Tag Archive for: Ahmad Al Shaikh

Monday Musings: Classic Modesty

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There’s modesty and then there’s Dubaian owner Ahmad Al Shaikh, writes Tony Stafford. We’ve known each other for more than 30 years, since he used to be the media specialist attached to the Sheikh Mohammed entourage when our main topic, apart from the racing, was our mutual lack of success in keeping off the kilos.

Ever genial, and now pleasingly if not excessively trimmed, Ahmad worked for his country’s first official newspaper Al Ittihad and he remains an advisor. He was employed by the Dubai Government but always loved his trips to Europe for the major race meetings when the Sheikh Mohammed support team was much more in evidence than now.

Why modest? I think this covers it. We bumped into each other in the paddock at Epsom before last year’s Derby. Introducing me to his colleague, he said: “I’m here to support my friend – he has the favourite for the big race.” The friend was Saeed Suhail and his horse Desert Crown, trained by Sir Michael Stoute, duly won the Classic as the 5/2 market leader.

What Ahmad declined to say as we spoke was that he also had a runner in the race, and his horse Hoo Ya Mal, a 150/1 chance trained by Andrew Balding and ridden by David Probert, finished a creditable runner-up. That was Al Shaikh’s second Derby, and third Classic, runner-up, all at big prices.

Khalifa Sat, also trained by Balding, was second at 50/1 in the Covid Derby of 2020 won by shock Aidan O’Brien outsider Serpentine, and Glory Awaits was another 150/1 no-hoper when runner-up to Jim Bolger’s Dawn Approach in the 2013 2000 Guineas when trained by Kevin Ryan.

All three Classic placed runners were cheaply-bought and that is the normal strategy of this sensible man, whose latest big-race winner, Dubai Mile, has just left Charlie Johnston, Ahmad having sold a half share to Martyn Meade.

A £20k purchase by Mark Johnston at the 2021 Goffs Orby sale, he is a son of the ill-fated Roaring Lion, who covered only for one season at a fee of £40k. The Johnston pattern is always to buy and then issue a list to existing and prospective owners. Ahmad had the speed off the mark to secure him.

Dubai Mile’s appeal as a potential stallion is obvious, having won twice as a juvenile before finishing a close second to The Foxes in the Royal Lodge at Newmarket and then winning the Group1 Criterium De Saint-Cloud over one mile, two furlongs.

Fifth in the Guineas, he couldn’t match the exploits of his two predecessors in the Derby, but having switched from Charlie Johnston, he will race for the rest of this season for Freddie and Martyn Meade before hopefully joining Aclaim and co in their stallion team.

“It’s always been my ambition to own a stallion, so I rejected many offers to sell him. But when Martyn Meade came along with an offer to buy a half with a view to standing him as a stallion, I was delighted. I can’t wait to see his progeny running on the track.”

Al Shaikh does have a smaller interest with another stallion, Khalifa Sat, who was the result of a foal share between the Irish National Stud, who own Free Will, and Lacken Stud, owners of the mare Thermopylae. Twenty years old at the time of her covering by the then first-season stallion Free Will, she has produced ten previous foals, and Khalifa Sat was the last of hers to race. Seven in all were winners.

Khalifa Sat had cost £40k, also at Goffs Orby, and won more than three times that for his Derby second place alone. He had one more, unsuccessful, run and was then retired owing to lameness. He stands at a fee of €2,000 at Lacken Stud.

The post-Epsom story of the two horses that finished one-two last year is interesting, and it’s a matter of opinion, which of the two friends has fared better in the aftermath of that epic day in June last year.

Desert Crown did not race again in 2022 despite having several possible targets and stayed in training as a four-year-old. He made a very promising reappearance after more than eleven months off with a close second to subsequent King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes winner Hukum in the Brigadier Gerard Stakes at Sandown.

He of course also had the King George on his agenda but had to miss it and then last month came the unkindest cut of all, a fractured fetlock when undergoing his final piece of work preparing for the Juddmonte International at York. He has had screws fitted and Bruce Raymond, racing manager to Mr Suhail, says, “The operation went well but he isn’t out of the woods yet.” Obviously there will be no question of his running again in 2023 and the issue of whether the son of Nathaniel will race on as a five-year-old will need to be addressed.

