Qatari billionaires have poured vast sums into British Flat racing in recent seasons and seem likely to continue the spree next year and beyond but, if there was a lesson to draw from Future Champions Day here on Friday, it was that the old powers from Dubai and County Tipperary will not concede the field without a struggle.
Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin operation recorded its first Group One winner of the European season when Charming Thought, added to the field as a supplementary entry, took the Middle Park Stakes at 22-1 and Aidan O’Brien produced another relative outsider, Together Forever, to win the Fillies’ Mile. Only Estidhkaar, owned by Sheikh Mohammed’s brother Hamdan al-Maktoum, fumbled away a clean sweep for historic racing colours as he failed to justify favouritism behind Roger Varian’s Belardo in the Dewhurst Stakes.
The Godolphin racing operation had failed to come up with a single Group One winner in Europe from more than 400 horses spread around the continent as the field went to post for the Middle Park, and Ivawood, the early favourite for next year’s 2,000 Guineas, was expected to win the race at odds-on. Charming Thought travelled well from the off for William Buick, however, and came with a sustained run to wear down Ivawood by a nose.
“It’s great to get the first Group One in England out of the way,” Charlie Appleby, whose only previous success at the highest level came at last year’s Breeders’ Cup meeting in America, said. “It was the last roll of the dice for us from Moulton Paddocks.
“This is a horse we’ve held in high regard from the spring onwards, we just met with a slight setback in the spring, so we had to be patient with him. We’ll put him away now, that was always the plan, win lose or draw.”
John Ferguson, Sheikh Mohammed’s bloodstock adviser, said that the result was vindication for Appleby’s patient approach this season.
“The boss rang me in the paddock beforehand and said, make sure that William knows there’s no pressure,” he said. “If he handles the ground and goes well, fantastic, but the horse has a future.
“William said he knew straight away that he liked the ground and I think he’ll get a mile. Over the last few weeks we’ve had Maftool win for Saeed [bin Suroor], we’ve had Lucida come and win here [for Jim Bolger] and Local Time won the Oh So Sharp, so this is our fourth Group winner in six weeks at Newmarket.
“From that point of view it’s incredibly exciting for everybody going forward and, as the boss said to me on the phone as he was coming in, ‘It’s going to be a fun winter, thinking about these horses.’ That’s what he deserves, if he goes up to Newmarket and spends that kind of money [to be top buyer at the Tattersalls Yearling Sales], he deserves a fun winter.”
Charming Thought is not a certain stayer on pedigree and can be backed at 25-1 for the 2,000 Guineas, while Ivawood is now 12-1 (from a top price of 8-1) for the colts’ Classic.
Together Forever had been beaten in a maiden event earlier in the season but the winner that day was her stablemate Found, a Group One winner since, and she took the Fillies’ Mile under Joseph O’Brien despite being turned out quickly after a Listed win last weekend.
“We were going to leave her off after her last run but she was in such good form during the week that we decided to let her come,” Aidan O’Brien said. “She’s going to be a lovely filly next year. She has enough pace for the Guineas and [being by Galileo] she could get the Oaks trip.”
Belardo had finished behind Estidhkaar, the favourite for the Dewhurst, at Doncaster last time out but Varian had been sure that the colt had not given his running and he had no trouble reversing the form in a first-time hood. When asked for an effort by Andrea Atzeni, Belardo quickened abruptly to go two lengths clear of Kodi Bear at the line with Smuggler’s Cove, from the O’Brien stable, back in third.
“It’s a lovely way to end the season,” Varian said. “You can’t come into these races and expect to win because they are so hot. On paper, he had to turn around a couple of lengths with Estidhkaar and that one gave us 3lb and a beating at Doncaster.”
Atzeni, who will ride as first jockey to Qatar Racing next season, compared the winner to Kingston Hill, who gave Varian his first Classic winner in the St Leger last month. “When I first sat on him, I said to Roger that he was one of the best two-year-olds I have ever sat on,” Atzeni said. “When I sat on Kingston Hill, he never gave me this sort of feel.
“When I pulled up, Adam Kirby [Kodi Bear’s jockey] said ‘that’s a proper horse’ because I went past him like he was standing still.”
