As a recent Racing Post article by their feature writer Julian Muscat outlined, Charlie Appleby, Godolphin and, usually, William Buick have been utterly dominant throughout the first two months of the Dubai Carnival at Meydan, seemingly knocking off the Group races at will, writes Tony Stafford. It was becoming almost as boring, and routine, he said, as had Willie Mullins at the Dublin Racing Festival and no doubt will be next week at Cheltenham. (I wasn’t the only one, it seems!)

Thank goodness, then, for one of the much-diminished squad of UK trainers who was happy to take them on. Step forward William Knight. It was at last year’s Carnival that his then seven-year-old Sir Busker suffered a freak incident that at the time looked to have ended his career as the Knight stable standard-bearer.

“You wouldn’t mind so much if it had happened in a dirt race”,  he recalled during a barren summer, looking back at his shock when the fragment from the kicked-back piece of turf that landed square in Sir Busker’s eye and necessitated surgery and a long spell of rehab in Dubai after his race on last year’s World Cup night.

Happily, the gelding eventually returned to the UK, running a few times, adding a couple of places in autumn handicaps at Newcastle to career earnings of more than half a million for owners Kennet Valley Thoroughbreds and six wins, including at Royal Ascot.

Ironically, you might say, both Nick Robinson, whose founding of Kennet Valley Thoroughbreds was the impetus for syndicate ownership in the UK, and Neville Callaghan, long-term incumbent of Rathmoy Stables, now Knight’s beautiful base in Newmarket’s Hamilton Road, died in the last few months of 2023.

The year had started promisingly for him, with three wins by the first week of February. Amazingly, though, over the next seven months just two more successes came, for Paradise Row at Chelmsford during Royal Ascot week and Bunker Bay in a four-horse handicap at Yarmouth in July.

I remember him telling me: “We aren’t doing anything different, and the horses seem to be well, but they just aren’t winning.”

You can imagine his frustration and indeed fears for the future. The sales were coming up and all he could point to were five wins in the calendar year. Then somehow it changed. Some younger horses came along to live up to their promise, and crucially he managed to restock a fair amount at the yearling auctions. Last week came news of three new horses coming from an exciting high-value operation managed by his bloodstock agent brother, Richard.

Anyway, by the end of the year he had pushed the tally to 16, below what had become his norm but reassuring all the same after the travails of midsummer. One of the wins came from a two-year-old filly by the US sire Frosted out of a War Front mare that had been bred in the States by Rabbah Bloodstock, part of the sprawling worldwide Sheikh Mohammed enterprise. Godolphin Lite you might say.

Called Frost At Dawn she came to Rathmoy in the ownership of one of the regular Rabbah patrons, Abdulla Al Mansoori, who previously had the odd horse with Knight. William had suffered numbers-wise last year after Rabbah’s restructuring led to its biggest entity in the yard cutting back appreciably.

Frost At Dawn made her debut in late October, amid the Knight revival, taking the well-trod 490-mile round trip from Newmarket to Newcastle – laughingly described by the trainer as “my local track”, so often has he used it to educate and win with inexperienced horses from his yard.

She ran well, finishing a promising second, yet was allowed to start at 10/1 when easily winning three weeks later at nearby Chelmsford. The decision was then made to target some of the valuable fillies’ prizes for juveniles either side of the New Year.

Having started off with a second place at seven furlongs in late December, Knight understandably pushed her up a furlong for her next race early in January and she clearly didn’t stay. I think the Racing Post comment “pressed pace, upsides two furlongs out, folded tamely” was a little harsh, and it was back a furlong again next time when once more she led through the race but didn’t get home.

That brought the realisation that she was probably a sprinter. Her fourth race in Dubai was her career first over as short as six furlongs last month. Starting 40/1, again she took up the running, and this time was beaten on the line by the Godolphin favourite.

The common denominator in all of this was her speed, and now William took the plunge, entering her for the Group 3 Nad Al Sheba Turf Sprint sponsored by Emirates Skywards. Having been confined to racing against her own age and sex, this was a different matter altogether. It’s an all-aged race open to both sexes and it drew a 15-runner field, only three of which – William’s filly, the Godolphin hotpot Star Of Mystery, and a colt that started 100/1 and finished 14th, were the sole three-year-olds in the line-up.

I spoke to William before the race and he pointed out that while there was a massive disparity in their official ratings and prices, the form line through a Ralph Beckett filly called Starlust with the favourite suggested Frost At Dawn had only one length to find.

Star Of Mystery, of course, was an Appleby / Buick / Godolphin 4/9 shot against Frost At Dawn’s 33/1 – “unbelievable each-way value”, said William in his comments for the From The Stables service I edit every day. This opinion was markedly at variance with the official handicap figures as she had 21lb to find, and of course the market. She emphatically proved both wrong.

Down now to five furlongs for the first time, Frost At Dawn took up the running two furlongs out and then sprinted away under Mickael Barzalona to win by two and a half lengths in track record for the Meydan five furlongs. Admittedly, times were fast on Saturday, but when you consider the legions of smart Godolphin and other sprinters that must have graced that turf course in the 15 seasons since the track superseded Nad Al Sheba, it’s impossible not to be impressed by the time and performance.

 

 

Also impressive is the way William Knight soldiered on through the tough times and has come out smiling – well maybe just a hint of one. As to where the UK handicappers will rate Frost At Dawn after this brilliant performance is another question. He could well have to keep her to Group and other stakes races from now on.

Those older sprinters behind her included two well-tested horses from Ireland and the UK, apart from the favourite who has a 113 rating and won a couple of times for Charlie Appleby in a busy two-year-old season last year as well as her Dubaian exploits. Additionally, Johnny Murtagh’s five-year-old mare Ladies Church, a four-time winner, who was 8th, 9.75 lengths behind is rated 104, 4lb less than Charlie Hills’ Equality, who at six boasts five wins, and trailed in a near-eleven lengths 12th. Only the last horse home went into the race with a lower rating than the winner and most of those in between were well into the 100’s.

There are few more personable people in racing than William Knight. I’ve known him for a good while now and I couldn’t be more pleased with that astonishing result. Let’s hope a certain two-year-old son of Kodiac, sire of Star Of Mystery, lives up to early promise. Meanwhile he will be anticipating the prospect of the potential for horses being sent to him from the breeze-ups which will be on us all too soon.

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Now I must come to the shock and indeed embarrassment I felt with the news on Saturday that Mark Bradstock, the subject of last week’s article, had died. The story revolved around the amazing performance at Exeter of his horse Mr Vango, a 60-length winner a week last Friday and my belief he would stand a chance in the 3m6f National Hunt Chase at Cheltenham next week.

Bradstock, 66, whose widow Sara is the daughter of my long-term former Daily Telegraph colleague John, Lord Oaksey, had shown he could win big races, notably the Cheltenham Gold Cup and Hennessy Gold Cup with half-brothers Coneygree and Carruthers respectively.

I had no idea that he had been so ill, apparently for two years. Mark was highly thought of by his training peers and the one consolation, if there can be any in such awful circumstances, is that he must have been delighted to see one last impressive win from his family-run stable. I send my condolences to Sara and their two children Alfie and Lily.

• TS