Tag Archive for: Jonathan Barnett

Monday Musings: A Dusky Beauty

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Some weeks, I worry right until the moment when I finally open the keyboard, wondering what to put into these rambling epistles, writes Tony Stafford. Often, it’s a lottery, with random episodes of equal, often minimal, importance to weigh. Other times, like this weekend, I’m spoilt for choice.

Monday Musings is not an organ of record, unlike my long-term employer, the Daily Telegraph, its great rival the Times, or another of my early parking places, the Press Association. Even before then, on a local paper it was instilled in me to chisel out the “who, what, when, where, why, how and to whom” coda for story compiling half a dozen years before the start of my DT days half a century ago.

Among the formula’s most exacting adherents of PA vintage was David Thomas, son of the Sporting Life’s celebrated Chief Racing Reporter, Len, who had been for decades and still was a doyen of the 'paper. If his issue was a doyen of anything, it was repetition, as upon confronting a winning trainer after a race, he would ask, bright bowtie to the fore, “how many do you have in this year?”, “where does the owner come from?” and, more acceptably, “where will he go next?”

In fairness, the domicile of the owner was important, too, as local papers needed those lines from the exciting world of horse racing and sport to flesh out their parochial coverage of robberies, brawls outside public houses and the misdemeanours of local politicians. How I loved Police Calls at Leyton nick in metropolitan Essex in my first newspaper job on the Walthamstow Guardian! Up to a point! I presented “Tommy” with a 1972 copy of Horses In Training one day and dared him to ask another trainer his worn-out trilogy. He defied me, but not until the next day!

There are more than enough “proper” stories elsewhere in this comprehensive, authoritative electronic publication to keep everyone on point, and to allow me an old man’s self-indulgence. In reverse order, in best Miss World mode – if we’re still locked in the 1970’s – the heroes are Hughie Morrison, Charlie Appleby and Roger Varian.

Hughie has been around the longest of the three and equally I’ve known him the longest too. A shade chippier than the others, he finds plenty not to admire about the administration of the sport, and trains at his own pace. He takes any injury the horses sustain as if it were to himself and opportunities for his horses are minutely sought out. On Saturday, his scouring of the Pattern programmes led to two of his progressive fillies collecting Group 3 races, at home at Newbury and in France at Chantilly. The latter foray Hughie declared necessary as he reckoned there was such limited domestic opportunity for the cross-Channel traveller. “Just one other suitable race before Christmas,” he said.

She was Mrs Fitzherbert, a Kingman filly owned by Sonya and Anthony Rogers. Her emphatic success at Chantilly earned €40k for the win and a decent multiple of that in inherent paddock value for her legendary owner-breeders.

The Arbibs, father and son, were the happy beneficiaries of the earlier winner, Stay Alert, as her jockey David Egan needed to, for she was apparently securely trapped on the rail inside the last furlong. But after belatedly worming a small gap, his mount got him out of trouble with instant acceleration to be ahead and back hard held before the line.

Before this challenge against the boys, which brought not just a similar prize but also the promise of much more to come, Stay Alert had been in line for the big fillies’ race on Champions Day next month, and the way she accelerated will make her a threat to even the top fillies at Ascot. “Had she not,” Hughie reminded me beforehand, “given Nashwa a real battle at Newbury earlier in the summer?”

Egan, with confidence emanating from last weekend’s St Leger win on Eldar Eldarov, rather than shrink after the sacking following Mishriff’s too-late finish into second behind Vadeni in the Eclipse, was riding the second of four consecutive winners on the day, more of which later.

I wouldn’t say replacing him has been a conspicuous success – the Eclipse was by far Mishriff’s best run of an unproductive year! The many millions he won for owner and trainer back in Saudi Arabia early last year obviously counted for nought in the face of that one slight misjudgement on a track where any jockey – the best down -  can get into trouble even in a three-horse race.

