Tag Archive for: Yoshito Yahagi

Monday Musings: Saudi Riches

/in /by

You might wonder whether the dream of Saudi Arabia’s rulers to dominate the world’s most watched sports at the highest level is wearing a little thin, writes Tony Stafford. Golfers and soccer players have been enticed by unfathomably large sums to join the Liv Tour and Saudi Pro League respectively, but even after no more than a year or two in some cases disillusionment is setting in.

In the Kingdom, horse racing’s attention is largely on one day and specifically one race. Last Saturday was the seventh instalment of the Saudi Cup, run on dirt over a mile and a furlong of the Riyadh racecourse at Janadriyah. A field of 13 included three Japanese competitors, six horses from the US and was filled out with a quartet of generally outclassed locals.

The race had a prize fund totalling £15 million, but despite facing decent opposition, the favourite and defending champion Forever Young started as short as 1/3 and duly did the business for owner Susumu Fujita, trainer Yoshito Yahagi and jockey Ryusei Sakai. The trainer also won the race in 2023 with Panthalassa.

Forever Young shared top spot in the dirt-race section of the 2025 International Classification with the US-trained three-year-old Sovereignty. Their mark of 128 was 2lb inferior to the overall champion, the French-trained turf specialist Calandagan, who was boosted to that mark when winning the Japan Cup at Tokyo Racecourse in late November.

Saturday’s opposition to Forever Young was headed by the Bob Baffert-trained Nysos, a far from negligible performer who had won six of his seven previous starts. One of those was at Grade 1 level and his sole defeat until the Saudi Cup was also at that level and then by only a neck.

His rating going into the race was 119, 9lb inferior to Forever Young’s, but after the one-length defeat, he is certain to have his mark adjusted upwards. The pair were almost four lengths in advance of the best of the rest, the Wathnan Racing-owned but US-trained Tumbarumba, partnered by Wathnan’s retained rider James Doyle.

Here’s the time to mention the lavish prizes. The winner collected £7,407,407; Nysos earned £2,592,592; Tumbarumba pocketed £1,481,481; fourth-home Bishops Bay (US) takes home £1,111,111. £740,740 was the prize for Japan’s fifth-placed Luxor Café, while Sunrise Zipangu, the next-home under Oisin Murphy, lifted £444,444. Murphy has often been associated with Japanese runners in international events over the years.

The money went all the way down to 10th place. That position was held by one of the home contingent, Ameerat Alzamaan. It was well worth Ryan Moore’s time to travel over to Saudi Arabia, his mount earning £148,148.

Those massive figures explain what happens when the best part of £30 million in overall stakes is available. Do the authorities at the top in the Kingdon continue to feel that the £30 million for one day is value for money? As long as they do, the “have saddle will travel” community will be happy to join the party.

Moore, Murphy and Doyle are among that small group of UK-based riders (also including the absent Willliam Buick) at the forefront of the world’s jockeys and all three will return home with nicely enhanced bank balances. I’m not sure whether they cop the imagined ten per cent of total prizemoney in Saudi but even if it is a mere five per cent, it would represent a great way to divest the costs of family Christmases.

Overall, Murphy held sway, his £2 million and a bit total bolstered by two wins, in a Listed race (£370k) and more spectacularly in the £1,333k Turf Cup over ten and a half furlongs on the Karl Burke-trained Royal Champion.

Moore was third here on George Boughey’s Survie, carrying the Doreen Tabor colours, and the resulting £222k contributed to Ryan’s £700k haul on the afternoon. Later he teamed up with Tom Clover’s Tabletalk in the 1m7f Turf Handicap, bettered only here by Joseph O’Brien’s Sons And Lovers ridden by Dylan Browne McMonagle. The Irish team’s reward? A cool £1.1 million.

Doyle’s nearest to a win came on the French-trained, Wathnan-owned speed merchant Lazzat, but he couldn’t match the US performer Reef Runner, trained in Florida by David Fawkes.

Another septet of UK jockeys was recruited mostly for a single mount and again normally without making an impact. David Loughnane and Danny Tudhope got lucratively among the place prizes once each, while the other five, namely Pat Dobbs, moving across from his winter base in Dubai, Jason Watson, Pat Cosgrave, Callum Shepherd and P J McDonald all went without a prize, but could well have been paid a guaranteed fee to attend.

Many years ago, when Saudi Arabia was just getting acquainted with organising top-class international sports events, a golf tournament’s first prize was exceeded many times over by the appearance money paid to Justin Rose.

