Arabian Rose steps out of the shadows into the Glasshouse

Cover image courtesy of Racing Queensland

Arabian Rose (Alamaba Express) won the Listed Glasshouse Handicap on Saturday to become young trainer James Healy’s first black type winner. The 4-year-old mare was one of eight weanlings taken to the Inglis Great Southern Sale in 2022 by Shadow Brook Bloodstock and becomes their second stakes winner from that draft.

But it wasn’t a direct pathway to Healy’s Sunshine Coast stable. The $100,000 weanling had two starts for Julius Sandhu, then run a second for Billy Healey, before being put on Inglis Digital in January 2025 where Healy spent $7000 on her.

“We're always active on Inglis Digital, every sale, and she was just a nice type with a nice profile, and a horse that probably needed a lot of time to mature into herself. She fit our profile, more than anything else on that sale, and that's how I was drawn to her. She’s a cheap one now,” Healy said.

“She was a maiden (when purchased). She’s won six races now, so it’s a good effort.”

Arabian Rose won her first start for Healy in March 2025, and all up has won six of her 12 starts for him with earnings over $320,000.

The pick of the bunch

Shadow Brook Thoroughbreds’ Carol Hassell was a fan of Alabama Express from the beginning, sending two of her small broodmare band to him in his first season at stud. The two foals both went through the Inglis Great Southern Sale, as part of their draft of eight weanlings, and now both are stakes winners with the other being Discretion Rules.

“Arabian Rose was always my pick of the bunch that year. She was always a little bit special. I knew she'd be good. I had a friend ask me of the weanlings we had, which was best and she was my pick,” said Hassell.

“She was an outstanding weanling. We were very happy with what we got for her at the time because Alabama Express was a new season sire that year. We had two Alabama Express weanlings and both of them have won Listed races.”

Discretion Rules is trained by Te Akau Racing and won the Listed Champagne Stakes in New Zealand as a 2-year-old.

“He was a little bit smaller than her. He wasn't small, small, but he was just a tiny bit smaller, and he was a first foal from a Zoustar mare that I bred also. Being a tiny bit smaller didn’t stop him.” His dam, Miss Madonna (Zoustar), is a half-sister to stakes placed She’s Miss Devine (Show A Heart).

All eight weanlings from Shadow Brook’s 2022 draft have raced for two Listed winners, two city winners, two winners, and two placed. Selling the whole crop as weanlings is Shadow Brook’s preferred business model.

“We're not selling our rubbish as weanlings. We're selling our whole crop. It takes so much longer to get them to the yearling stage. We just seem to be able to present them well enough to sell them well.”

The dam of Arabian Rose, Dubai Me Roses (Cape Cross {Ire}) was a winner as a spring 4-year-old. She’s a half-sister to Listed winner Navy Shaker (Polish Navy {USA}).

“All the foals from that mare take a little time to mature. They’re late 3-year-olds, they just don’t go early. I've still got the mare. She is retired,” said Hassell.

“Harry from Yulong sent us a message this morning to say that out of that crop, we’ve got two stakes winners, and we laughed about Dubai Me Roses. She’s not that old, rising 19, and he said that we might have to pull her out of retirement.”

With more to come from Arabian Rose, it might just be worth the investment.

“Arabian Rose went for a spell today at Cloverdale farm. I’ll let the dust settle for a little bit, and then in a fortnight's time, I'll go out there and have a look and see how she's progressing,” said Healy.

“I've got a pretty fair idea how she spells now and the time it takes to bring her back up to racing from a spell, so I'll be guided by that and there's plenty of options in the spring and the summer that she can go to. I'm not really concerned about making a plan, now that we got that stakes race under our belt. We're in the box seat.”

Alabama Express stood out as a type

It was the way Alabama Express looked that had Hassell interested in him for his season. The G1 CF Orr Stakes winning son of Redoute’s Choice stood his first season in 2020 for $27,500 inc GST, and has 116 live foals from that crop.

“He's just a nice leggy horse. When I do our matchups, I do like to have a horse that, when he steps out of the box, I like the look of him. He’s got to have a good body and be a good type. No matter what horses you’ve got, if you’ve got a good type, you'll always sell it. So that's my first thing,” said Hassell.

