Mohaather burst to the top of the miling tree with his victory in the Qatar Sussex Stakes and Cassie Tully takes a look at his pedigree.
Oasis Dream is a name synonymous with top-class performers in Europe, both as a sire and now more recently as a broodmare sire as well.
He has been a dependable stalwart in the Juddmonte stallion yard for the last 17 years, producing 128 Stakes winners so far in his lifetime.
17 of those Stakes winners achieved Group One level successes, 11 of which were sons.
Muhaarar, Power, Goldream, Aqlaam, Arcano and so on, all lead the way as brilliant male progeny representatives on the racetrack for Oasis Dream.
But with regards to carrying on Oasis Dream’s genes to future generations, it is so far not one of his top-flight winning sons who has proven himself the heir apparent.
A Group Two winner at two and third in the Group One Middle Park Stakes from just seven career starts for Juddmonte, Showcasing was acquired by Whitsbury Manor Stud and began his stallion career at the Hampshire operation in 2011.
He commanded just a £5,000 fee which then dipped to £4,500 for the following three years of stud duties.
Showcasing’s first crop of runners ended up yielding 18 Stakes performers including six Group winners.
The next crop, bred off the even lower fee of £4,500, returned another 16 Stakes performers including Group One Commonwealth Cup and Haydock Sprint Cup winning filly Quiet Reflection; as well as the Group Two winner and multiple Group One placed Tasleet.
Undoubtedly upgrading his mares, the Group winners kept coming and in 2015, Showcasing’s covering fee increased to £15,000.
From that justifiably more expensive crop came treble Group One winner Advertise. He took the Phoenix Stakes as a juvenile at the Curragh and then made Showcasing the first stallion to have sired two Commonwealth Cup winners when seizing that Group One prize before the Prix Maurice de Gheest in France.
But along with Advertise and the top performer Soldier’s Call, that £15,000 crop born in 2016 has now also been bolstered by last week’s thrilling Sussex Stakes winner Mohaather.
Bred by Gaie Johnson Houghton, Mohaather comes from a family nurtured by the Johnson Houghtons for four generations. It goes back to a mare called Sirnelta whom Gaie’s husband purchased at the sales.
Sirnelta ended up breeding the Cheveley Park Stakes winner Dead Certain as well as a filly named Shall We Run that produced the Group Two Gimcrack Stakes winner Bannister and Roo.
Roo, who Johnson Houghton luckily was not able to sell, placed in a Listed race and bred five Stakes performers including dual Group One placed Gallagher and a filly by Inchinor called Roodeye.
Stay with me.
Roodeye was also raced by Johnson Houghton and her first foal, a filly, failed to sell for her breeder and ended up producing a colt by Delegator who also fortuitously failed to sell (for 8,000gns) as a yearling and was put into training with Gaie’s daughter, Eve.
That colt was the 2018 Queen Anne Stakes winner Accidental Agent.
Roodeye then produced multiple Group winner and Group One Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies’ and Del Mar Oaks-placed filly by Showcasing (from his first crop), Prize Exhibit.
And although visiting Harbour Watch and producing the stakes placed Harbour Master after that, the potential of Prize Exhibit merited a return to Showcasing for Roodeye, even though his fee had then increased by £10,000 since her first visit.
And thus, Mohaather was born.
The bay colt sold for 110,000gns at Tattersalls Book 2 yearling sale to Shadwell and now four years old, looks to be just getting started.
Mohaather won two races from three starts as a juvenile including the Group Three Horris Hill Stakes at Newbury and returned at three years to win the Group Three Greenham Stakes at that same track before an injury ruled him out of the 2000 Guineas and nearly all of the rest of the season. He returned in the autumn to finish fifth in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot.
Luckless on his return in the Queen Anne at the same track this year which was still only his sixth start, Mohaather destroyed the field in the Group Two Betfred Summer Mile before becoming Showcasing’s third Group One winner, as well as a third Group One winner from this family for the Johnson Houghtons, in the Sussex Stakes last week.
Mohaather defeated treble Group One winner and battle-hardened Circus Maximus, the hitherto unbeaten, dual Group One winner Siskin and the QIPCO 2000 Guineas and dual Group One winner Kameko.
The sky now appears the limit for both Mohaather and his sire Showcasing, who currently commands a fee which is 11 times greater than what he first stood for in 2011.
Oasis Dream’s sire line looks in safe hands to be continued well into the future.
