With a victory in Saturday's $12-million G1 Dubai World Cup–a fait accompli in the eyes of many–reigning Japanese Horse of the Year and GI Breeders' Cup Classic hero Forever Young (Jpn) (Real Steel {Jpn}) would leap-frog Hong Kong superstar Romantic Warrior (Ire) (Acclamation {GB}) as the world's richest racehorse with over $36 million in career earnings, accomplished in the space of just 15 races.Heady stuff. Unfathomable stuff, really. And to think that the 5-year-old is out of a mare that fetched just $8,000 as a yearling, well, you just can't make this sort of stuff up.It isn't that the blood or inherent class were lacking when a daughter of Congrats and Debby Oxley's stakes-winning and dual Grade I-placed Darling My Darling (Deputy Minister) was foaled at the breeder's Fawn Leap Farm in Lexington on March 16, 2013. It wasn't that at all. Darling My Darling, a foal of 1997, was a daughter of the Shug McGaughey-trained Roamin Rachel (Mining), who beat the likes of Classy Mirage, Twist Afleet and Educated Risk in the GI Ballerina Handicap at Saratoga in 1994.Roamin Rachel was sold to Japanese interests for $750,000 in foal to Storm Cat at the 1998 Keeneland November Sale, and while that foal amounted to very little–on the racetrack, in any event–her next produce cemented her standing as a broodmare of considerable importance.Mated with Sunday Silence, Roamin Rachel foaled the colt that would become Zenno Rob Roy (Jpn), winner of the prestigious Tenno Sho (Autumn) and Arima Kinen (each ungraded at the time) and the 2004 G1 Japan Cup en route to Horse of the Year honors. And to circle back to that in-utero filly Stray Cat (Jpn), she was responsible for nine winners from 10 runners as a producer, including four full black-type scorers.Not Exactly A Sales 'Darling'Darling My Darling was 16 when she foaled Forever Darling, but despite the black-type in her female family, she never connected with the buying public when she was offered at Keeneland September in 2014. When the hammer fell, the final price was less than five figures, but Oxley was happy to let her go. Machmer Hall and Haymarket Farm was the name on the docket.“Obviously she had some issues [to bring that price],” Oxley told the TDN's Jill Williams in October 2024. “She was by Congrats and he was not very popular at that time. What's interesting about the breeding side of the business is if you're trying to sell, a horse might be in demand when you breed, and by the time you go to sell, nobody might want them. Plus, we already had others in the family and you can't keep everything.”In a business where hope springs eternal, Machmer Hall's Carrie Brogden was willing to give her purchase the benefit of the doubt and was forgiving of her conformation, even as she wasn't entirely convinced she had a future at the races.“She toed out too much, but when you have a whole family that's lovely in every way, and then you have one horse that is significantly in or out, whatever way, I actually think it's how they lay in utero, so I didn't think that was genetically her,” Brogden said.With a push from Old South Farm's Albert Davis, the filly was ultimately–albeit somewhat reluctantly–presented to the 2-year-olds-in training marketplace at the 2015 OBS April Sale.“I named her Forever Darling because we were never going to sell her, but Albert was like 'this filly can really run', so we decided to put her in the sale,” Brogden explained. “She worked awesome and everyone came to the barn to see her and honestly, most people walked right on by because she toed out–very, very out.”Davis was highly complimentary of the filly despite her flaws.Forever Darling as a yearling | Courtesy Carrie Brogden“Real big and scopey, beautiful body. I mean, just almost the perfect chassis,” Davis recollected. “But she was really crooked, toed out really bad up front, kind of walked like Charlie Chaplin.”But the analogy ended there.“She didn't train like Charlie Chaplin,” he said. “She looked beautiful on the racetrack, moved real pretty. She worked real good, :10 flat. Beautiful video. People would come to look at her and she looked like a '10' coming down that shedrow. Everything about her was a '10', except she toed out really badly.”A judge as shrewd as Donato Lanni reportedly had her vetted, but the filly still had yet to find a new home. Changing HandsBidding stalled out at $65,000, but the Louisiana-based Jeff and Kathleen Hebert struck a private deal to purchase the filly from Brogden.“The Heberts loved how she breezed, they made us an offer post-sale,” she said. “And that is how Forever Darling did not stay forever at Machmer Hall. Unfortunately.”The Heberts turned their new acquisition over to trainer Richard Baltas in California, who also took an ownership interest in the filly.“I wasn't there at the sale, but I really did like her body,” the conditioner said. “Well-muscled, good shoulder and hip. She was average size, but just really put together nicely.”Impressive in winning her maiden at second asking at Santa Anita in September 2015, Forever Darling was down the field behind champion Songbird (Medaglia d'Oro) in the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies before taking some time off. She came from just off the speed to take out the GII Santa Ynez Stakes in her 3-year-old debut and–owing to the success of the underlying female family–the Japanese came calling with a seven-figure offer for the filly that was simply too good to refuse.