Creating Winners for Cre Run Farm

Deborah Mihaloff was thrilled to get her first horse, Smokey, a grey Half-Arabian and Half-Quarter Horse, when she was 17. Soon her enthusiasm led her to purchase a purebred Arabian mare, and she began breeding her own horses in

By Pamela Burton

focused, she became the first woman to write equine insurance in the burgeoning Middle Eastern Arabian horse market. In 1986, Deborah and her husband, Alan Kirshner, built their Arabian breeding farm, Cre Run, in Montpelier, Virginia. For thirty years, while supporting Arabian racing at Delaware Park Racetrack, Cre Run bred top runners that have raced under the bright green with purple and white striped colors with national and international success.

Mihaloff comments, “I have always felt that the Arabian horse should not only exemplify the Arabian type but also athletic ability. It does and is truly the versatile breed. I have always been proud of the Arabian type I have kept in my horses.

Michigan for the show ring.

Cre Run Phase One

In 1980, when she wished to insure her newly purchased Arabian mare, she asked the Rhulen Insurance Agency if she could place the coverage and receive a commission since she was working in her father’s insurance office. They declined. Mihaloff, not to be thwarted, went to London where she convinced underwriters to give the Arabian breed its own rate status instead of classifying it as a miscellaneous breed. She would meet Alan Kirshner and Tony Markel on that trip and would develop the equine program for Markel. Working with Markel Corporation, a fifty-year-old specialty insurance brokerage firm located in Richmond, Virginia, Deb developed risk management programs with the help of equine veterinarians and insurance agents. As her insurance goals

“My research of pedigrees came naturally from learning blood lines before I began breeding. Once I started insuring horses for Markel, it allowed me the opportunity to visit farms all over the world and see horses up close and personal. I learned their faults and assets and would later use that knowledge in my own breeding program. It was such an advantage to see all those old lines.

“My breeding career started with Arabian show horses, and each was chosen for its athletic ability with the hopes of one day racing those lines. We had a Pure Polish mare, a Straight Egyptian mare and a domestic mare.

“The first success would come with MHF Eclipse (1987), my foundation sire. When we began Mi Hal Of Fame Arabian Stud (MHF), my mother and I bred him. He would later set the track record at Los Alamitos for 6 furlongs, until Unchained Melody would break it. I attribute that to both of them being of the Egyptian bloodlines of Moniet El Nefous.

“Then the USA was invaded with French Bloodlines that were bred for distance. My program needed to change, and I slowly started using a few of the French bloodlines. I did not like the temperament nor the front legs on many of them, but it was giving me distance.”

Cre Run Phase Two

“When you make a major change in a breeding program, such as changing from running route to sprint or vice versa, you need to take into account the broodmare band that you have collected,” continued Mihaloff. “It takes time to change and is costly. You need to learn what ‘nicks’ and what doesn’t. This takes time, even harder for us since we don’t race until they are three years of age.

“So Thoroughbred breeders get a year sooner to figure this out, but we have other advantages that the Thoroughbred breeders don’t have. We have the ability to use frozen semen and the use of artificial insemination. The other great advantage Arabian breeders have over Thoroughbred breeders is the use of embryo transfers. Cre Run was the first race farm in the USA to use some of this technology.

“After the French lines came the Burning Sand influence, and races went back down to sprint distances. Again the program had to change, so I went for Dahess. I thought by using him - since he had won going short or long - I would strengthen the Egyptian blood in some of my lines and bring speed to others. I got my speed and a quick turn of foot.”

In spite of winning 26 Darley Awards with champions such as Royal Atheena, DA Adios, Our Princess, Don Condare, Our Machine, Flaming Tron Ku, Our Machine, Our Princess, Thess Is Awesome and First Classs, Mihaloff decided that 2018 would be their last breeding year. As of 2022, Cre Run estimates that with U.S. and international prize money, their horses have earned just over $4 million USD.

“When Delaware Park was not being supported by the horsemen in the U.S., and Delaware quit running Arabian races, it gave us the opportunity to rethink our program. In order to prove what I always believed our horses were capable of doing, we would need to go over to the Middle East or to France. To start up an international string of race horses is expensive, and therefore our decision to lease First Classs made sense.”

3-Year-Old Award Colt/Gelding, First Classs (Dahess x Topoftheclass, by Genuine Monarch) was bred to be first class.

Mihaloff continued, “If you look at the bottom side of First Classs’s pedigree you will see *Sambor, known in this country as a show horse, but he had a very successful racing career in Poland (3/14(6-4-1)). He was a very handsome individual with tremendous bone and substance. I fell in love with him the day I saw him and knew I wanted his blood. On the dam’s side, *Sambor is the sire of Top Star (3/19(2-6-1)) who I considered to be one of the most beautiful race mares of all time. And of course you have Monarch AH (3/23(19-3-0)), the perfect mile and a quarter runner. You add in By Golly (4/33(15-9-1)), the sire of Top Of The Line (3/23(6-3-6)) who was a truly great route horse into the mix, and you get a beautiful combination of sprint and route capability, and you keep your Arabian type.”