Egan had his day in the sun while William Buick was off travelling to North America for Charlie Appleby and Godolphin. The champion-elect had two mounts at Woodbine in Canada, while as Buick can only sit on one horse and be in one place at a time, former Godolphin habitué, a certain L Dettori, had the gig at Belmont at the Big A – presumably Aqueduct was needed to fulfil some of its near-neighbour’s dates. [It was/is, as Belmont is under reconstruction - Ed.]

The three horses, Nations Pride at the Big A, and the juvenile Mysterious Night and French 2,000 Guineas winner Modern Games in Toronto, all bolted up. They showed, as if we didn’t know already, that North American turf horses are a pretty crummy bunch, relatively speaking at least. Each of the trio won by at least five lengths – cumulatively just over 17 – and picked up a combined $1,450,000 - £920,000 according to the Racing Post. However, with the pound at a long-time low against the dollar, it currently converts at a shade more than £1,250,000, and so made it a very worthwhile trip indeed for all concerned.

Buick will not have been even a trice concerned at Egan’s clean-up job, which also encompassed an impressive Mill Reef Stakes victory for Sakheer, who looked one of the fastest juveniles so far seen out. By common consent that put a classy gloss on an astounding day for his trainer Roger Varian.

With a second St Leger in the bag, Varian has been flying up the trainer charts in recent weeks, but even he would not have anticipated a seven-timer on a single day. The wins came nicely spread around the nation with three each at Newbury and at Ayr’s Western meeting and one at Newmarket. Had Cobalt Blue not been caught on the run-in at Wolverhampton it would have been an eight-timer!

I know I’m putting it at the bottom, but my race of the day, and one of amiable Roger’s septet, was Dusky Lord. This was his eighth run of the season and second win. I’d travelled a total of 1,800 miles to see each of the previous seven, in representing Jonathan Barnett, the football agent, one of those in the Partnership in whose colours he runs.

Six days earlier he had raced from the worst stall of all in the Portland at Doncaster, frustratingly as it was a target I’d suggested for him all year, and he was never able to overcome the disadvantage. David Egan, who won on him at Newmarket in the spring and finished a close second on the four-year-old at Glorious Goodwood, was adamant. “He ran well.”

Armed with that intelligence, Varian declared him for Ayr, happy he had not had too hard a race thanks to Egan’s sensible ride. While he missed by only a few horses and a couple of pounds to make the Big Show, he slid in almost at the top of the Silver Cup, albeit with a massive weight – 9st 11lb.

So, in front of the TV, I was happy to see Jack Mitchell, who had won on Dusky Lord at Newcastle last year, get him away well in the middle group. From then on it was 70 seconds of regret that I’d not taken another road trip – this time 975 miles, there and back.

From here let me leave you in the hands of Timeform. They reported: "Dusky Lord turned out again quickly, having been drawn out of things in the Portland, proved a revelation back in headgear <cheek-pieces>, showing much improved form, rare to see a handicap of this nature won with such complete authority; midfield, tanked along, quickened to lead over 2f out, drew clear, impressive; it’s hard to see even a big rise in the weights being enough to stop him being of interest again."

The Silver Cup has been an adjunct of the Gold Cup for at least a decade. I checked the last eight and each time the Gold Cup, as one would expect, has been run in the quicker time, always between 0.2 sec and 0.8 sec faster. Saturday’s big race went to now 15-time winner Summerghand, trained by David O’Meara. His time was 0.93 sec slower than Dusky Lord’s.

The Racing Post, to my mind, often does a fair bit of massaging of their speed figures. Summerghand’s figure was 72, compared with Dusky Lord’s 95, which represents a second and a half or seven and a half lengths' difference. Yet to arrive at such a low mark on what is clearly Summerghand’s best run of the year, they felt obliged to give him his smallest time performance of the season after 79, 75, 88, 76 and 85.

They clearly felt they had to minimise the figure for Dusky Lord as it would have been in the stratosphere. After the way he won, without being slightly challenged by his 24 rivals, the margin of the win and the fast time, Timeform have raised his mark from the high 90’s to 109. Phil Bull, Timeform’s founder whose whole ethos was based on the accurate interpretation of times, will be turning in his grave!

