another high-class colt who was given a chance at stud, Echo of Light, but the full weight of continuing his sire’s legacy essentially fell to Dubawi who began his stallion career at Dalham Hall at a fee of £25,000. That dipped to just £15,000 in 2009 when he returned to Newmarket after a season at Kildangan Stud in Ireland, but Dubawi’s stock rose quickly as his success on the track grew so that by 2014 he was standing for £100,000 and, three years later, £250,000. That has been Dubawi’s fee ever since, though following his first championship, he’ll be standing for £350,000 in 2023, a record advertised fee for a stallion in Europe.

Who starred for top sire in 2022?

Dubawi’s first championship came in the year he sired the winners of two English classics. Coroebus became his third 2000 Guineas winner, after Makfi in 2010 and Night of Thunder in 2014. Coroebus went on to win the St James’s Palace Stakes but sadly sustained a fatal injury in France later in the year. The average distance of Dubawi’s winners is 9.5 furlongs, but with help from the right sort of mare he’s well able to get horses who stay much further than he did himself. The result of the St Leger gave ample proof of that as Dubawi was not only responsible for the winner Eldar Eldarov, but also the promoted runner-up New London.

Dubawi’s daughter Emily Dickinson was fifth in the St Leger before going on to win the Loughbrown Stakes at the Curragh where she clearly relished the two-mile test on heavy ground. Emily Dickinson is out of the Irish Oaks winner Chicquita, a daughter of Montjeu, and another smart staying filly bred on the same cross in the latest season was Mimikyu, winner of the Park Hill Stakes at Doncaster – she’s by Dubawi out of Montjeu’s Prix Royal-Oak winner Montare.

A large part of Dubawi’s success is down to his ability to get winners over all sorts of trips and, at the other end of the distance spectrum, he was represented in 2022 by the likes of Naval Crown and Creative Force who gave Godolphin a one-two in the Platinum Jubilee Stakes, while stable-companion Lazuli is another notably speedy son of Dubawi, successful in a Group 2 contest in Dubai over five furlongs in February.

Noteworthy Breeders' Cup double-double

While a pair of classics was the highlight of Dubawi’s year domestically, his biggest achievement abroad came once again at the Breeders’ Cup where, for the second year running, he was responsible for the winners of both the Mile and Turf. In 2021 it had been Space Blues and Yibir who completed the double, while twelve months later at Keeneland it was Modern Games and Rebel’s Romance who were successful.

Besides finishing runner-up in the Sussex Stakes and, like his sire, the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes, Modern Games also gained two other top-level wins overseas during the year, in the Poule d’Essai des Poulains and the Woodbine Mile. Rebel’s Romance is unbeaten in five starts on turf, having won twice at Group 1 level in Germany prior to the Breeders’ Cup. However, Rebel’s Romance began his career on the all-weather and then dirt, winning the UAE Derby on the latter surface.

That’s another illustration of Dubawi’s versatility because he gets winners on both turf and dirt in Dubai, reflecting the mixed heritage of his pedigree which has influences from performers on both types of surface. His own sire ran the outstanding race of his career when tackling dirt in the Dubai World Cup and Dubawi has sired two winners of that race himself, Prince Bishop and Monterosso.

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