Ahmad didn’t allow himself too long to dwell on his colt’s exploits at Epsom. In the days between Epsom and Royal Ascot, the Goffs London sale at Kensington Palace Gardens offers owners wishing to sell prospective Royal meeting runners the chance of securing a top price. Mr Al Shaikh needed no second bidding.

Hoo Ya Mal was an obvious target for the stamina-loving Australian market and appealed as a potential Melbourne Cup candidate.

George Boughey was the immediate beneficiary as Hoo Ya Mal was sold for £1.2 million to the bid of Gai Waterhouse. He had three runs for Boughey while awaiting the journey Down Under, winning the Group 3 March Stakes (1m6f) at the late August meeting at Goodwood, then took in the St Leger (8th of 9).

He ran his first race for Waterhouse and co-trainer Adrian Bott in the Melbourne Cup, without having a prep race. The Australian pattern usually involves at least one and probably two settling-in runs before Flemington for European imports in the race that stops a nation on the first Tuesday in November. Without any prep, 12th of 22 reads well.

Ms Waterhouse and Bott waited a full ten months before getting the now four-year-old gelding back on a racecourse. They chose a Group 3 contest over a wholly insufficient mile – that is the manner of Australian training! – last Saturday at Randwick and he was beaten just over a length in fifth of 11. I can smell a Melbourne Cup with the more normal training pattern of one of Australia’s great handlers already in motion.

With the £344K for last year’s Derby second – worth almost three times the figure of the Covid year – and the £1.2 million for the sale, you’d think Ahmed would be stretching the purse strings a little, but emphatically no.

He says, “A horse has a nice pedigree and looks nice; he can cost a fortune. But nearly all the horses, for example in Tattersalls Book 1, are nicely bred and any of them can be potentially good. I’ve bought plenty of slow horses, but so have the people who pay millions, I prefer to be sensible and able to afford and enjoy my racing.”

He has a couple of promising youngsters on the track this year. Sayedaty Sadaty (€30k from Germany) won at the fourth time of asking for the Balding stable the other day, making up for a roguish display on his previous outing when inexplicably taking himself out of a race by running through the running rail at the intersection at Windsor.

Erratic steering was also in evidence in the Kempton score, but despite hanging badly left across to the stand rail, he still had lengths to spare (and plenty more in his locker by the look of it) in hand of his rivals. It will be interesting to see his first handicap mark tomorrow.

The other youngster he was keen to mention in our chat was Deira Mile. Ahmad splashed out a bit (for him) at 47,000 Guineas but the signs from his first run for Charlie Johnston were bright indeed. You rarely got a Johnston two-year-old runner in Mark’s days going to one of the top southern tracks for its debut so you guess that the team had a decent enough regard for the son of Camelot.

Starting 25/1 for a competitive maiden, he lost ground from the stalls and ran green throughout yet still got within a short head and a neck of another Camelot colt, Defiance, trained by Roger Varian, in third place. Defiance had cost 150 grand as a yearling and you couldn’t be sure if they lined up again that the result would be the same. Knowing Ahmad’s sure touch with buying and trading horses and not to put too fine a word for it, amazing good fortune so far, big things can be expected from this very promising colt.

It’s not just where horses are concerned that this one-time journalist is sharp. Last week he signed up Richard Kingscote as his retained jockey. Kingscote, the man who won the Derby on Desert Crown, has a prior commitment with Sir Michael Stoute but will be available for most of the time his new employer needs him.

I told Ahmad the story of when I met Richard’s grandma in Tesco’s supermarket in Bromley-by-Bow, East London. It was early one morning, and I had picked up a Racing Post – my usual shop didn’t have one yet. She said: “Oh, you like racing. My grandson is a jockey, Richard Kingscote.” You could see how proud she was. Imagine what she felt when he won the Derby!

