Raaheeb another potential star out of Baaeed's dam

Few broodmares get to produce three colts as good as the trio that Height of Fashion came up with for Hamdan Al Maktoum. The pick of them was Nashwan, by Blushing Groom, rated 135 by Timeform in 1989 when winning the 2000 Guineas, Derby, Eclipse and King George. He remains the only horse to have achieved that particular four-timer in the same season and did so while still unbeaten.

Nashwan wasn’t his dam’s first good horse though. Unfuwain, by Northern Dancer, might not have won a Group 1 himself but he too was a top-class colt, earning a rating of 131. At three he won the Chester Vase and the Princess of Wales’s Stakes, which his dam had also won, as well as finishing second in the King George and fourth in the Arc. He had a curtailed four-year-old season, though won both his starts that year, the John Porter Stakes and the Jockey Club Stakes.

Height of Fashion’s third top colt came along later in her broodmare career. Nayef, by Gulch, raced until he was five, and while his rating of 129 wasn’t quite as high as his half-brothers, his nine wins included the Champion Stakes at three, the Dubai Sheema Classic and Juddmonte International at four and the Prince of Wales’s Stakes in his final season.

Sheikh Hamdan therefore reaped the rewards of Height of Fashion’s brilliant career at stud, but it could easily have been Queen Elizabeth II instead. Height of Fashion was a daughter of the Queen’s 1000 Guineas and Prix de Diane winner Highclere and Height of Fashion was a very smart filly herself (rated 124), the Princess of Wales’s Stakes being one of her five wins from seven starts, the others including the Fillies’ Mile which was a Group 3 contest at the time.

Despite her pedigree and racing record, Height of Fashion was apparently regarded as being too big to make a successful broodmare for the Royal studs, so in what was ‘a disastrous misjudgement’ in the opinion of Peter Willett, biographer of Dick Hern, the trainer of Height of Fashion, Nashwan and Unfuwain, she was sold to Sheikh Hamdan for a reported seven-figure sum.

Height of Fashion produced eight winners in all, and other good ones besides her three stand-out colts. The rest included Alwasmi, who won the John Porter the year before his younger brother Unfuwain, Mukddaam, who was only a head away from becoming another Princess of Wales’s Stakes winner for the family, the Oh So Sharp Stakes winner Sarayir and two more fillies, Bashayer (more of whom below) and Wijdan who were runners-up in the Cheshire Oaks and Pretty Polly Stakes respectively.

Of Height of Fashion’s daughters, Sarayir had the best record at stud, becoming dam of the 2009 1000 Guineas and Coronation Stakes winner Ghanaati. It’s fair to say that none of Height of Fashion’s sons were as good as sires as they were racehorses, though the wider family produced another top-notch performer who became an outstanding stallion. Japanese star Deep Impact was a grandson of Height of Fashion’s three-parts sister Burghclere.

Now though, the Height of Fashion family is flourishing again for Shadwell thanks to her great great granddaughter Aghareed who looks like emulating Height of Fashion at stud as she is well on the way to producing a trio of top colts herself.

Trained in France by John Hammond, the useful Aghareed raced just five times, earning black type from winning the Prix de Liancourt, a listed race at Longchamp over a mile and a quarter. Aghareed’s own dam Lahudood had won the same race for the same stable and had then gone on to greater things in the States at four where she won the Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf. Lahudood was a granddaughter of Bashayer.

All six of Aghareed’s foals to have raced are winners, and they include the smart gelding Naqeeb (by Nathaniel), now with Julie Camacho, who signed off his 2025 campaign with victory in a listed race at Goodwood. But while Height of Fashion’s three star performers were all by different sires, Aghareed’s top trio are all sons of Sea The Stars.

Despite sharing both the same sire and dam, her top-class colts Hukum and Baaeed differed quite markedly in terms of distance requirements. Hukum came to hand early enough to win a novice at Kempton late in the year at two and earned his place in the St Leger (finishing fifth) the following season with wins in the King George V Handicap at Royal Ascot and the Geoffrey Freer Stakes.

The Geoffrey Freer was also one of his four wins at four, while Hukum was five before registering his first Group 1 win in the Coronation Cup, only to sustain a career-threatening injury in the process. But despite needing three screws in a fracture to a hind leg, Hukum returned better than ever at six, emulating his relative Nashwan by winning the King George with a game head defeat of Westover.

By that time, his younger brother Baaeed was already at stud, having won ten of his eleven starts in a brilliant career for William Haggas. Baaeed didn’t run at two, and he didn’t make his debut at three until two days after the Derby, winning a novice at Leicester over a mile. Clearly a speedier type than his brother, Baaeed remained at a mile for the whole of his three-year-old season as he progressed seamlessly through the grades, culminating in Group 1 wins in the autumn in the Prix du Moulin and Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.

At four he followed ‘the Frankel route’, taking in wins in the Lockinge, Queen Anne and Sussex Stakes, before stepping up in trip for the first time in the Juddmonte International Stakes in which he showed a devastating turn of foot to give a six-and-a-half length beating to the previous year’s winner Mishriff in a race his sire had won 13 years earlier.

Rather than going up in distance again for the Arc, Baaeed bowed out as Frankel had done in the Champion Stakes, though lost his unbeaten record in the process, finishing only fourth to Bay Bridge. But retiring to stud at a fee of £80,000, Baaeed did so with a Timeform rating of 137, making him the highest-rated horse to retire to stud since Frankel. It’s too early in the season at the moment, but later in the year some of the foals from Baaeed’s first crop – he covered around 160 mares in his first book – will begin to appear.

Meanwhile, Aghareed’s latest three-year-old colt has made an exciting start to his career. Trained like Hukum by Owen Burrows, Raaheeb has plenty to live up to, therefore, though he could hardly have made a better start. Having been a ready winner of a maiden at Ascot on his only start at two, he looked a potentially top-class three-year-old when travelling smoothly, quickening to lead and then keeping on well to win the Classic Trial at Sandown on his recent return (replay below).

Distance-wise, therefore, Raaheeb already looks like taking after Hukum rather than Baaeed, and in just two starts he is already further forward than either of his elder brothers at the same stage of their careers. Indeed, Raaheeb was only 8/1 in most books for the Derby immediately after the Classic Trial, though it’s not surprising that his trainer was left wondering if he had the maturity for Epsom just yet with the Trackside Live team describing him as ‘still green as grass’ beforehand at Sandown.

In any case, Raaheeb was reported to have been stiff for a few days after the race and has since been ruled out of the Derby. Given that Burrows isn’t one to rush his horses and, if in any way taking after his illustrious brothers, Raaheeb will only get better as he gets older.

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