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We’re in that period of the season when most trainers will be holding their breath with Cheltenham in mind. One who will be going there with optimism is Ben Pauling after Saturday’s wonderful hat-trick in the first three races on the Ascot card. Novice hurdler Mondoui’boy; The Jukebox Kid, comfortably in the Reynoldstown Chase; and Fiercely Proud in the day’s featured handicap hurdle all won well to show his team is right at the top of its form.

Pauling is involved at the six-day stage in one of the most compelling events of the winter – and it’s a flat race at Southwell on Friday. With £40k added, it’s the “Let’s do Nicky Henderson and Michael Buckley a Favour novice stakes”, a race for four-year-olds and upwards over 1m4f.

Hughie Morrison was speaking to me about it the other day and mentioned that with that amount of money, it cannot be divided, and 32 horses were entered, with a maximum field of only 14 able to run. For a day Nicky must have been nervous that Constitution Hill could have a low ballot number and miss the gig.

I know loads of trainers who routinely get what they describe as “crap draws”, but the boffins (or AI maybe nowadays) that programme the machine that spews out the ballot order the day after entries, thus yesterday, gave Constitution Hill number 16 so only two of the 32 need to come out.

One bookmaker’s odds I saw had the former Champion Hurdler as the 4/6 favourite. Kevin Phillipart De Foy’s Amo Racing-owned Square Necker, a winner at Dundalk in December, is next best at 7/4 with Willie Mullins’ Daddy Long Legs, a 152-rated hurdler, next best at 7/2.

If you think I begrudge the Seven Barrows team being helped to find a non-jumps race for Constitution Hill’s quest to regain his Champion Hurdle crown, far from it.

Sixteen years ago, the season after his 2009 Champion Hurdle success, Nicky was struggling to find a suitable prep for Punjabi. Kempton was persuaded to stage an £8k to the winner hurdle race with advantageous terms, also at the end of February. Punjabi started 1/6 and won by 12 lengths, but his wind gave out in the big race a few days later and stablemate Binocular gained his revenge.

Ray Tooth’s star performer was never the same again. The year after Binocular’s Champion Hurdle win, Sandown provided another “gift” for him. It was gladly accepted at 1/10 but again a second title victory proved beyond the J P McManus star.

- TS

Monday Musings: Of The Rising Sun in Dubai

/in /by

Plenty of people from the UK still apparently enjoy the experience of Dubai in late March, writes Tony Stafford. A number of my friends and acquaintances, most barely recovered from the bruising four days at Cheltenham – they might baulk at five – were off again for another cash-devouring few days in the Gulf.

They are the same grouping who also find time to contribute to the well-being of the people that own Las Vegas hotels. I always fancied a few days there, but no doubt the funds would immediately run out at the tables and I would need to try to fiddle a replacement flight home without penalty.

The nearest in my lifetime of a similar jaunt was when a school friend, Harry Hillier, a genius who, when he sat his masters’ degree, the rubric asked him to answer at least two of the ten questions on the paper. As the remaining students on his course canvassed each other and revealed they had managed maybe two or three, when they asked Harry, he answered: “Well I did them all, but I wasn’t happy about a couple of them.”

A clever chap, then, but not, as he always conceded, as good as me in our teens at digging out winners. Be it on the horses or on our almost nightly forays to Clapton and other favourites of the many dog tracks in London – more than 20 at the time, I usually had final say on our corporate wagers. He became a university lecturer in econometrics (I’ve still no idea what that is!): at around that time I became Chief Reporter on the Greyhound Express.

My parents – with me – had often holidayed in Ostend, my dad loving the fact the races there in those days went on five days a week and you could walk there from the hotel. Before Harry went off to university and I started my first job, we decided to go there and got cheap flights from Southend Airport.

We had five nights arranged at the sub-budget hotel, but went skint after the first two days, and had to leave, managing to get a replacement flight. I’ve never been back in the intervening almost 60 years and suddenly have the urge to do so. Vegas, Dubai and even Cheltenham, you can keep them. I heard reports of extortionate prices at Cheltenham – someone said £14 for a gin and tonic? – the track obviously trying to get back the losses from 2021. I doubt it was any better value in Meydan.

In most years over the past two decades, all the invading hordes of UK punters needed to wrest back some of that cash at Meydan was to follow the overwhelming power of the home team. Surely Charlie Appleby, champion trainer in the UK for the first time in 2021, would provide them with the requisite winners as usual.

But for once the royal blue of Godolphin did not pass the post in front even once in the seven championship races. The die was soon cast by Charlie and William Buick’s two bankers: Manobo in the two-mile Gold Cup, a 9-4 on flop, was followed 40 minutes later when Man Of Promise, 10-11 in the Al Quoz Sprint, could do no better than third to a couple of Irish and UK challengers.

