Dubawi cements platinum status with sprinting one-two

It was not just royal blue silks, trainer Charlie Appleby and a bit of past history that Naval Crown and Creative Force shared as they flashed across the line together in Saturday’s Platinum Jubilee Stakes.

Godolphin’s pair, who had finished the other way around when occupying similar positions on opposite sides of the course in the Jersey Stakes exactly 12 months ago, are both by Sheikh Mohammed’s operation’s supreme stallion Dubawi.

The result was an impressive fifth winner of the week whichever way the judge chose for 20-year-old Dubawi, who finished as Royal Ascot’s top sire in 2022 ahead of Galileo and Kingman on three winners apiece.

Watch the Platinum Jubilee finish here

Just as notably, Naval Crown was his 50th individual Group or Grade 1 winner, with Creative Force, collared by a neck after such a brave charge when becoming a little isolated on the far side, having already reached the summit when taking the British Champions Sprint over course and distance last October.

Dubawi would be generalised as a sire of milers and middle-distance performers such as Ghaiyyath, Too Darn Hot and Postponed, but he can manage sharper ones too, with Godolphin’s Kildangan Stud resident Space Blues landing a Prix Maurice de Gheest.

It has been a magnificent season already for the veteran, who did not race at Royal Ascot himself but has produced Coroebus in his likeness, the 2,000 Guineas hero adding Tuesday’s St James’s Palace Stakes to a growing haul.

Among 14 Group winners recorded already this year by Dubawi were Eldar Eldarov, who nosed a tight finish to Wednesday’s Queen’s Vase, while his haul this week was completed by Dubai Future in the Wolferton Stakes and Secret State in the King George V Stakes.

"He’s a phenomenon," said Sam Bullard, Darley’s director of stallions. "He produces winners from across the spectrum – big, small, short or longer distance and he’s had a remarkable week. He’s a remarkable breed-shaper."

Naval Crown’s biggest victories prior to this had been achieved in Dubai, chiefly when taking the Group 2 Al Fahidi Fort in January. Unlike Creative Force, who was a €400,000 yearling purchase from Owenstown Stud at Goffs Orby, he is also a Godolphin homebred.

Dalham Hall titan Dubawi topped the Ascot sire standingsCredit: Edward Whitaker

The association with Sheikh Mohammed’s breeding goes back to his third dam, Redcar maiden winner True Glory – a sibling of EP Taylor winner Truly A Dream and dual Group 2 winner-turned-stallion Wareed – out of Richard Strauss’s useful Caerleon mare Truly Special.

Naval Crown is the first foal, and the only one to have raced, out of Come Alive, a Dansili mare who won a Maisons-Laffitte Listed race in Godolphin blue for Andre Fabre and was not beaten far in the 2016 Poule d'Essai des Pouliches.

His two-year-old sister Spring Promise, by Lope De Vega, is registered in Appleby’s care.

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