According to data regarding recent purebred Arabian dam race earnings from <https://arabian.horseracing.tools>, Topoftheclass leads in offspring earnings with First Classs and Iridesse earning 1,930,054 Euros.

In his first year of racing in the U.S. as a 3-year-old, First Classs had 3 wins and 1 second out of 5 starts.

A Leasing Opportunity

First Classs was then leased to Mr. Nasser Al Kaabi of Noora Racing. Mihaloff explains, “I was contacted by Eric Moreau-Sipiere in 2020, at the end of First Classs’s 3-year-old race season about a lease for him to run in the Middle East. It was at that time I knew I needed to prove the program internationally, and we felt First Classs was capable of doing that.

“Classs didn’t have a win in the first year of the lease, so I extended it. I felt that my partner had confidence in the horse and didn’t push him, and I wanted to make the deal a good one for all. Our trainer made some minor adjustments, and we got jockey Ronan

Thomas on him and he excelled by winning the Qatar International Arabian Derby in December of his 4-year-old year.

“One of the conditions of the lease was to have Alban de Meuille as the trainer who I feel is one of the best trainers in the world. Since Alban can no longer train Classs due to his contract with the Emir, we are fortunate to have Alban’s nephew, Jean de Mieulle, train for us now in France where the horse is stabled. He was training Classs when he won the Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Jewel Crown.”

First Classs is the son of the talented Dahess, who needs no introduction. Cre Run was proud to represent Dahess in the U.S. for many years. Dahess was also trained by Alban De Mieulle, and while doing so won six Group 1PA races and later to set the record for the highest-priced Arabian to be sold at the Arqana Purebred Arabian sale when purchased for €1,050,000 in 2007.

In 2021, First Classs had 10 races after he went to Doha, with a record that year of 8(1-2-4). Then, in his second race in February, 2022, Classs showed his heels to the international competition beating leader Soko to finish two lengths in front in the Saudi Cup weekend’s $1 million LPA inaugural Al Mneefah Cup at 2100m on turf. He then went on to win the Gr 1 $1,000,000 Dubai Kahayla Classic in March on sand going 2,000 meters. He capped the year off by winning the Gr 1 $1,361,000 Jewel Crown in Abu Dhabi in November on turf going a distance of 2200m.

Mihaloff’s New Direction

“My success has reached new heights with First Classs, both statistically and in regards to my breeding program. It could not have happened if it weren’t for all the people who have had confidence in this horse and our breeding program over the years. Classs is a very special horse we have been blessed with.

“People ask why he was gelded. We wanted to give him the best possible opportunity to prove the Cre Run breeding program to the world, and he has done so. You can profit with a gelding, and they are easier to maintain. They stay focused on the job, which is to run, and he loves doing just that. He is truly an ambassador for Arabian racing. He has had four different trainers from three different countries, numerous jockeys, has run all over the world and has won million dollar races in three different countries doing different distances on different surfaces. Truly he exemplifies what the Arabian breed is most known for and that is being the versatile breed.

“Classs was gelded early on as he was a tough horse, but we have two full sisters, Iridesse and Taylors Touchof Class. Touch will be bred for the first time this year in 2023. Iridesse is in Dubai with trainer Ernst Oertel and was sent there for the same reasons we leased out First Classs. We aren’t racing for classic distance in the U.S. anymore, and both First Classs and Iridesse are distance runners,” she explained.

Mihaloff confirms that Iridesse will stay under Oertel’s care, and it will be up to him how her program goes from here. She also has another horse, Winds Of Fortune, that she plans to lease in a similar format once he makes his first start.

“I have always bred for endurance even with sprint lines. Eclipse is one of those horses with both, and he was my foundation. He sired Ali Eclipse who finished second and Best Condition at Tevis with Heather Reynolds. I have always wanted a horse to do Tevis, especially since that is my market place for horses after racing; to sell them to the endurance world. We have bred many endurance winners that had been race horses. The recent winner, Treasured Moments (DA Adios+/ x Hidden Treasure), winner at the track, 2017 Haggin Cup and 2021 Tevis Cup winner is only one of many. Hopefully she will go to the Middle East for the FEI World Endurance Championship to be held in 2023. I would have to say we are probably one of the top three centers in the USA for breeding successful endurance horses.”

Cre Run Phase Three

“With the success of First Classs, we have bred his mother back to Dahess and bred the wonderful mare Our Princess to Al Mamun Monlau,” said Mihaloff. “I fell in love with this horse when I saw him run as a 3-year old in Paris. I took pictures of him then and after studying them, I thought what a magnificent animal and knew then that I would breed to him.

“We are very fortunate because our broodmare band is exceptional and proven. We have the ability to breed to many different stallions, and none of our lines have any Burning Sand blood in them so are a perfect outcross.”