I think the partners have a Group horse of the future. What a day for Roger Varian, David Egan, Charlie Appleby, William Buick and Hughie Morrison! Not too shabby for Dusky Lord and his owners either!

- TS

Monday Musings: New Blood

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If there is one thing horse racing in the UK needs above all else it is owners: men or women with resources, a love for the sport and the willingness to put up with the absurd economics of excessive and ever-rising costs against persistently modest returns via prizemoney, writes Tony Stafford.

The new player would need to be committed to the game. Like the brothers Maktoum, now down to two from four after first Maktoum Al Maktoum, Ruler of the Emirate, died in 2006 and, only this year, second in terms of age, Sheikh Hamdan also left the stage.

Nominally third in seniority but the long-term number two auditioning for the top job was Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, now in his 70’s after more than four decades’ involvement in our sport.

We had met in Kentucky and one day I sat with him and Michael (not yet Sir) Stoute as we waited near the famed King’s Head pub and eating house in Dullingham to see the young home-bred stock that the late Richard Casey, subsequently trainer of top handicap chaser Hogmanay, had in his charge. The Sheikh opined, “it doesn’t take ten years to build a breeding operation, more like thirty”. After last weekend, probably 38 years after our chat, with home-bred winners of the 2021 Derby and Kentucky Derby on the Roll of Honour, he has just about made it!

Hogmanay had been one of a package of ten horses I bought without the luxury of having the £100k to pay for them from Malcolm Parrish, owner of a massive stable of his own horses, a sort of precursor to Jim Bolger, but an Englishman based in France with carpet-making mills in Belgium.

Malcolm supervised the training but a M. De Tarragon, his head lad, held the licence and was officially responsible for the 100-head or so horses. I met him in July 1984 in the long-gone Cashel Palace Hotel near Ballydoyle but it was a total fluke as I was really over to meet David O’Brien who at 27 had become the youngest trainer to win the Derby with Secreto.

While the later O’Brien’s seem to have perfected the art of enjoying each other’s major successes, the 1984 Derby brought major tensions as the favourite and previously 2,000 Guineas winner El Gran Senor was lined up for a massive stud deal subject to his winning the Derby. In the race, Pat Eddery on the favourite appeared to be going far better than Christy Roche on the eventual winner but in a desperate finish was beaten a short-head.

The verdict had to delayed while Eddery objected but the result was upheld. Fortunately for the initial Coolmore team, El Gran Senor won the Irish Derby – his task eased by Secreto’s absence – and the Epsom hero also missed both the King George and Eclipse Stakes, retiring without racing again.

I had previously met David O’Brien on my trip that July to Keeneland, invited for my first look at the great Calumet Farm, owned by several generations of the influential Wright family. Then an outsider, J T Lundy married into the family and by this time controlled the place. His stewardship was to become a matter for serious concern in the city, but he had arranged a deal to buy 50 per cent of the would-be stallion for $20 million. The strain of training told on young O’Brien whose sister Sue Magnier says he is much happier tending his grape vines in France where he has been based for many years.

I was to see Calumet later when a previous contact, Henryk De Kwiatkowski, bought it and started the revival of the farm’s fortunes. Upon his death, his own family never having been interested in racing and breeding, new owners came in and it is again at the forefront in Lexington.

Incidentally, my wife recommended I watch the Netflix series The Queen’s Gambit and I was amazed when this epic tale about a female chess genius was entirely centred on Lexington. Right at the start her mother’s car is on New Circle Road, a mini-M25 I cruised every inch both ways during my many visits there. The scene again early in the seven-part series where the heroine plays a tournament at the Henry Clay school also invoked memories of a good friend of Brian Meehan, Henry’s grandson, who had several horses with him at Manton. Great series, you will love it, I promise!

Secreto was owned by a Venezuelan, Senor Miglietti, who also owned the main bus company in Caracas and had, it seems, connections with some less-than-reputable individuals in his country.