  • TS

Monday Musings: The Thinker

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It took a fair amount of thought before Auguste Rodin was confirmed a runner for Saturday’s Vertem Futurity at Doncaster, writes Tony Stafford. I understand for much of the morning Michael Tabor was resigned to his and the rest of the Coolmore partners’ best 2023 Derby candidate missing the race through the predicted heavy ground.

Fortunately, Ryan Moore was on the comfortable opening race winner, Totally Charming for the George Boughey stable, and with the positivity of a successful rider, his report to Aidan O’Brien reduced the potential worry of connections. No doubt the trainer’s own punctilious inspection of the nearside portion on his customary walking the course – largely unoccupied on the first day of the meeting – also figured importantly in the decision.

Wide courses like Doncaster often provoke differences of opinion and five of the eight jockeys preferred to stay on the far side. That left only three – two for Ballydoyle and the Frankie Dettori-ridden Gosden runner, the heavily-backed second favourite Epictetus, staying stands side, too.

What O’Brien clearly did not want was a slow-run tactical race and Wayne Lordan was deputed to set a solid pace on the rail on well-supported Salt Lake City, ahead of Epictetus and Auguste Rodin. David Probert, on Andrew Balding’s good Newbury winner Stormbuster, fulfilled a similar role on the other side.

As Karl Burke’s Holloway Boy came to the front on his side, Ryan appreciated he needed to make a move and the smooth way he came outside Dettori and eased clear, seemed to signal “race over”.

There was an element, not for the first time this racing season, redolent of the 2014 2,000 Guineas. Just as Night Of Thunder had crossed the entire Rowley Mile that May afternoon before beating John Gosden’s Kingman and O’Brien’s Australia, now Holloway Boy started to head towards the latest would-be Classic stars of the same two stables, from his position at the front of the other group.

Unfortunately, once he got across, Ryan was already off and gone while Epictetus, a son of Kingman, stayed on better than the Burke runner, who was still a decent third. There was also a Night Of Thunder aside, with his son Captain Wierzba finishing sixth for Ralph Beckett.

There can be few better maidens around, at least not one that has raced four times, as the Roger Teal colt, Dancing Magic. Fourth behind Keeneland bound Silver Knott and Epictetus in the Autumn Stakes at Newmarket, he filled the same place when heading up the remaining far side quartet.

We have got to the time in top level breeding and racing in Europe when the direct influence of the deceased Galileo is inevitably waning as his final crops come on stream. While he did have a representative here in Salt Lake City, it was as a broodmare sire that he intruded on the Group 1 race this time.

As the eleventh winner for Aidan O’Brien of the last British Group 1 of the year, beating Sir Henry Cecil’s ten, Auguste Rodin is by the late and equally (as Galileo) lamented Japanese multiple champion Deep Impact, sire of 2,000 Guineas winner Saxon Warrior, out of Rhododendron.

It was something of a risk that few owner-breeding groups would be prepared to undertake to send a top-class Group 1 winning mare to Japan to be covered by a stallion so relatively late in his career.   Coolmore did and it was fortuitous as Deep Impact preceded his Irish counterpart by a year in his demise, Auguste Rodin coming from his final crop.

The need for outcrosses for the host of Galileo mares within the Coolmore orbit is a constant search. Rhododendron, of course, like her contemporary and regular adversary within the fold, Hydrangea, was bred to the famed Galileo on a Pivotal cross. Strangely, the two names also belong to my two favourite flowers!

I have a friend with a winning young daughter of Galileo (actually a filly – she won’t pass five until January when she expects her first foal) also from a winning Pivotal mare, who will be delighted how Rhododendron has clicked with a superstar first time up.

His mare has gone to Ten Sovereigns and if the yearlings by him on offer at the October Yearling Sales were anything to go by, he could soon be following the example of fellow Scat Daddy stallions No Nay Never, Caravaggio, US Navy Flag, Sioux Nation and, in the US, unbeaten Triple Crown hero Justify, by producing top runners.

My friend is the banker and businessman Bernard Kantor, the man behind the ten-year Derby sponsorship of Investec. That inevitably meant for him an annual early June encounter with the late Queen and almost as often with Messrs Magnier, Tabor, Smith and O’Brien among many others.

