CHARLIE Appleby landed the Group 1 Prix Marcel Boussac last year with the Dubawi (Dubai Millennium) filly Wild Illusion and he was back with her on Arc weekend to capture the Group 1 Prix de l’Opera Longines.

The classic and three-time Group 1 winner Dubawi is one of the best sires in the world, and he keeps grabbing headlines on the racecourse and in the sales ring.

The three-year-old Wild Illusion is one of five Group or Grade 1 winners for Dubawi in 2018, joining juvenile Quorto, four-year-olds Benbatl and Kitesurf, and the six-year-old North America. Dubawi was the best runner sired in the sole crop left by Sheikh Mohammed’s favourite racehorse Dubai Millennium (Seeking The Gold).

Wild Illusion is the second foal and second stakes winner for her dam Rumh (Monsun). She is a year younger than Really Special (Shamardal) who won a mile listed race at two. Rumh’s third foal is the two-year-old filly Ceratonia (Oasis Dream) and she was runner-up this year in the Group 3 Prix d’Aumale. Following on are a yearling colt and colt foal, both sons of Dubawi.

Rumh was bought as a yearling for 300,000gns by John Ferguson she went on to become a stakes winner for Godolphin. She was bred by Gestut Fahrhof. Rumh is closely related to Grade 1 winner Royal Highness, by Monsun (Konigsstuhl). That mare won the Beverly D Stakes in the USA and was runner-up in the Group 1 Prix Ganay and Prix Vermeille.

Royal Highness, who is a half-sister to Rumh’s group-winning dam Royal Dubai (Dashing Blade), has gone on to produce the Group 2 Prix Dollar and Prix Hocquart winner Free Port Lux (Oasis Dream). Rumh’s third dam Gesedeh (Ela-Mana-Mou) was a Group 3 winner in France and is grandam of Electrocutionist (Red Ransom), whose eight wins included Group 1 races in three countries (the Dubai World Cup, Juddmonte International Stakes and Gran Premio di Milano), and Robertico (Robellino), winner of the Group 1 German Derby.