Superlatives ring out for Dubawi once again before No Half Measures brings Group 1 glory to Cable Bay

Saba Desert was maintaining a strong tradition for Charlie Appleby and Godolphin as well as his sire Dubawi in Saturday's bet365 Superlative Stakes.

Although it was a messy event full of inexperienced horses getting in each others' ways, the chestnut has a pedigree right up to scratch with some of the best on the recent roll of honour.

Saba Desert was becoming the second consecutive son of Dubawi to land the Group 2 prize after Ancient Truth, who was third in the Dewhurst on his only other outing before he suffered a fatal injury in training during the spring when being aimed toward the Guineas.

Before the brilliant Group 1 winners and now stallions City Of Troy and Native Trail landed the Superlative there had been a third Dubawi in Godolphin's subsequent Breeders' Cup Mile winner Master Of The Seas while a fourth son of the Darley colossus had obliged a year earlier in 2018 through the operation's Quorto, who landed the National Stakes on his only other outing.

Saba Desert is the second foal out of his dam Finespun to have raced and his three-parts brother by Postponed, Spinning Wheel, won his first two starts for Simon and Ed Crisford before fading from contention in last month's Queen's Vase at Royal Ascot.

Finespun, a mare by Sea The Stars who was placed a few times, is more significantly a daughter of the late Gerald Leigh's brilliant Gossamer, who won the Fillies' Mile and the Irish Guineas for Luca Cumani and was a Sadler's Wells sister to the magnificent miler and sire Barathea.

Gossamer bred another good horse for Darley, the Futurity Trophy winner Ibn Khaldun.

No Half Measures (Neil Callan) beats Big Mojo to win the Darley July CupCredit: Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)

The 66-1 surprise in the Al Basti Equiworld Dubai July Cup was also of note as No Half Measures was finally getting her sire Cable Bay over the line in a European Group 1.

The Challenge Stakes winner and Dewhurst runner-up spent the first stage of his career at Highclere Stud but it was agreed at the end of 2022 that he would be joining the Dr Kehar Singh Stud in India.

From his European-sired progeny he has produced Dragon Symbol, second in the 2021 July Cup as well as the Commonwealth Cup along with Liberty Beach, who took the Group 2 Temple Stakes and was placed in the Prix de l'Abbaye and King's Stand Stakes. 

He has another Temple Stakes winner among his six Group winners in King's Lynn and did hit the top level in Australia through Uncommon James, who took the 2023 Oakleigh Plate at Sandown.

No Half Measures was a shrewd purchase by her trainer Richard Hughes, for £34,000 at the 2022 Goffs UK Premier Yearling Sale. It was a day after another up-and-coming sprinter in his yard, Sayidah Dariyan, had emerged in Friday's Group 3 Summer Stakes at York as a £35,000 purchase through the same auction a year later.

No Half Measures was bred by Sally Nicholls and Bumble Mitchell's Bumble Bloodstock out of the Helmet mare Fascinator, a runner-up in one of her three starts. It is a quick family as No Half Measures' older half-brother Trilby is a minor winner over five furlongs and Fascinator is the half-sister of the dam of the Fiona Denniff-bred Kachy, the quick starter who also went very close in Group 1 company.

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