I needn't do any statistics on *Mirage, it has been done for me.

Some excerpts from an article in the March 1998 Arabian Horse World, Studbook Research, volume 71, by Mary Jane Parkinson:

"For the fourth consecutive stud book, Desperado V heads up the Leading Sires List (tied for first place in Volume 70)."

Here are the leading sires from the article that pertain to *Mirage:

#1, Desperado V (Huckleberry Bey x Daraska by *Dar) with 67 foals
#5, Afire Bey V (Huckleberry Bey x Autumn Fire by *Bask) with 53 foals
#6, Bey Shah (Bay El Bey x Star Of Ofir by *Bask), 47 foals
#9 & 10, Hucklebey Berry (Huckleberry Bey x Miz Bask by *Bask), and JK Amadeus (Bey Shah x Katahza by Aza Destiny) tied with 33 foals.

"A sire line study of the 34 horses in the top 20 places on the chart produces these figures:

*MIRAGE ­ 11 sires
OFIR ­ 11 sires
NAZEER ­ 7 sires
SKOWRONEK ­ 2 sires
AMURATH ­ 1 sire
MLECH I ­ 1 sire
TELMESE ­ 1 sire

The sires in the *Mirage sire line come through Bay-Abi (Errabi x Angyl by *Raseyn, a great-great-great-grandson of *Mirage, all through Bay El Bey; all the sires in the Ofir sire line through the Ofir sons Witraz (x Makata by Fetysz) and Wielki Szlem (x Elegantka by Bakszysz); the sires of the Nazeer sire line through the Nazeer sons Aswan (x Yosreia by Sheikh El Arab) and *Morafic (x Mabrouka by Sid Abouhom); and the sires of the Skowronek line through his son Naseem (x Nasra by Daoud).

Of the sires of the Leading Sires, 14 have more than one son on the list. Bey Shah heads this list with 14 sons, followed by Huckleberry Bey with seven. *Bask, Bay El Bey, and Ruminaja Ali each have three sons on the list; and *Adhem, *Aladdinn, Ali Jamaal, *Ansata Ibn Halima, Moniet El Nafis, *Padron, *Salon, *Sambor, and The Minstril each have two sons on the list. Sires on the Leading Sires list who also have sons on the list are a class unto themselves as well. Eight Leading Sires are so distinguished. Bey Shah also heads up this list with his 14 sons, and *Padron and The Minstril each have two."

Below is an excerpt from another article I found on the web, this one from Arabian Visions Archives

From the article Jimmy Dean Remembers:

"*Mirage:... *Mirage had a body that would be hard to fault and his head was not out of line in those days, but in the present day context, his head would not have been acceptable. It was the kind of a head like that of all the Arabian horses coming out of the desert. He had a little more refinement because of his large eye, more actually from his expression than from the measurements.

In hindsight, we would have been better off to breed *Mirage more and got his daughters and crossed them to *Raffles. His disposition was the best I ever saw other than my horse, Azy.

My son and Mr. Selby's daughter were born within weeks of each other. When growing up, they had a playhouse in *Mirage's stall. They had their toys there. They would make mud pies, and he was always standing over the top of them. They would feed him cookies and apples and candy and would try to make him eat these mud pies. You should have seen him, he had mud all over his face. He'd put up with it.

When people were coming to see the horses, especially if it was a group of people of some prominence, we'd get the horses all ready to show. We had eight or nine stallions, and they were all in the stallion barn. As soon as word got out that people were coming and to get the horses ready, the kids would go to *Mirage's stall with their brushes and rags and brush his legs. It was not unusual to see them sitting down on the ground, one of them straddling a front leg, and the other straddling the other leg. They'd be brushing and when they'd get through with the front, they'd go back to the back and sit down flat on the ground and brush as high up as they could. Nobody else bothered him. He might only be clean up to here (his belly).

When I was looking at some of the Selby films, I noticed that *Mirage had been stuffed and preserved. Why?

I don't know why. Just an idea Mr. Selby got. I don't know whether you know how his end came, but he must have fallen in the stall and broken a hip. It was broken in such a way that there was no possibility of repairing it and he was a very old horse, too.

A doctor at the Cleveland Clinic at that time was doing research on the endocrine system of all the warm-blooded animals found in the United States. He wanted some of the endocrine systems from horses. He had gotten some from Thoroughbred horses and wanted some Arabian. We had given him the endocrine system for *Nureddin II.

When we called him about *Mirage, he said he would bring his team down and would like to have the glands from *Mirage. We kept him under sedation until the crew got down there. They took all of the glands that they wanted to preserve.

...Then Mr. Selby wanted him preserved. He made arrangements with a man who had done work for the Museum of Natural History in New York who recommended a taxidermist. They came down and got the skin and took it up there and mounted him. The mounting was not very realistic to the horse."