Khalid Abdullah runners out to eclipse rivals
It is 24 years since the green silks with the pink sash and cap that have become a constant theme of the great races in Europe and America were carried into the winner’s enclosure after Dancing Brave won the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown Park.
Then, that livery and its owner, Prince Khalid Abdullah, were still a relatively new sight on British racecourses. Abdullah, a member of the Saudi royal family, started out with just four horses and now has 250 spread across Europe and America in what has become the most successful individual transatlantic breeding operation.
Abdullah still holds Dancing Brave, bought Keeeland for $200,000, in the highest regard but admits that he takes the greatest pleasure from those winners he has bred himself through his Juddmonte Farms studs. Of the current total of 157 Group One victories, 126 of them with home-bred runners, and he has two more such hopes running in this year’s renewal of the Coral-Eclipse Stakes at Sandown Park on Saturday, with Twice Over and Zacinto.
Twice Over (pictured) is the market leader having been on the wrong end of an Abdullah one-two behind Byword – yet another homebred - in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot, while Zacinto is being moved up for a first run over 10 furlongs. That defeat at the royal meeting was hard to take for Twice Over’s trainer, Henry Cecil, as he felt the colt got little luck in running.
Teddy Grimthorpe, Abdullah's racing manager, found himself somewhere in the middle at Ascot, celebrating with winning trainer André Fabre and commiserating with Cecil. “It was a cracking run at Ascot,” he said. “I think what happens in the first 200 yards of a race is as important as what happens in the last 200 and that proved the case there. He got shuffled back. He likes to be ridden relatively prominently and by the time he got out and got going, it was too late.
“Byword has been an improving horse so it's a matter of conjecture whether he would have won or not. We'll never know but we don't mind who won. I think Byword would still have won but not everyone agrees with me.”
Most would agree that Twice Over has every chance of becoming a fourth Eclipse winner for Cecil and a first since Gunner B in 1978. A testimony to the trainer’s patient approach, the five-year-old developed through the latter half of last season, culminating in victory in the Champion Stakes at Newmarket and a good third behind Zenyatta in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, and lost no caste from a bad draw when 10th in the Dubai World Cup.
“Henry’s brought him back tremendously well. In Dubai he had a wide draw, got bumped on the first turn and raced wide the whole way round and actually in the end was not beaten that far. We were a bit disappointed at the time because we expected to win, but Henry has done tremendously well and the horse looks in great shape now and let's hope he can go on," Grimthorpe said.
Zacinto, trained by Sir Michael Stoute, could be argued as running more in hope than expectation having finished last in the Lockinge Stakes at Newbury last month. But he showed something closer to his form when fourth to Goldikova in the Queen Anne Stakes at the royal meeting. “In the back of Sir Michael's mind has been the fact he might need to step up to a mile-and-a-quarter and pretty soon after the Queen Anne - Ryan Moore also agreed with that,” Grimthorpe explained. “This is natural progression really. He’d need to run to the form from the QEII last year against Rip Van Winkle to be competitive in this. There’s plenty of stamina in his pedigree."
There is no lack of stamina in Workforce’s pedigree but Grimthorpe believes that more will be required of the Derby winner for the tests that lie ahead. Workforce is now heading for the King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot next month, for which Stoute could provide some of the strongest opposition with Harbinger, although Grimthorpe believes that stable jockey Ryan Moore will stick with the horse who won the Epsom Classic by seven lengths in record-breaking time. “I'd be a little surprised if he didn't choose him but that is totally within his scope to do so,” he said. “Since the Derby everything has gone according to plan and he looks in really great shape. He did a little bit of work last Saturday, just on his own but he was striding out nicely and he seems in good shape.
“I very much hope he has come on since Epsom because we obviously have big plans for him so he will need to step up on that form if he is going to beat older horses as well, not to mention Cape Blanco and others in the King George. I think as a type you would certainly think he would keep on improving, He's a big, scopey horse and generally those types get better with time rather than the other way round.
“I think the King George and Arc are the two races the Prince would like to target this year, the Prince reminded me that Dancing Brave did that as well.”
Dancing Brave did indeed win the both after his Eclipse win, but finished a half-length second to Shahrastani in the Derby.
An Abdullah home-bred who won all three might eclipse everything.
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