From Delaware To The Desert — Globetrotting Arabian First Classs Continues March Through Record Books

by Joe Nevills

First Classs extended his lead as Arabian racing’s all-time leading U.S.-born earner with a victory in the $2 million Obaiyah Arabian Classic.

First Classs and Connor Beasley win the Group 1 $2-million Obaiyah Arabian Classic. JCSA Photo

Deb Mihaloff was feeling down ahead of Valentine’s Day.

She had to put both of her dogs down earlier in the week after long illnesses, adding stress to her own recovery from surgery, which kept her at home instead of going to Saudi Arabia to watch her star horse First Classs race in the Group 1 Obaiyah Arabian Classic on the Saudi Cup undercard.

It was a lonely feeling watching the race from her Cre Run Farm in Doswell, Va., with the loss of the dogs following the death of her husband Alan Kirshner in March 2024. Together, they’d built one of North America’s top racing and breeding operations for the Arabian breed, so when it came to pulling herself out of that pit, Mihaloff knew who she needed to talk to.

“I went to Alan’s urn and I said, ‘Alan, please give me a sign that the girls are with you, and just make my Valentine’s Day a beautiful day,'” she said. “In 2022 he and I on Valentine’s Day had gone to Miami to see Andrea Bocelli, which was on my bucket list – under a full moon in Miami – and I just remember that being the most fabulous Valentine’s Day gift I had ever gotten from Alan. So then, the horse wins on Valentine’s Day in Saudi Arabia, and I knew that he was still a part of all of this, and he was giving me a sign. I know that sounds silly to some people, but oh my God, you have no idea what it meant to me.”

Forever Young rightfully drew the headlines over the weekend as the world-traveled superstar and U.S. award winner who added yet another top-dollar prize to his mantle after winning the G1 Saudi Cup, but First Classs beat him to that description by a few hours in the Obaiyah Arabian Classic, with the race’s $2 million purse being the second-highest in the world for racing Arabians.

Saturday’s victory at King Abdulaziz Racecourse brought First Classs’ lifetime earnings to $4,769,125, padding his lead as the richest U.S.-bred racing Arabian in history. His march across the map has included graded wins over the dirt and turf in the U.S., Qatar, the U.A.E., and Saudi Arabia, and group-placed efforts in England and France.

In the most basic sense, race-bred Arabians share plenty in common with Thoroughbreds. They’re stabled, trained, and saddled the same way, a jockey gets the leg up and led through the post parade, and they’re loaded and released from the same starting gate. Though Arabians are known through history for their endurance races through deserts and mountains, their races at the track are carded at the same distances as Thoroughbreds. The Obaiyah Arabian Classic was contested at 2,000 meters, or roughly 1 1/4 miles.

The differences come in the pedigree, appearance, and running style. Arabians are the foundation of the Thoroughbred stud book through the three foundation sires – the Godolphin Arabian, the Darley Arabian, and the Byerley Turk – but the Arabians that race today are the results of remaining within the confines of the purebred Arabian breed centuries ago. Race-bred Arabians are generally smaller and slower than their Thoroughbred counterparts, meaning jockeys must adjust how they use their mount’s energy and time their moves. Because of their smaller frame, race-bred Arabians don’t begin their on-track careers until age three, compared with Thoroughbreds who often begin racing at two.

Arabian racing in the U.S. has contracted over the past decade to where it’s primarily conducted in Texas, with the occasional high-dollar race on cards as lofty as the Preakness Stakes and Breeders’ Cup, and in locations like Churchill Downs and Gulfstream Park. In the recent past, Delaware Park was the primary North American base for Arabians, with outposts further down the class ladder in California, Texas, Colorado, and Michigan. 

Born and raised in the same central Virginia town as the mighty Secretariat, First Classs’ global trek began close to home at Delaware Park with trainer Lynn Ashby. It took a few races to find his footing, but the gray horse got better as he went and finished the domestic leg of his 3-year-old season with a victory in the G3 Texas Lone Star Juvenile Stakes. The effort secured First Classs the Darley Award, the breed’s equivalent of an Eclipse Award, for champion 3-year-old colt or gelding.

However, there was work still to be done before the gelding received the trophy. After the graded stakes score, Mihaloff was contacted by Nassar Al Kaabi, representative to Qatar-based Nayef bin Saad bin Sharida Al Kaabi, about leasing the horse to race in that country.

It’s not uncommon for Middle Eastern connections to take interest in race-bred Arabians that find early success in the U.S. and buy or lease them to race in their own home region, but the decision to send First Classs overseas wasn’t as simple as signing on the dotted line for Mihaloff and Kirshner.

