Darley

Wednesday's G2 Queen's Vase was staged over 14 furlongs, but it took a pixel study for the judge to call it as TDN Rising Star Eldar Eldarov (GB) inched out Zechariah (Ire) (Nathaniel {Ire}) to continue the fine week for Dubawi (Ire). KHK Racing's unbeaten colt had launched his season with a win over 10 furlongs on Newcastle's Tapeta May 24, but Roger Varian had plumped for this staying test of all the options here and ultimately was fully justified as the £480,000 Arqana Breeze Up graduate needed every yard...

Aidan O'Brien trainee Alfred Munnings (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}--Best In The World {Ire}, by Galileo {Ire}) was all the rage for Friday's seven-furlong Irish Stallion Farms EBF Maiden at Leopardstown and justified market support, and then some, with a dominant debut performance, earning a TDN Rising Star rosette by 4 1/2 lengths on his birthday. The stable had won the contest in recent years with G1 Dewhurst S.-winning sire War Command (War Front) and G2 Vintage S.-winning sire War Decree (War Front) and also prepared Gleneagles (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) to finish...

Not quite nailing the GI Kentucky Derby with Essential Quality (Tapit) felt like one of very few omissions from a spectacular 2021 for Godolphin on both sides of the Atlantic. And while it seems that Sheikh Mohammed must wait at least another year to satisfy that particular craving, his team certainly won't have felt too marginalized during the coast-to-coast sequence of rehearsals that gripped our attention last Saturday. Because they now know for a fact that they have one of the outstanding talents of the previous crop in Speaker's Corner...

In partnership with Watership Down Stud, sponsors of next Saturday's G3 Watership Down Too Darn Hot Greenham S., Newbury has launched a competition to name one of the stud's most recent arrivals, a bay filly born Mar. 10 by champion Frankel (GB), out of the group winning mare, So Mi Dar. A Group 3 winner, So Mi Dar also finished third in the G1 Prix de l'Opera. She is out of the Watership Down Stud-campaigned MG1SW Dar Re Mi (GB), who has produced four group performers, including European Champion 2-year-old...

Dual G1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe and triple G1 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth S. winner Enable (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}) is one of eight Juddmonte mares set to visit Dubawi (Ire) this season. Enable, whose 11 Group 1 wins also included the G1 Oaks and GI Breeders' Cup Turf, was covered by Kingman (GB) last winter. Also visiting Dubawi are Enable's dam Concentric (Sadler's Wells) and group-placed half-sister Entitle (GB) (Dansili {GB}); Time Test (GB)'s dam Passage Of Time (GB) (Dansili {GB}); Frankel (GB)'s winning full-sister Chiasma (Ire);...

Lightly raced Speaker's Corner had earned some strong speed figures up to this point for a horse without a stakes win, and he kicked off his 4-year-old campaign auspiciously with a breakthrough tally in Florida. A second-out graduate in New York as a fall juvenile over a very salty bunch of future stakes runners (Caddo River, Greatest Honour, Miles D, Bourbonic and Original), Speaker's Corner resurfaced off the long lay-off to crush Saratoga allowance foes by open lengths. The GI Pennsylvania Derby next out perhaps proved too much too soon,...

• Ghaiyyath, the world champion and Horse of the Year by Dubawi, has had his first three foals hit the ground. They are: • A "big, strong colt" out of Diantha (Ire) (Dansili {GB}). The mare is owned by John Heffernan and Elec Bloodstock and is a half-sister to G2 Dante S. winner Thunderous (Ire) (Night Of Thunder {Ire}); • A half-brother to multiple stakes winner Global Giant (GB) (Shamardal) bred by Elysian Bloodstock; • A half-sister to two stakes performers out of Marywell (GB) (Selkirk) bred by Castle Paddock...

'TDN Rising Star' Essential Quality (Tapit--Delightful Quality, by  Elusive Quality), a leading Eclipse Award finalist for champion 3-year-old colt, heads to the breeding shed with an impressive line-up of mares for his first season at stud at Darley's Jonabell Farm in Kentucky. The 2020 champion 2-year-old colt and GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile winner continued to add to his loaded resume at three, capturing the GI Belmont S. and GI Runhappy Travers S. He concluded his career with a third-place finish against his elders in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic. The...

Strip away the brass name plates, parade the Darley stallions in front of seasoned horsemen and ask them to pick the horse who last year sired three Breeders' Cup victors among 38 stakes winners and was the broodmare sire of the Derby winner. Of those who haven't seen him before, it is unlikely that many would choose Dubawi (Ire). Unlike his sire, the brilliant but ill-fated Dubai Millennium (GB), he is not a horse who 'fills the eye' with those long classic lines and fluent stride. On the short side...

The speedy Group 1 winner Var (Forest Wildcat-Loma Preata, by Zilzal) was euthanised in South Africa on Monday. The 23-year-old had been pensioned at Avontuur Stud since last July. "Var was my pride and joy," Avontuur Stud General Manager Pippa Mickleburgh told the Sporting Post. "He changed the lives of untold racing and non-racing folk both here and across the world. He was a character and a champion extraordinaire. The scars of a battle bravely fought caught up with our loyal soldier in the end. We couldn't leave him to...

And so we reach the final leg of our journey hunting out value among Kentucky sires in 2022. It's been a rather more focused exercise this time round, and if that means plenty of stallions (and indeed some farms) have been overlooked, so be it. It's only ever the subjective view of a single bystander. You'll know what works for your own mare, and for your own agenda, too, whether you're an end user, say, or first and foremost need to anticipate commercial demand. We've often complained that a market...

We continue our Value Sires Series with a look at stallions with their first foals arriving in 2022, and what looks a very intriguing bunch. Not only do we have Pinatubo (Ire) (Shamardal), the outstanding 2-year-old who was rated higher than Frankel as a juvenile, but also Ghaiyyath (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}), Dubawi's best son yet to retire to stud; the Classic-winning Sottsass (Fr) (Siyouni {Fr}), who trained on to add the G1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at four; and the three-time Group 1 and Classic winner Persian King (Ire),...