As the year draws to a close, supporters of Dubawi and Shamardal can reflect on two highly successful freshman campaigns.
With 34 winners to his name – just one short of the first-season record – Dubawi (pictured) has made an assured start to his stud career and is leading the first-season sires by number of individual winners. His five black-type horses in Europe include the Group Two winners Poet’s Voice and Sand Vixen, both of whom carried the royal blue silks of Godolphin. The tough filly Dubawi Heights was G2-placed and finished runner-up in two highly competitive and valuable races, the Watership Down Stud Sales Race and the Tattersalls Timeform Fillies’ 800. Her exploits on the track as a two-year-old amassed a prize-money haul of £238,380 and she was sold at the December Sales for 75,000gns.
Dubawi’s has recently been represented by a Listed winner in New Zealand, Cellarmaster, who won the Wentwood Grange Stakes (registered as The Star Way 1000) at Te Rapa, and was also his sire’s first southern hemisphere winner.
Shamardal is a year ahead of Dubawi in Australia and New Zealand, where last season his two-year-olds included Group Two runner-up Marquardt. The good start of his Australian debutants was built on in impressive fashion with Faint Perfume’s victory in the G1 VRC Oaks. Just five days earlier, Shamardal also had the ante-post favourite for the VRC Derby, Shamoline Warrior, who was scratched on the morning of the race with a high temperature. Shamoline Warrior had earned his favouritism with victory in the G3 Norman Robinson Stakes at Caulfield.
In Europe this year Shamardal has sired 23 individual winners, which include the Group Three scorers Shakespearean and Arctic, and is leading freshman sire by prize-money earned.
Shakespearean enjoyed a fruitful payday when landing the Goffs Million Mile, this win coming on the back of his victory in the G3 Solario Stakes and third place in the G2 Superlative Stakes. Shamardal’s other black-type earners this season include the G1-placed Zazou and the German duo, Elle Shadow and Noble Alpha, both of whom have been G3-placed in their native country.
