Pedigree expert Cassie Tully looks at the bloodlines of new superstar colt Ghaiyyath, including his dam, Nightime, winner of the Irish 1,000 Guineas in 2006.
It is a little over fourteen years ago since a filly named Nightime won the Irish 1000 Guineas for Dermot Weld and his mother Marguerite. In doing so she became the very first of what is now a world record of 86 Group One winners for her sire Galileo.
The perennial Champion sire does not need any introductions, but an important note for the purpose of this piece is the ease at which he is conquering the broodmare sire realm as well. Galileo so far boasts a growing number of 31 individual Group One scorers as a broodmare sire. Five of them this year.
Okay, not ground-breaking news for the stalwart whose excellency is accepted as the norm, but crucially, those 31 horses are by 21 different sires and seven of them have not produced another Group One winner to any other broodmare sire.
Just to reiterate, seven sires have only produced a Group One winner out of a Galileo mare.
Nightime is contributing to Galileo’s statistics in both realms because she has gone on to not only produce the Group One winning filly Zhukova (Fastnet Rock), but now arguably one of the best turf horses on the planet at present.
While Nightime was winning her classic in 2006, the treble Group One and Irish 2000 Guineas scorer Dubawi was standing his first season at stud at Dalham Hall, for a fee just one tenth of what he commands today.
It wasn’t all sunshine and roses at the beginning. Dubawi, the star from the sole crop of his ill-fated father Dubai Millennium, still faced the usual dip in number of mares and price in his fourth season covering. That is until his runners hit the track. Since then it has been an endless conveyor belt of brilliant performers and increases of covering fee that has seen Dubawi set as the most expensive sire in Britain in each of the past 5 years.
One of the leading forces worldwide, Dubawi is the sire of 186 worldwide Stakes winners which includes 43 individual Group One winners. Three of his sons and one of his grandsons have already produced nine Group One scorers to date, with a horde of burgeoning youngsters just getting started.
Without waxing lyrical about the two greatest proven sires we have standing at stud at the moment, it is the prospect of combining both that we are getting to.
It was only natural once Dubawi began to shine, that he received some partners by Galileo.
The cross has been represented by 36 runners to date and the first of major significance being 2000 Guineas and Lockinge Stakes winner, Night of Thunder.
Night of Thunder not only highlighted the potential this cross might have as an athlete, but the results haven’t stopped piling in for him since he began his second career at stud either.
Leading first-season-sire last year by Stakes winners and Stakes horses, Night of Thunder now also has the same amount of Stakes winner as Dubawi did in his first crop, and counting.
While Night of Thunder was winning his Classic in 2014, Dermot Weld was sending Nightime to Dubawi at Dalham Hall.
And last September, on just his seventh career start as a four-year-old, the product of that mating became the second highest-level winner by Dubawi out of a Galileo mare when storming to a fourteen-length victory in the Grosser Preis Von Baden in Germany.
Although impressive, it was not until this year, and this week in fact, after four straight victories since February including three straight Group Ones that Ghaiyyath has solidified himself as a goliath not to be doubted any longer.
The beating of Epsom Derby winner Anthony Van Dyck and staying millionaire Stradivarius in the Coronation, followed by Enable and dual Group One winner Japan over 10 furlongs in the Eclipse, was finally fortified on Wednesday as he powered away from Magical, Lord North and Kameko in the Juddmonte International.
As a sire, this year alone has seen Dubawi with fourteen Stakes winners including three at the top level (Ghaiyyath, Space Blues and Lord North).
And as a sire of sires, his second-season-sire son Night Of Thunder has had 12 stakes winners this year including two at Group Two level; another son at the same career point Hunter’s Light produced Group Three winner Irska off a fee of €4,000; Al Kazeem has sired two stakes winners this year from his return to stud duties; and grandson, and also second-season-sire, Make Believe has produced the French Derby winner Mishriff and the Group Three winner Rose of Kildare who ran gallantly against Ghaiyyath on Wednesday.
We now have a four-time Group One winning machine who has beaten some of the best horses in the world, who is the product of two Irish Guineas winners, and who is also a cross between two of the most elite sires on the planet (which has already proven a success) on our hands.
The prospect of Ghaiyyath himself now as a stallion is serious. And the future for Dubai Millennium’s genes to be carried on for numerous generations is beyond bright.