“I look at the type of the horse and whether it's going to cross well with a particular mare, so that I get a really good type. Then I start to look at the page and all the rest of it.

“Alabama Express was an outstanding type, quite leggy. He puts a bit of leg under them. And I really loved him. He has a beautiful head, just a lovely horse.

“When you go to the new season sire, you don't know if they're going to be super successful, but if they're a really good type and you really like them, it helps. Obviously I thought he was pretty good because I had two go to him, didn't I?”

Two stakes winners from one draft is a massive achievement for any farm, let alone a small breeder like Shadow Brook Bloodstock.

“We're only a small farm, we've only ever had seven to nine mares so to send two to the same stallion was a lot. We have gone back to him (Alabama Express) since then, but now he's gone to New South Wales, so it’s a little bit difficult because we're from Victoria. We normally send one or two to the Hunter and try to keep the rest in Victoria if we can find enough good horses, which often you can't.

“But if you send a mare to the Hunter, you can add $10,000 to the service fee, by the time you get her up there, get her in foal, and get her back, and then you lose control of the mare once she leaves your farm, so that's also tough. You have to send them to the Hunter, but we prefer not to.

“Now that Alabama's gone, I thought he was our best Victorian horse, alongside Toronado.”

Alabama Express will stand at Yulong’s new Hunter Valley property, formerly Segenhoe Stud, for 2026 at a fee of $66,000 inc GST. With his oldest foals now 4-year-olds, he has seven stakes winners, headlined by four-time Group 1 winner Treasurethe Moment.

Five years from licence to stakes win

James Healy gained his trainer’s licence in 2020, setting up on the Sunshine Coast. He’d fallen in love with racing when working part-time while at university. He jokes that an inability to sit still meant that the horses drew him away from his studies, leaving him with a partially completed degree in applied science.

After working for Rob Heathcote and a few other Brisbane trainers, Healy took a foreman role with Ciaron Maher, who was training in partnership with David Eustace at the time, in around 2015.

“I was at Ciaron’s in a foreman role and I learned a lot and it's held me in good stead today,” Healy said.

“I thought the Sunny Coast would be a great place to start out, without the hustle and bustle, and cost, of Brisbane or Melbourne which is probably not the right platform to be starting out in. We have 30 boxes on course, and we are very fortunate to have those boxes. I started out with four boxes and have turned that into 30. The horses have kept coming which is great.”

Healy also gave a shout out to the owners of Arabian Rose, and jockey Tiff Brooker.

“We've got a great bunch of owners in this horse, and I have to give credit to the staff at home as well. I'm so happy for Tiff, she's been part of the stable from the start and this win will mean more to her than anyone. She does so much work for the stable, I wanted to reward her for the ride.”

Most of the horses in Healy’s stable are digital purchases such as Blakemore Avenue (Pierata). The 4-year-old mare was purchased online in June 2025 for $7500 as a maiden winner and since then has won four more, including three in succession in March and April this year.

“There's a lot of factors (that go into buying online). You have to do a lot of research and a lot of homework. Everything is so expensive now so you’re trying to find that diamond in the rough, so to speak. You can’t do the process half-hearted, because you'll spend money and you won't make any back. I think we do a good job at it.”

Learning to cope with disappointment

One of Healy’s biggest lessons in his short time in racing is learning to deal with disappointment. Even the high of winning his first stakes race didn’t last for long.

“It's tough, but we do it because we love it,” Healy said.

“The game is full of lows. I had to go to Grafton on Sunday and the horse didn’t run to expectation, so it was a great leveller the day after winning a stakes race. Racing can get the best out of you, but it can also bring the worst out of you too.

“You’ve got to ride the lows because there’s always more lows than highs. Early doors, I wasn’t used to that, but now I can say that I’ve learned how to deal with it, and you have got to take the success when it comes, but also ride that low.

“It’s not for the fainthearted, definitely. But you can’t let things get to you.”

So why do it? It’s simple. It’s all about the horse.

“I love horses, always have, and getting the best out of them gives me great satisfaction. Seeing horses with problems and niggles and getting them to find their best and enjoy their racing, and showing people what they can really do on the track, that gives me a lot of satisfaction.

“Watching owners go on the ride, like Arabian Rose has given her owners, you just love to see it.”