“Alan always supported Delaware Park with our horses,” Mihaloff said. “We really sacrificed on many occasions because of the fact that we would fill the races at Delaware Park, and he never believed in sending the horses internationally. I felt that if ever there was going to be a time for me to prove my program internationally, that was the way I was gonna have to do it.

“At that point, Alan’s health was totally failing, and I wanted to make him happy,” she continued. “I stopped breeding at that time for four years while we went down to Florida and spent seven months of the year down there, because I pull out my own mares, so I said ‘Go ahead, let’s do a deal with Nassar.'”

First Classs finished the 2020 racing season in Qatar, running fourth in the G3 Qatar Derby. He remained in Qatar during his 4-year-old campaign, where he was consistently in the hunt, but didn’t break through with his first win in the new country until his final race of the year in the G2 Qatar International Derby.

That win kick-started the gelding’s world tour in earnest in 2022, beginning with a trip to Saudi Arabia to win the inaugural running of the $1 million Al Mneefah Cup over the turf. A month later, he moved to the dirt at Meydan Racecourse in the U.A.E. to take the G1 Dubai Kahayla Classic, arguably the world’s most prestigious race for the breed with another million-dollar purse. He went back to the turf that summer to test the best in Europe, with his best effort being a runner-up finish in the G1 Prix Dragon at Longchamp.

First Classs finished the season with yet another milestone, notching his third seven-figure purse in the G1 Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Jewel Crown on the turf at Abu Dhabi. Not long ago, the Jewel Crown held the title as the world’s richest race for the breed.

First Classs finished third in his defense of the Dubai Kahayla Classic the following year, but his form began to tail off by the middle of his 6-year-old season as he once again added stamps to his passport.

A series of events outside of the owner or lessee’s control led to the gelding switching trainers on multiple occasions. Mihaloff had initially made the deal to send First Classs to the Middle East on the condition that his training situation would remain consistent, and paired with her husband’s failing health, she decided to take back control of the horse in late 2023. The gelding’s breeder knew what she had, and she wanted to enjoy it with her husband while she still could.

“At that point, I needed to break off my partnership with Nassar,” she said. “He begged to keep the horse, and the only thing I feel bad about was his son loved the horse so much, but I had a dying husband, and I wanted the horse to run in our silks.”

Mihaloff placed First Classs in the barn of leading U.A.E. trainer Doug Watson, and the new conditioner found he had a reclamation project on his hands. Two years after winning the Dubai Kahayla Classic, First Classs finished last of 13 in the 2024 edition – his first in the Cre Run silks.

It was arguably the low point in the middle of a 12-race losing streak for First Classs, with nine of those efforts being off-the-board finishes. He needed a hard reset, so he got off the merry-go-round for a while.

“The horse had been running and running, and he wasn’t in the greatest of condition at that point, and he needed a break,” Mihaloff said. “What we then realized is that the horse needs to go to England and summer there, and that’s what we did.

“If you give your horses time off, they will come back and they will excel, and I think people are taking notice to that because we’ve been talking about the fact that we gave him a summer off in England, and we gave him a summer off in France, and we focused on our plan, and our plan was to run him in the Middle East.”

Now nine years old, First Classs checked off one of the few high-level boxes remaining on his resume by winning the Obaiyah Arabian Classic. Next, he’ll go for even more history, attempting to become the third horse to win three editions of the Dubai Kahayla Classic, joining U.S.-born Alanudd and French-bred Madjani, and the first to do it in non-consecutive years.

After that, it’s up to the horse where he goes next.

“He’s had to go into quarantine (after the race in Saudi Arabia), and they send us videos all the time, almost daily, and just a couple days ago I said to Amanda (Roxborough, Cre Run racing and sales manager), ‘He’s tired.'” Mihaloff said. “I said after the Kahayla, we’re giving him time off, and I don’t know whether I’ll bring him back again or not.

“He doesn’t need to prove anything to anybody,” she continued. “He is the greatest Arabian ever bred from America, I believe. You’ve got Alanudd, whose record we’re going to try and tie, and if we do, then quite frankly, I think he should be considered the greatest. No matter where the horse finishes in the Kahayla, he’s still a great horse.”

The Cre Run breeding operation looks different from when it brought First Classs into the world. The farm previously bred up to 30 foals per year, but after a hiatus to focus on Kirshner’s health, the operation came back with a leaner five foals per year. The broodmare band leans on quality over quantity, with three of its members including First Classs’ dam, the stakes-placed Toppoftheclass and two of the gelding’s full-sisters.

Waiting in the wings are two more full-sisters preparing for on-track careers. Mihaloff said the 3-year-old A Special Classs was headed to France to begin her training, while 2-year-old A Classs Allher Own was still on the farm in Virginia waiting her turn.