MIMI Kakushki is a Japanese restaurant in Dubai, and also a dual classic winner this year.

In case you missed it, the three-year-old filly won both the Group 3 UAE Oaks and the Listed UAE 1000 Guineas, adding to a single juvenile success.

She is from the first crop of City Of Light (Quality Road), and is that Breeders’ Cup winner’s fourth stakes winner. Bred by Woodford Thoroughbreds, Mimi Kakushi was purchased as a yearling by Al Pike for $180,000 at the July Sale held by Fasig-Tipton, and left some profit when sold on to Woodrow Call for $250,000 at the same company’s Midlantic Two-Year-Old in Training Sale. She races for Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum.

Standing for $60,000 this year at Lane’s End Stud, City Of Light only raced 11 times, none of which were at two, and he never finished out of the first three. He announced himself at three when, in his first stakes race, he landed the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes.

Two more wins at the highest level the following year included the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, and City Of Light then crowned his career with victory in the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes, which carried a purse of $9 million.

Woodford Thoroughbreds purchased the dam of Mimi Kakushi, the Vicar (Wild Again) mare Rite Moment, for $400,000 as a six-year-old, and got a large dollop of it back when they sold the foal she was carrying, Ian’s Memory (Smart Strike), for $235,000. He went on to win four races in England, all at the age of four. Rite Moment was a smart racemare, winning a pair of Grade 2 races at Aqueduct.

Lucky number

Thirteen years after purchasing Rite Moment, Woodford can be proud of their investment. Six of the eight runners produced by the mare are winners, all of them are multiple winners, and three are stakes winners. Mimi Kakushi is the first to win at group or graded level, while Moment Is Right (Medaglia D’Oro) won the $250,000 Astoria Stakes at Belmont at two, and Laudation (Congrats), another to won a stakes at two, is a broodmare at Peter O’Callaghan’s Woods Edge Farm in Kentucky.

While Mimi Kanushi was a classic winner at Meydan, the day’s feature was the Group 3 Nad Al Sheba Trophy over a mile and a half. It was won by the Godolphin homebred Siskany, a five-year-old Dubawi (Dubai Millennium) son of the unraced Dansili (Danehill) mare Halay. Siskany is one of his sire’s 249 stakes winners.

This was a seventh career win for Siskany, successful in a mile listed race at two, in another listed race at Meydan last year, and now he has graduated to a group success. He was third in a German Group 1. and his winnings are racing towards £400,000.Siskany is the first foal out of Halay, and his full-sister, born the following year, won twice in France last year. Halay’s third produce is a yearling filly by Ribchester (Iffraaj),

A blessing

Having access to Dubawi has been a blessing for this female line. Halay’s half-brother Dartmouth (Dubawi) won the Group 2 Hardwicke Stakes from Highland Reel and the Yorkshire Cup from Simple Verse, and came closest to winning at the highest level when beaten a length in the Grade 1 Pattison Canadian International at Woodbine.

Two more siblings of Halay and Dartmouth worth noting are the dual Group 2 French winner Manatee (Monsun) and the listed winner Gaterie (Dubai Destination). The latter is dam of Warren Point (Dubawi), and this progressive four-year-old has won five of his eight starts, adding a recent listed win in Bahrain to a stakes victory in England, and last week was beaten half a length by the dual Group 1 winner Russian Emperor in Qatar.

Dartmouth and his siblings are out of Galatee (Galileo), successful in the Group 3 Blue Wind Stakes at Naas and sold to Godolphin for 1,400,000gns as a four-year-old, carrying her first foal and winner, Galleria (Dalakhani).

Successful return

The third pattern race on the Meydan card was the Group 3 Dubai Millennium Stakes, and this saw a return to racing for last year’s Grade 1 Saratoga Derby winner Nations Pride, another Godolphin homebred. His pedigree involves yet another grandam who lit up the Tattersalls sale ring, selling to John Ferguson for 3,400,000gns.

She was Satwa Queen (Muhtathir), winner and runner-up in the Group 1 Prix de l’Opera and twice successful in the Prix Jean Romanet, though at the time it was a Group 2. While Satwa Queen’s record of three winning offspring might appear at first a tad disappointing, she is grandam of two winners at the top table, Nations Pride and Lucky Vega (Lope De Vega).

The latter stands at the Irish National Stud and won the Group 1 Phoenix Stakes at two, ran second in the Group 1 Middle Park Stakes, and at three was runner-up in the Group 1 St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot after finishing third in the Group 1 2000 Guineas. Few stallions standing at stud are getting the level of support he is receiving, and he looks nailed on for success at stud.

Satwa Queen’s three winners included a single blacktype winner, and that was Nations Pride’s dam Important Time (Oasis Dream). She was cleverly campaigned to win three races at four, being sent to Germany to secure that valuable listed race victory.