Cover image courtesy of Magic Millions

The Lootah family’s Emirates Park brand is no stranger to the elite circles in racing. Their list of homebred graduates includes Group 1-winning stallions Encosta De Lago, Swice Ace and Al Maher while they were also responsible for purchasing G1 Golden Slipper-winning fillies Mossfun (Mossman) and Estijaab (Snitzel).

Since the start of the 2018/19 racing season, Emirates Park have bred the winners of 29 stakes events including a top-flight victory with Vega One (Lope De Vega {Ire}) which came in the 2021 edition of the G1 Kingsford-Smith Cup.

Almost a quarter of the stakes events won by Emirates Park homebreds in the past five years have been by their juvenile stock. Stakes-winning 2-year-olds sporting the Emirates Park brand include the likes of dual stakes-winning filly Enthaar (Written Tycoon) and I Am Invincible sired fillies Najmaty and Ebhaar. Remarkably, four of the six stakes-winning Emirates Park-bred juveniles were produced from the stud’s 2018 crop which also includes the G2 VRC Sires' Produce S.-winning colt Lightsaber, a sire-son of Zoustar.

While Emirates Park is known for offering quality yearling drafts to the commercial market, they have retained ownership of 60 per cent of all stakes winners bred in the past five years. While John Thompson forked out $75,000 for Vega One at the 2017 Magic Millions Adelaide Yearling sale, Emirates Park fortunately stayed in the ownership and experienced the thrill of his Group 1 success in Brisbane. Aside from Charm Stone’s $1.55 million price-tag at last year’s Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale, the recent stakes winners offered by Emirates Park have fetched a moderate average of $131,000.

Table: Total stakes winners represented by sire

I Am Invincible is the most represented sire of Emirates Park’s recent stakes winners having sired four individual black-type winners carrying the brand. Part-owned French resident sire Dream Ahead (USA) is represented by two Emirates Park-bred stakes winners including their retained stakes-winning filly Marboosha and G2 Tristarc S. winner Shumookh. The former shuttle stallion is also the broodmare sire of dual stakes-winning sprinter Lightsaber who commenced stallion duties this month at Western Australia’s Darling View Thoroughbreds. Stallions aside, Emirates Park’s blue-hen mares Najoom (Northern Meteor) and Salma (Encosta De Lago) are responsible for four of the farm’s 15 stakes winners.

Table: Total stakes winners per trainer

The Emirates-bred stock certainly has an affinity for particular trainers including Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott managing homebred stakes-winning entire Dajraan (GB) (Frankel {GB}) as well as dual stakes-winning mares Alassio (Foxwedge) and Shumookh. Peter and Paul Snowden have also handled three Emirates Park fillies in the past five years including Marboosha and I Am Invincible sired duo Ebhaar and Najmaty. Simon Miller and Tony Gollan are the other trainers represented by dual Emirates Park-bred stakes winners.

Already a stakes-winning juvenile, blue-blood filly Charm Stone kicked off her spring 3-year-old campaign in style recently with back-to-back wins in the G3 Quezette S. and Listed Atlantic Jewel S. Talent certainly runs in the family with her mother being the dual stakes winner Najoom who is the dam of three foals to race for three winners including Charm Stone’s dual stakes-winning full sister Najmaty. The Mick Price and Michael Kent Jnr-trained talent now shoots for Group 1 success as the lone filly in this weekend’s prestigious G1 Golden Rose S. While she may not carry the famous green and white silks of Emirates Park, there will be plenty of echoes heard from the farm’s Murrurundi base.