Down the decades, other major Arab owners have stayed the course, none more valiantly than Prince Khalid Abdullah, breeder and owner of dozens of the world’s great horses but two will do – Frankel and Enable. His passing, also this year, will no doubt lead to a diminution of seeing his pink, green and white on the racecourses of the UK and beyond and for the blue and white of Hamdan a reduction of 100 is immediately to be enacted.

Two Princes to suffer uncannily similar early deaths at the first years of the Millennium were Abdullah’s countrymen brothers Fahd and Ahmed Salman, both dead in their early 40’s. Their father has since become King Salman in Saudi Arabia.

I brought in Malcolm Parrish and Hogmanay because he was one of the ten horses. We got onto that tack as earlier he had sold two good horses to Michael Dickinson and I had a small part in that. “Want any more?”, he asked then elaborated. “Yeah okay, you can have ten for 100 grand, I won’t put you wrong,” he added.

Hogmanay was one of them but Rod Simpson, who had the job of sorting them out (and on balance did pretty well) said Hogmanay will never stand training, so the £5k he represented in the deal was deducted. For each of his eight wins (seven over fences) and £60k prizemoney a dagger went to the heart. In the end, I did manage to pay for them and there were some very decent animals among them. Later Malcolm bought both Lordship and Egerton studs in Newmarket before passing them on.

With deference to the Dixon brothers who head up the Horse Watchers, and who combine television expertise with phenomenally successful ownership, journalists are hardly likely to make that jump. But one man who has shown signs of joining racing’s big time is the football agent Kia Joorabchian, who has been one of the more visible personalities in the first months of the season.

His horses – 37 have run – have collected 22 wins and more than £400,000 in prizes. That compares with £240,000 in the whole of last season with 18 wins. But what gives the game away is that his horse Mayo Star, a maiden who finished runner-up to Adayar in the Derby nine days ago, earned £241,000 for that one run, so a touch more than for all last season’s exploits.

There is no doubt Kia has gone about it whole-heartedly. Using trainers like Roger Varian, Richard Hannon and Ralph Beckett he has not been shy to spend, paying for instance 460,000gns for a Shamardal colt he sent to Varian. Great King has won one of five starts and is rated 88. Of the horses he has run this year alone – he also has several similarly-expensive acquisitions from the recent breeze-ups in the pipeline - he has spent almost £6milion in acquiring them.

As the man behind the controversial Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano deals a decade or so ago, Kia has become a leader in his business and at 49 he is still a relative young man in racing ownership terms. This year his colours could be represented at Royal Ascot by up to 16 horses. Pivotal to his early success this year have been his two-year-olds with Beckett being joined by George Boughey and Michael Bell as having feasible chances in the juvenile events.

The best candidates in the purple silks must be in the Albany Stakes where once-raced 350,000gns Wolverhampton winner Hello You (Beckett) and twice-successful and cheaply bought Beautiful Sunset (Boughey) are due to line up and are both prominent in the ante-post market. He also has realistic chances with the Varian-trained and seemingly well-handicapped Raadobarg, £200k, in the Britannia, with Hannon’s Sir Rumi (£160k) as a potential second string.

Kia will have a major interest of course in the Euro 2020 championship as will another of the big soccer (and many other sports) agencies, the ICM Stellar Group’s boss, Jonathan Barnett.

From an earlier generation than Joorabchian, Jonathan, along with partner David Manasseh, sold the agency last year to the American group, but they remain in day-to-day charge. Their major players at the competition include four of the England squad (Mason Mount and Jordan Pickford, who played yesterday, as well as Jack Grealish and Luke Shaw who watched the 1-0 win from the subs bench). Gareth Bale (Wales) and Kieren Tierney (Scotland) will also be well to the fore at the championships.

Less than an hour after full-time at Wembley, Jonathan was watching his lightly-raced four-year-old Fitzcarraldo winning with a fast finish at Longchamp for trainer Nicolas Clement. Fitzcarraldo was a €27k buy that took time to mature but now looks like a stayer with a future. Clement, who is head of France’s trainers’ association, has a record of bargain buys having paid £30k for Ray Tooth’s Group 1 winner and later 2,000 Guineas second French Fifteen, who has been sending out jumps winners as a stallion lately.

