Mishriff success gives Eljazzi legacy a shot in the arm after Pinatubo's defeat

Mishriff’s upset victory over stablemate Waldkonig in the Newmarket Stakes on Saturday not only made him a leading contender for the Hampton Court at Royal Ascot but, like 2,000 Guineas third Pinatubo, yet another significant descendant of Eljazzi, whose line has become one of the most commercially appealing families in the stud book.

His success in the Listed event on the Rowley Mile marked a fourth stakes winner for his sire Make Believe, who stands at Ballylinch Stud and performed well with his first crop of two-year-olds in 2019, momentum which he has carried on into this year.

The Poule d’Essai des Poulains winner is represented by Rose Of Kildare in Sunday’s 1,000 Guineas, and has progeny entered in both Irish Guineas.

Make Believe strikes a pose at Ballylinch StudCredit: Peter Mooney

Racing in the colours of Prince Faisal (who also raced Make Believe), Mishriff is the product of an outstanding family crafted by Prince Faisal’s Nawara Stud since the purchase of Rafha’s dam Eljazzi as a yearling for 92,000gns in 1982.

Eljazzi herself was well-bred. Out of a mare placed in the Yorkshire Oaks, her Petingo half-brother Pitcairn became the leading sire in Britain and Ireland in 1980 thanks to the likes of Ela-Mana-Mou and Cairn Rouge. She was a half-sibling to another son of Petingo in Valley Forge, who also became a stallion, and half-sister to the dam of classy stayer Assessor.

On the racecourse, Eljazzi won a Leicester maiden for Sir Henry Cecil at two but it was at stud where she justified her purchase price many times over. Among her 15 foals, five earned black type, four of those being fillies.

Rafha, her second foal, won the 1990 Prix de Diane before becoming one of the most important broodmares at stud, chiefly through her patriarch son Invincible Spirit, still active at the Irish National Stud aged 23.

Kodiac, Invincible Spirit’s three-parts brother by Danehill, was a solid Group performer in the hands of John Dunlop but never managed to win a stakes race. It was actually a stroke of good fortune that Kodiac’s racing career came to an end in 2006 - the year Invincible Spirit’s first crop burst onto the scene with a record-breaking 35 individual juvenile winners in his first crop. Had Kodiac been around earlier, we might have never seen him go to stud.

Invincible Spirit has gone on to sire 233 stakes performers to date, including exceptional racehorse and young stallion Kingman.

Kodiac has been a record breaker at stud. In 2017, he sired 61 individual two-year-old winners and has become the go-to sire for juvenile success.

Kodiac’s sister Massarra was precocious for John Dunlop and Prince Faisal, winning twice in June at two before finishing a close runner-up in the Prix Robert Papin.

Massarra was acquired by MV Magnier in 2009 for 600,000gns in foal to Galileo. She had yet to produce a stakes winner from three foals of racing age but Nayarra, a foal at the time of purchase, would win a Group 1 at two in the Gran Criterium.

The matings with Galileo proved fruitful, with all of Massarra’s seven runners by the sire achieving Racing Post Ratings of at least 94, four winning stakes races and three placing in Group 1s.

They include Gustav Klimt, who placed in the Irish 2,000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes and is standing his second season on the Coolmore roster. Cuff’s win in the Listed Naas Fillies’ Sprint Stakes, meanwhile, made her one of only five Galileos (in both hemispheres) to have won a stakes race at two over six furlongs.

In 2015, Ballylinch Stud acquired Galileo-sired Group 3 winner Wonderfully out of Massarra for $1.8 million, in foal to Smart Strike as a four-year-old. Massarra has two Galileo fillies to reach the track, a two-year-old named Friendly and a yearling foaled in mid-June.

More to it than Rafha

But Eljazzi’s legacy is far from solely attributable to Rafha. Her Group-winning daughter of Sadler’s Wells, Chiang Mai, was acquired by Lady O’Reilly during her three-year-old season and later produced Group 1 Pretty Polly winner Chinese White for the esteemed owner-breeder.

Eljazzi’s unraced daughter of Kris, El Jazirah, was sold by Nawara Stud out of Sir Henry Cecil’s Warren Place Stables as a three-year-old in 1995 for 60,000gns. Her Listed winning-filly Mount Elbrus is the dam of Lava Flow, dam of Saturday’s 2,000 Guineas third Pinatubo, whose two-year-old achievements crowned her Ireland’s Broodmare of the Year in 2019.

Nawara Stud would later buy her back for 100,000gns in foal to In The Wings, after Rafha produced a series of consecutive classy horses following her original sale.

Another member of the family on the Coolmore list of stallions is top-class juvenile Pride Of Dubai, out of Eljazzi’s penultimate foal Al Anood. He has already sired a stakes winner with his first crop and is standing for A$38,500 in Coolmore Australia this year.

In 1994, Eljazzi was mated to flaxen dual Derby winner Generous, yielding Wosaita, who placed over 12 furlongs for John Dunlop, earning a rating of 74. Nawara Stud sold her to Charles O’Brien for 20,000gns at the end of her three-year-old career, before she was sold for 75,000gns a year later in foal to Barathea.

Wosaita is the producer of an astonishing 18 foals, her last a Cable Bay filly in 2018. Her third foal, Whazzat, a daughter of Daylami, was purchased by Bill Gredley’s Stetchworth Park Stud for 30,000gns as a yearling. She became one of Daylami’s most precocious runners, placing second in the Chesham Stakes at Royal Ascot.

The fact that she was by Daylami out of a Generous mare (both of whom wound up covering National Hunt mares) yet was an early two-year-old is another testament to the potency of the precocity in this line. Whazzat is the dam of the Gredleys' Group 1 Prix Maurice de Gheest winner James Garfield, currently standing at Rathbarry Stud.

Whazzat’s sister Whatami is the dam of Saturday’s 2,000 Guineas fifth Juan Elcano - a son of Frankel who was runner-up in last year’s Group 2 Superlative Stakes.

It doesn’t end there for Wosaita. New heights were hit last year with Unaided, Wosaita’s daughter of Dansili who was unplaced from eight starts in Japan. Sold in foal to More Than Ready at the end of her racing career for $230,000, the resulting produce was Breeders’ Cup Mile winner Uni, named champion turf female in the US last year and earner of more than $2 million in prize-money.

The Haras d’Etreham-bred filly commenced her career in France in the colours of her breeders after going through the ring for €40,000. Haras d'Etreham’s faith paid off, as Unaided’s price catapulted to €1.25 million in foal to No Nay Never at last year’s Arqana Breeding Stock Sale, selling to Oceanic Bloodstock for Peter Brant’s White Birch Farm.

Nawara Stud sent Mishriff’s dam Contradict, a winning daughter of Raven’s Pass who earned a peak RPR of 88, to Invincible Spirit in 2014, producing the Listed winner Orbaan, inbred 2 x 3 to Rafha.

Close inbreeding is a divisive topic but, as horses like Enable have shown, sometimes, as Mae West once said, “too much of a good thing can be wonderful”.

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