TWO of the Group 1 winners on Dubai World Cup day and evening carry an Irish suffix, the Al Quoz Sprint winner A Case Of You (Hot Streak) and the Dubai Turf dead-heater Lord North (Dubawi).

Both have been well reviewed in these columns previously, but deserve recaps.

Last year A Case Of You won the Group 1 Prix de l’Abbaye de Longchamp on Arc weekend, and any doubters about the value of that win can eat their words now that he has shown the victory to have been no fluke. A Case Of You, whose dam is visiting Tara Stud’s River Boyne (Dandy Man) this year, could well progress to become a racing feature around the world.

A Case Of You was sent to the Goffs Sportsman’s Sale where his breeders, Limestone and Tara Studs, could not get the minimum bid of €3,000 for him. Subsequently Derek Iceton sold him for less to John McConnell. He then won a Group 3 for O’Connell at two and who then sold him on. He is the best of three winners for his Key Of Luck (Chief’s Crown) dam Karjera and she too was bred by Limestone and Tara Studs.

Karjera’s dam Lock’s Heath (Topsider) was purchased through bloodstock agent John Walsh for only 6,800gns and mated well with Tara Stud’s Key Of Luck, three of her four winners being sired by him. The best was Akanti who won the Listed Rochestown Stakes for Ger Lyons at two and later won a stakes race in the USA, while Lock And Key won for Eddie Lynam and was multiple group-placed.

A Case Of You is from the second crop of Group 2 winner Hot Streak (Iffraaj) who was runner-up in the Group 1 Middle Park Stakes and third in the Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes. The former Tweenhills Farm stallion is responsible for three stakes winners for his sire. He now stands in France.

Bred by Godolphin and foaled when his dam Najoum (Giant’s Causeway) was visiting Teofilo (Galileo) at Kildangan, the six-year-old gelding Lord North has now won a Group 1 in each of the last three years. Progressing from winning the Cambridgeshire at three, he landed the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at four, added the Dubai Turf in 2021, and this year did it again, though having to share the honours with Panthalassa. His earnings from eight wins now exceed €4.35 million.

Gelded at two after a disappointing effort on his third start, Lord North is a son of Dubawi (Dubai Millennium), and one of a pair of winners out of Najoum who won two of her four starts when trained by Saeed bin Suroor. Her victories at Redcar and Kempton were a bonus as she was already guaranteed a place in Godolphin’s breeding programme. She was at the time a half-sister to Bandini (Fusaichi Pegasus), winner of the Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland.

Najoum is a daughter of the stakes-placed Divine Dixie (Dixieland Band) who was sold for $2 million on the back of her son’s Grade 1 victory. She then went on to produce a dozen winners in all, and last year one of her daughters bred the Grade 1 Ashland Stakes winner Out For A Spin (Hard Spun).