Our pedigree expert John Ingles highlights a hugely successful season for the offspring of broodmare Arabian Queen
It’s the time of year when the Flat season’s champions start to be recognised. The sires’ championship isn’t officially over until the end of the year, though the significant prize money on offer on Champions Day meant that the title of champion sire was effectively decided by teatime on Saturday when Night of Thunder's son Ombudsman ran away with the Champion Stakes.
On the other hand, there’s no official broodmare of the year title but that makes things more interesting as we can be a bit more subjective in proposing potential candidates rather than relying on the cold hard prize money statistics which determine the sires’ championship.
I already mentioned one such candidate last month belonging to the late Sheikh Ahmed Al Maktoum. His broodmare Talmada, a daughter of Cape Cross, is responsible for two Group 1 winners this year, namely Almaqam, winner of the Tattersalls Gold Cup, and his younger sibling Saddadd who was third in the same race at the Curragh and went on to win the Grosser Preis von Baden.
But I think a good case can be made too for Jeff Smith’s Arabian Queen who has had no fewer than four foals to have picked up some black type this year, three of them being stakes winners. More about them below, but first a reminder of Arabian Queen’s racing career which was equally successful.
Trained by David Elsworth, Arabian Queen, a daughter of Dubawi, showed more speed early on than might have been imagined from her pedigree. She won a maiden at Windsor over five furlongs on just her second start and gained her biggest win at two over six furlongs when making all in the Duchess of Cambridge Stakes.
From a useful two-year-old, Arabian Queen made into a smart filly at three. A sinus problem meant she returned too late to contest the 1000 Guineas, but she did make a successful reappearance on Oaks day to win the Princess Elizabeth Stakes at Epsom, again making all the running. She was highly tried in her next three starts – the Coronation, the Falmouth and the Nassau – with her best placing coming when third at 25/1 to the 1000 Guineas winner Legatissimo at Goodwood. No wonder, then, that she was a largely unconsidered 50/1 chance – much to her trainer’s disgust - when taking on male rivals for the first time in her life in the Juddmonte International.
In the absence of 2000 Guineas, Irish 2000 Guineas and St James’s Palace winner Gleneagles after overnight rain, the Juddmonte looked at the mercy of unbeaten Derby and Eclipse winner Golden Horn, but in a muddling race he was turned over by Arabian Queen who was again seen to excellent effect under Silvestre de Sousa. Taking a keen hold as usual but not over-racing like Golden Horn, Arabian Queen showed a tremendous attitude to hold off the favourite by a neck. Golden Horn went on to win the Irish Champion Stakes and Arc, meeting his only other defeat when beaten by another three-year-old filly, Found, in the Breeders’ Cup Turf.
Arabian Queen didn’t win again after the Juddmonte International, though she stayed in training at four and was placed a couple of times, in the Dahlia Stakes at Newmarket (won by Usherette, now the dam of yesterday's Queen Elizabeth II Stakes winner Talk of New York) and the listed John Musker Fillies’ Stakes at Yarmouth which had been won by Talmada the year before.
A sparely-made filly, Arabian Queen was a very different type physically from her own dam, the big, lengthy Barshiba who was also a smart mare for the same connections (Timeform rating 116). By Barathea, Barshiba was out of the similarly robust Dashiba (by Jeff Smith’s Dewhurst winner Dashing Blade) who was herself a useful filly, beaten a short head in a listed race at Salisbury. Talented though they were, both Arabian Queen’s dam and grandam had their quirks. Dashiba was a tail-flasher, while Barshiba, a free-going front runner who was reportedly blind in one eye, inherited her dam’s tendency to hang. Barshiba even had the dreaded ‘Timeform squiggle’ for a time but shrugged that off to win two editions of the Lancashire Oaks aged five and six.
And so to the offspring who make the case for Arabian Queen being broodmare of the year in 2026. Best of them is See The Fire, her five-year-old mare by Sea The Stars whose career earnings have broken the million-pound barrier this season. She reappeared with a win in the listed Nottinghamshire Oaks before a second successive victory in the Middleton Fillies’ Stakes at York, a race she had won by a dozen lengths in 2025.
See The Fire had finished fourth when bidding to emulate her sire as well as her dam in last year’s Juddmonte International and a win at the top level has narrowly eluded her; she went close in the 2024 Nassau, last year’s Prix de l’Opera and in last month’s E. P. Taylor Stakes in Canada. See The Fire finished down the field in yesterday’s Fillies And Mares Stakes but she seems sure to make more headlines before the year is out. She’s due to go under the hammer in the Sceptre Sessions at the Tattersalls December Sale.
Arabian Queen’s four-year-old is Royal Playwright, a son of Lope de Vega. Like See The Fire, he won first time out at two and was ridden on that occasion by Hayley Turner who had won her first pattern race in Britain on his grandam Barshiba when she won her second Lancashire Oaks. Royal Playwright was placed in the Solario and Royal Lodge later at two, while this year he has been seen out only twice but was only beaten a neck by Al Aasy in the Cumberland Lodge Stakes earlier this month.
Royal Playwright’s three-year-old half-brother Venetian Prince (by St Mark’s Basilica) has the same Timeform rating currently of 110. He too was runner-up in Group 3 company on his latest start, in the Winter Hill Stakes at Windsor, going one place better than Royal Playwright in the same race the year before. However, Venetian Prince had a big pay-day at Milan earlier in the season when winning the Derby Italiano, with its first prize equivalent to more than £250,000.
Showing clear signs of keeping up the family tradition is Arabian Queen’s two-year-old filly Forbidden Fire (by No Nay Never) who takes after her dam in lacking much substance. But she too was successful on her debut (like Royal Playwright at Salisbury) and then beat male rivals again when winning the listed Flying Scotsman Stakes at Doncaster. On her latest start, she matched See The Fire’s placing in the same race three years earlier by finishing third in the Fillies’ Mile.
Apart from all being the offspring of Arabian Queen at Jeff Smith’s Littleton Stud, See The Fire, Royal Playwright, Venetian Prince and Forbidden Fire are all stablemates with Andrew Balding. By my reckoning, the quartet between them have won £381,503 domestically this year which is all grist to the mill as far as their trainer’s own championship bid is concerned in his close battle with Aidan O’Brien.
In fact, all seven of Arabian Queen’s foals of racing age have been successful for Kingsclere and there’s another one who deserves a mention here. Her very first foal was Spirit Mixer, a son of Frankel who is still going strong this season at the age of eight. A useful staying handicapper, he has won nine races in his career, notably last year’s Northumberland Plate having finished runner-up to Trueshan in the same race three years earlier.
That makes five siblings in training with the same stable at the same time. Broodmare of the year or not, that’s some record for Arabian Queen.
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