“At the time I didn't have much money,” Baltas said. “I owned a third of the horse and I invested money to buy her. And I took a chance and I got lucky. And then she helped me buy my home in Long Beach. So it was a good thing for me and it was good for everybody.”The next time Forever Darling faced the starter–in the GII Rachel Alexandra Stakes–she carried the colors of Northern Farm's Katsumi Yoshida, for whom she made four additional appearances, the best of them a runner-up effort in the Angels Flight Stakes in 2016.A Defining Moment For the HebertsFormer Louisiana trainer Jeff Hebert has known Al Davis for 45 years, but he and his wife Kathleen hadn't seen the Congrats filly before she RNAd at OBS that April. They made their way back to the barn to have a look, and it's safe to say it was love at first sight.“I said, 'do you still have her?” and he said, 'We sure do,'” Kathleen recollected. So we said, 'we'll be there in five minutes.' As soon as he pulled her out, we called Dr. Jeff Burke and we said, 'we'll take her.'“She was just drop-dead gorgeous. And she had worked really well and everything at the sale, but we just hadn't made it by that barn and hadn't seen her until that moment. And so we made a deal right there on the spot. Dr. Burke vetted her and said she vetted totally clean.”They, too, were willing to see the filly for what she was from a physical standpoint.“In our mind, it was a slight imperfection, which was aligned with her pedigree, but well within acceptable conformation,” Kathleen Hebert said.The Heberts took their new purchase back to their training center in Vinton, Louisiana, for some down time and ultimately turned the filly over to Baltas. They took a third of the filly and Baltas brought in a third party, John and Kathy Manni from Las Vegas.Forever Darling on the Santa Anita backstretch following the Santa Ynez | Courtesy Jeff and Kathleen HebertKathleen Hebert reports that they turned down an offer of $600,000 after Forever Darling broke her maiden and that the filly may have had an airway issue when retreating abruptly in the Breeders' Cup. Surgery having been done, it would have been understandable to give the filly a soft reintroduction to racing, but connections opted for a loftier target in the Santa Ynez. Their phones were soon ringing again.“We told Richard, I think they were talking 700 (thousand), 800 (thousand) and all that,” Kathleen said. “And we said, 'no, price her for a million-five because we had seen in her pedigree where she had the Japanese family.' The agent for Northern Farm called and we settled on a million-two.”Success In The Ring, Success At The RacesAlthough Forever Young was the first of Forever Darling's progeny to achieve black-type, her offspring were already coveted as far back as 2020 when her then-yearling colt by Deep Impact (Jpn) fetched ¥400 million ($3,741,720), the second-priciest offering at the JRHA Select Sale.Himself a $720,603 graduate of the 2022 Select Sale, Forever Young is a half-brother to the 4-year-old filly Brown Ratchet (Jpn) (Kizuna {Jpn}), a Group 3 winner at two in the Sunday Racing colors, and to Sunday Racing's 3-year-old filly Darlinghurst (Jpn) (Epiphaneia {Jpn}), who won her maiden at second asking on the turf at Tokyo only hours before Forever Young defended his Saudi Cup title. 3f DARLINGHURST (Epiphaneia x Forever Darling ) won 3yo 1800m Maiden Tokyo Saturday x Rachel King Broke maiden at 2nd start13 hours later big bro FOREVER YOUNG (Real Steel x Forever Darling ) took care of business in the desert@Sunny18_diapic.twitter.com/NlODc77fwu https://t.co/gn26LXnbqW— Graham Pavey (@LongBallToNoOne) February 15, 2026 Susumu Fujita, who races Forever Young, paid the equivalent of $2.24 million at last year's Select Yearling Sale for the colt now named Young Rich (Jpn), a son of the King Kamehameha (Jpn) stallion Rey de Oro (Jpn), making him just the second of Forever Darling's seven foals that is completely free of Sunday Silence blood. Forever Darling's first offspring is the now 8-year-old Mon Favori (Jpn) (Frankel {GB}), a three-time winner at the races and herself the dam of two foals. Forever Darling is due to to produce a full-sibling to Forever Young this year.And as if the family needs further advertising, Forever Darling's Grade I-winning half-sister Heavenly Love (Malibu Moon) is, of course, the dam of three-time Grade I and Eclipse Award winner and $2.3-million Fasig-Tipton Saratoga topper 'TDN Rising Star' presented by Hagyard Sierra Leone (Gun Runner).A Life-Changing Mare For ManyWhen asked what Forever Darling has meant to him within the context of his career, Davis perhaps summed it up best of all.“At the end of the day when it's all over and you're not proud of what you've done with horses–especially when they turn out like that–you're in the wrong business,” he said. “Every time I see Forever Young, I think 'his mama was a nice horse too and she's an even better mama.' You never know where they're going to come from.”Carrie Brogden understandably laments to some degree the decision to let go of Forever Darling, but takes pride in the impact her $8,000 purchase has had on the breed, albeit half a world away.“The Heberts let me ride the whole ride with them, I was in the paddock for [the Breeders' Cup], they're just lovely people,” she said. “But if we'd kept her, we would never have sent her to California, Forever Young would never have been born.”Said Kathleen Hebert: “It's like our grandchild. We feel honored to have been in her life. Just proud…very proud of the association with her. She oozed with class, mentally, physically. I'm telling you, she was just a beautiful filly.”Jeff Hebert admits to shedding a tear or two when Forever Young runs. He's not the only one.If all goes according to script this weekend, there are likely to be more moments of joy.For Brogden and for Davis.For Baltas and the Heberts and the Mannis.And for Forever Young's worldwide legion of admirers.The post Oh My, ‘Darling’!: Dam Of Forever Young A Real Rags-To-Riches (And How!) Tale appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.