Given a £40k budget to buy a yearling last autumn, Clement came up with a €21,000 daughter of Derby winner Ruler of the World and he rates her very highly. That’s the way Barnett, also owner of the decent handicapper Year Of The Dragon with William Knight, prefers it, rather than the Joorabchian method.

I bet the people that have been recruited to buy the Amo racing horses would be horrified at M. Clement’s behaviour. Watch out for Fitzcarraldo. I would not be at all surprised if later in the year the jumping boys come calling for this big strong gelded son of Makfi. Maybe then the Clement business acumen that turned a £30k colt into a £1.3 million Classic prospect and future stallion will be rather more in evidence.

Monday Musings: No More Lockdown Barnett!

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As one of the world’s leading football agents, Jonathan Barnett, with his business partner David Manasseh, through their Stellar Group, heads up probably the biggest “stable” of footballers in the world, writes Tony Stafford. Always a racing fan, Barnett has lately been making tentative moves into racehorse ownership but for much of this year he would have been excused for thinking he might never have another runner.

Injuries have either delayed or ended the careers of three of his hopefuls, one with Wesley Ward being a particular disappointment.

Over the winter, Eden Gardens, owned in partnership with Manesseh’s father Maurice, and trained by Simon Crisford, did at least have a couple of all-weather runs without much luck. All his horses are partnerships, usually with his share carrying the name of his son James, who also works in the family business.

Like all owners Barnett’s aim is to win a Group race one day and failing that to have the all-important “Saturday horse”. Well he might not yet have achieved the former part of his wish-list, but on Saturday, as was readily trailed by Alex Hammond on Sky Sports Racing beforehand, he did have a runner in a three-year-old fillies’ race on that Ascot card.

Margaret Dumont, named after a regular character in the Marx Brothers films, is listed as owned by Tactful Finance and J Barnett. Tactful Finance is the father-and-son team of Cyril and Jonathan Shack. Cyril was one of the mainstays in the Paul Kelleway stable in the 1980’s, often in partnerships with, among others, David Dein, one-time Arsenal Vice-Chairman and the man who recruited Arsene Wenger.

The younger Shack is a Marx Brothers devotee and he sourced the Camelot filly at the 2018 yearling sales, paying only 20,000gns for her. Mark Johnston agreed to take her having approved her looks even though she didn’t meet his own strict rating criterion for one of his own purchases.

The Ascot race included three other well-connected fillies, home-breds owned respectively by the Queen and Bjorn Nielsen, with a third bred by David and Diane’s Nagle’s Barronstown Stud but now in different ownership.

Joe Fanning set off in front on Margaret Dumont, encouraged by the stamina she had shown when third on debut over ten furlongs at Thirsk last month. The Queen’s Lightness, a daughter of Shamardal trained by John Gosden, had had three previous placed runs behind her; and when she took up the running in the home straight, Barnett was resigned to her fate.

But then the renowned Johnston factor kicked in and Margaret Dumont rallied to beat the 82-rated favourite in a tight finish. This promising filly has a bright future, especially when allowed to race over further. Charlie Johnston was quickly on the phone saying her entry in a sale later this month would not be fulfilled.

Barnett also bought into a French-trained horse last year, but the then two-year-old Fitzcarraldo was always going to take time to come to hand. A big, backward son of Makfi, again relatively-cheaply bought at €27,000, he came strongly recommended by Nicolas Clement, but as the spring and lockdown wore on, there was little sign of any action.

Those planned trips across to Paris and Chantilly for weekend breaks were just a forlorn illusion, but then suddenly the by-now gelded Fitzcarraldo started pleasing the ever-patient Clement. He was ready for a first run early this month over 10 furlongs at Compiegne and, having turned for home well behind the principals, stayed on all the way home to finish an eight-length fifth to Zaykava, a son of top French stallion Siyouni out of the unbeaten Arc winning champion, Zarkava.