If Bernard is lucky enough to get a colt with his first product of Sans Pretention, a lightly raced staying filly with William Haggas, and resists the temptation to sell him, how he would love to get him into the race that was his annual preoccupation throughout each spring.

As a sire, Galileo often confounded conventional breeding theory when adding unexpected stamina to sprinting fillies off the track. Who is to say that Galileo mares might have a reverse influence, stretching out the distance capabilities of sprint sires like Middle Park and July Cup winner Ten Sovereigns? How the Coolmore boys would love that!

In a previous life, I happened upon the famous Auguste Rodin sculpture of The Thinker in the Rodin Museum in Paris. I just love that image of a naked man so deep in thought and oblivious to anything else. Like racehorse trainers, apart from the nakedness of course.

This probably happened only a year or so after the Arthur Stephenson steeplechaser of that name had won the Gold Cup after the day’s racing was delayed by a sudden snowfall and needed thawing out, and the next year finished third in the Grand National.

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We get used to Arab owners paying massive money for horses but this year one Dubai owner, who has had an increasing involvement in the sport, has shown when it comes to thinking about it he has the game sorted as much as anyone can.

I first met Ahmad Al Shaikh when he was a constant part of the Sheikh Mohammed entourage in, it must have been the late 1980’s or early 90’s. His role was the official in-house journalist providing domestic reports on the Maktoums’ racing achievements. He’s come a long way since then and has around 20 horses of his own in training now.

Owen Burrows described him as being a “big supporter of my stable” after Hello Deira won a Redcar handicap last month. Earlier in the summer I stood talking to him in the Epsom paddock before the Dash and he introduced me to his friend, saying: “This is Saeed Suhail, he owns the favourite.”

It was only after Desert Crown did indeed win the Derby for Sir Michael Stoute and Richard Kingscote that I realised he hadn’t mentioned his own Derby runner, Hoo Ya Mal, the Andrew Balding trained 150-1 shot who followed the winner home.

He needed to think quickly and within ten days he had parted company with his second cheaply-bought placed horse in the classic, for £1.2 million at the pre-Ascot sale in Kensington Palace Gardens, not bad for a £40k yearling. That was also the yearling purchase price of Khalifa Sat, his previous Derby runner-up with Balding, a 50-1 shot that followed O’Brien’s Serpentine home in 2020.

But on Saturday in France, Ahmad enjoyed his best day in 20 years of racehorse ownership when his colt Dubai Mile, trained by Charlie and Mark Johnston, won the Group 1 Criterium de Saint-Cloud over ten furlongs.

A few years ago, I sat in the dining room with some Johnston owners in Kingsley House, Middleham, feasting on the home-produced beef from their own herd. The same two Group 1 races were featured, and we watched them. I couldn’t help remembering that French Fifteen had won the other Group 1 on the corresponding day in 2011, over a mile.

Ahmad has only a day to collect his thoughts in much the same way he needed to back in early June. He says: “He is in the sale on Tuesday. We will enter him for the Breeders’ Cup on Monday <today> and if we get a good offer, I will sell him.”

So, either it will be another seven-figure return, this time on an even smaller investment of just 20 grand, or a date with Auguste Rodin. I think you can say, Ahmad will be on a winner either way.

Just to gauge how shrewd is this one-time journalist, armed with the proceeds of that big midsummer profit on Hoo Ya Mal, a Book 1 Tattersalls purchase, he was again in action two weeks ago. I’ve looked down the list of all nine days and the 2097 lots (less withdrawals) and encountered the name Ahmad Al Shaikh only once.

That’s not to say he didn’t enlist any of his trainers or associates to act on his behalf in an attempt at sales obfuscation. He doesn’t seem that type to me, though. Book 1 averaged almost 300 grand per yearling: Ahmad bought Lot 164 on the first day, a colt by Almanzor, winner of the French Derby, Champion Stakes and Irish Champion, for just 50,000gns. He buys to try to get a Derby winner. Watch out Aidan, this Thinker and his bargain buys may be coming after you, if not next year, maybe in 2024.

- TS