In recent years, there have been few, if any, better European sires of sprinters and milers than Dark Angel. A group 1-winning 2-year-old who didn’t race beyond his juvenile season, Dark Angel is by Acclamation (who descends from Northern Dancer through El Gran Senor's brother, Try My Best, Waajib, and Royal Applause) out of a mare by Mr. Prospector’s European champion son, Machiavellian (best known in North America as the sire of Street Cry).
Remarkably, the Acclamation/Machiavellian cross, which has produced just 11 starters, has now come up with another stallion phenom in the shape of Mehmas. Like Dark Angel, Mehmas ran only at 2. He wasn’t able to emulate his counterpart with a victory at the highest level, but did win four of his eight starts, including the Arqana July Stakes (G2) and Qatar Richmond Stakes (G2), which he took by a neck over eventual sprint superstar Blue Point. He also took second in the Goffs Vincent O'Brien National Stakes (G1), Coventry Stakes (G2), and BetVictor Million Pound Goal National Stakes, and third in Juddmonte Middle Park Stakes (G1).
Retired to Tally-Ho Stud, Mehmas stood for €12,500 in his first season, and €10,000 in his second. So far the results of those two crops have been extraordinary. The first runners by Mehmas are now 3-years-olds. No less than 56 of those won as 2-year-olds, a European record, and Mehmas now has 75 individual winners from that crop, 20 black-type horses, 11 stakes winners, and five group/graded winners. First represented by a group/grade 1 winner when Supremacy captured last year’s Middle Park Stakes, Mehmas added another winner at the highest level at the weekend when Going Global justified favoritism to land the Del Mar Oaks (G1T). That same Mehmas crop also includes another U.S. stakes scorer in Quattroelle, who took the Blue Norther Stakes. Mehmas’ second crop, 2-year-olds of 2021, seem to be maintaining the pace as he’s already been represented by 27 individual 2-year-old winners, among them the Tattersalls July Stakes (G2) and Al Basti Equiworld Dubai Gimcrack Stakes (G2) victor Lusail; Beauty Inspire, victorious in the Jebel Ali Racecourse and Stables Anglesey Stakes (G3); and listed scorer Caturra.
The Del Mar Oaks was the fifth win in six starts in North America for Going Global, all in 2021, her only loss being a half-length defeat to Madone—who finished fifth in the Del Mar Oaks—in the San Clemente Stakes (G2T). She's also won the Sweet Life Stakes (G3T), China Doll Stakes, Providencia Stakes (G3T), and Honeymoon Stakes (G3T). That Going Global would rise to such heights couldn't have been anticipated from her four juvenile starts, all of which came in Ireland. She was fourth on her debut, but could do no better than 12th and 13th on her next two starts. The bay finally got off the mark on her final Irish outing, switching from the turf to Dundalk’s all-weather surface. It’s notable that her two poor efforts came on good-to-yielding and yielding ground, while all her U.S. starts have been on a firm surface.
Like Mehmas, Going Global’s dam, Wrood, has made an excellent start to her stud career. Going Global is her second foal, and the first, Finans Bay, is a winner who also took third in the Fitzdares Royal Whip Stakes (G3) in Ireland earlier this both, while her third foal, Mitbaahy, has had a good August, breaking his maiden on the first of the month, and following up with a third in the Julia Graves Roses Stakes at York on Saturday.
A daughter of the fine racehorse, but very disappointing sire, Invasor (by Blushing Groom son, Candy Stripes), Wrood won twice at 10 furlongs in seven starts in England and Ireland. She is half sister to the Betinternet.com Criterion Stakes (G3) scorer, Racer Forever, and to Oman Sea, the dam of the black-type winning and group placed Gallic Star, those siblings both by Blushing Groom son, Rahy.
Wrood’s dam, Ras Shaikh—by Sheikh Albadou another good racehorse/poor sire—was a winner at 2, and three times runner up in black-type events in England. She was a half sister to the Shadeed daughter, Silver Arrow, who was unplaced in eight starts, but produced both the juvenile group winner Masta Plasta, and Kheleyf’s Silver (by a son of Sheikh Albadou’s sire, Green Desert), the dam of European champion 2-year-old Filly Tiggy Wiggy. Ras Shaikh’s dam, Aneesati, is a half sister to Magellan, the winner of the American Handicap (G2T), and there is English classic form just behind her as her dam, Dabaweyaa, was second in the General Accident One Thousand Guineas (G1), and is a half sister to the Epsom Oaks (G1) runner-up, Acclimatise. The family eventually goes back to the 'peerless' Pretty Polly, who won 22 of her 24 starts and captured the English Filly Triple Crown in 1904.
Going Global is one of eight stakes winners by Acclamation or a son out of a Blushing Groom line mare, the others including Pyledriver, successful this year in the Coral Coronation Cup (G1). Her pedigree is quite unusual for a modern-day stakes winner, as she is a complete outcross at five generations. Behind that, there are some noteworthy build-ups, notably that Going Global’s granddam has two horses bred on the Northern Dancer/Sir Ivor cross—Green Desert and Shareef Dancer—in the second and third generation of her pedigree, and Mehmas brings in two more crosses of Northern Dancer, combined with Halo, a horse bred on very similar lines to Sir Ivor.