Barnett has a half-share in this potential stayer with the trainer and his breeder Hubert Honore taking the other half. With the public now being allowed back on track in France, starting at Deauville yesterday, those summer – what’s left of it – excursions on Eurostar might still be possible.

Deauville featured the full restitution to Group 1 success – if not yet domination of his generation - of Pinatubo. Beaten in both the 2,000 Guineas and St James’s Palace Stakes, he was a deserved winner of the Prix Jean Prat, run over seven furlongs (formerly a mile) since last year. Runner-up yesterday was Lope Y Fernandez, twice well behind Charlie Appleby’s champion last year, but now within three-quarters of a length, spectacularly out-running his 40-1 odds.

Pinatubo’s exploits last year were a fitting closing memento for sire Shamardal’s career which ended with his death earlier in 2020. Winning a Group 1 (and hopefully for Godolphin more) as a three-year-old adds credibility to the obvious stallion appeal of an unbeaten champion juvenile.

Saturday’s highlight in the UK was the July Cup and I’ve not heard a single negative word about Oxted’s trainer Roger Teal who goes around the whole time with a smile on his face. Anyone who has met Roger will find it hard to believe he was once a jumps jockey, but he’s a talented trainer as his previous handling of 2,000 Guineas runner-up (to Saxon Warrior) Tip Two Win amply testified.

Now his training career has gone into a different orbit. Oxted, a four-year-old son of Mayson, fully justified Teal’s decision to avoid Royal Ascot after his Palace House Stakes success last month, by beating the winners of both the Commonwealth Cup (Golden Horde) and Golden Jubilee (Hello Youmzain) as well as Sceptical and Khaadem, who were third and fourth in the latter event.

There was no hint of a fluke about the result as this former handicapper was always up with the pace and found much the best speed up the hill. His sire won the same race in his four-year-old season on officially heavy ground, something that is always thrown up to diminish his excellence as a racehorse.

This progressive sprinter, who as a gelding will have no stud future to worry about, will be free to continue to give pleasure on the track to his trainer and three owners who include Tony Hirschfeld. Tony’s had plenty of success over the years with horses trained by Susan Piggott and later William Haggas.

Mayson has always been close to my heart having carried in his racing days my former colours, now more realistically of David Armstrong. Raymond Tooth has bred a number of horses from him, notably Sod’s Law, but one Mayson in which he has a share was a breeze-up purchase last year by Shaun Keightley. Mayson Mount, owned in partnership by Ray and Clive Washbourn runs tonight at Kempton with decent chances of a first win.

Another much more famous Raymond Tooth-owned horse was Punjabi and his finest hour, winning the 2009 Champion Hurdle, was remembered again yesterday when Barry Geraghty, the man who rode him , announced his retirement at the age of 40.

After the epic victory over Celestial Halo and Binocular up the Cheltenham hill, Geraghty once described him as “the bravest horse I’ve ridden”. Whether in the manner of all things ephemeral in racing, that accolade was traded elsewhere about earlier and later triumphs in his 24-year career, no matter. We’ll take it.

Barry was always polite and professional, calm and powerful in a finish. He fitted neatly somewhere between his other contemporary fellow Irish-born greats, McCoy and Walsh in terms of strength and subtlety. Now all we have to admire of the four riding giants of this latest era is Richard Johnson and he is now in the unusual post-McCoy position of no longer being champion jockey.

It wasn’t all gloom for the Queen on the racetrack last week. Her home-bred colt Tactical followed up his Windsor Castle triumph at Royal Ascot by stepping up a furlong to win the July Stakes at Newmarket. Andrew Balding intends looking for Group 1 prizes now for the son of Toronado, with the Prix Morny as a likely first step.

Godolphin and Charlie Appleby have a very talented juvenile with Classic pretensions in the Superlative Stakes winner Master Of The Seas. In what looked an above-average renewal of the seven-furlong event, the son of Dubawi drew clear for a three-length verdict, and must rate right at the top among this year’s juvenile colts.

- TS