Ado McGuinness’s 14-1 shot A Case Of You under Ronan Whelan, got the better of the Richard Hannon-trained Happy Promise (20-1). Two more Appleby runners, the Frankie Dettori-partnered Naval Crown who finished fourth, and the team’s second string and race second favourite, Creative Force, who finished 14th of 16 completed their unsuccesful challenge.

Once again on the world stage, the Japanese were out in force, their Stay Foolish, ridden by Christophe Lemaire, outstaying the perceived as unbeatable Manobo, to follow up trainer Yoshito Yahagi’s 66/1 shocker Bathrat Leon in the opening Group 2 Mile.

Manobo, who had so entranced the Racing TV experts when winning his trial for the big race recently, probably still has plenty to offer when returning to Newmarket this summer, but his defeat must have been a severe shock for Sheikh Mohammed as well as his trainer and jockey.

The best performance, Manobo apart, from an Appleby runner was Yibir’s second place behind another Japanese, Shahryar in the Sheema Classic over a mile and a half on the turf track. Christian Demuro had the mount here and the 13/2 shot bravely held off Yibir’s challenge.

Fourth, with Dettori in the saddle deputising for injured regular rider Martin Dwyer, was the William Muir and Chris Grassick runner Pyledriver, beaten a length having looked booked for second 100 yards from home when Yibir started his late rally.

Having won his last three 2021 starts in the Great Voltigeur at York, an Invitation race at Belmont Park and finally the Breeders’ Cup Turf, this was an excellent comeback run by Yibir, but with no feasible representative in a World Cup which was left to the devices of the Americans, the home team’s uncharacteristic blank would have been a severe blow.

Having won the Sprint it was Japan’s turn again two races later, when the 12-1 shot Crown Pride collected the UAE Derby, a Group 2 race over one mile one furlong for three-year-olds on the dirt, under Australian jockey Damian Lane. Saeed Bin Suroor, who had plenty of runners on a card he had often dominated in the days before Charlie’s pre-eminence within the team, saddled the third placed Island Falcon at 33-1.

The unexpected happening in that race was the performance of Bob Baffert’s Pinehurst, returning with another long journey to the Middle East from California following his triumph four weeks earlier in the Saudi Derby over a mile in Riyadh. Starting 7-4 favourite that day, he battled well to land the massive prize.

Here he was a 4-1 joint favourite for a big-money follow up, but obviously went wrong, trailing the field home as a tailed-off last of 16. Baffert, though, would enjoy the last laugh at the meeting, but first let’s deal with a fourth Japanese success.

Their horses were to the fore at the Breeders’ Cup and in Saudi Arabia and, in between the triumphs of Bathrat Leon, Stay Foolish, Crown Pride and Shahryar, front-running Panthalassa (8/1) had to share the honours in the Dubai Turf. He was joined on the line in the one mile, one furlong contest by the Gosdens’ money-spinner Lord North (100-30).

Yet another Japanese, 28-1 shot Vin Du Garde, finished fastest of all a nose behind the dead-heaters. Two more UK runners, multiple Group 1-winning filly Saffron Beach (Jane Chapple-Hyam) and William Knight’s Sir Busker were respectively fourth and fifth, picking up plenty of place money. In Sir Busker’s case, the $150,000 greatly exceeded what he would have earned had he carried out his alternative role and run in and won Saturday’s Lincoln Handicap on the opening day of the 2022 turf season.

Baffert’s day in the sun arrived courtesy of Country Grammer. Having been caught late on by 50-1 home-trained Emblem Road in the Saudi Cup last month, he became the underdog defeating the hitherto regarded as best in the world dirt runner in the mile and a quarter Dubai World Cup.

Life Is Good had won five of his six races before Saturday and the Todd Pledger representative started the 8/13 favourite but ended only fourth, his stamina patently failing him on this first attempt at beyond nine furlongs. Now Country Grammer has total earnings of more than £8 million, but still trails a good way behind Mishriff (£11million-plus) who finished last in the Saudi race he won 12 months earlier.

Back home, everyone and especially the bookmakers, expected William Haggas to collect another Lincoln Handicap with the front two in the betting and another lively outsider to represent him. The third string Irish Admiral, at 22/1, was fourth to the Mick Channon-trained 28-1 shot Johan, who won nicely, with 3/1 favourite Mujtaba only 12th and heavily-backed Ametist finishing last of the 22 runners.

Ironically, Johan had been in the Haggas stable until last autumn when owner-breeders Jon and Julia Aisbitt decided a change of scenery was in order. Channon traditionally has his team in trim for the start of the season even though son Harry declared after the win: “It’s colder at West Ilsley than up here!”  Imagine what Mick will do when they come in their coats!

- TS