Luca Cumani, one of the country’s most prominent and successful trainers for nearly four decades, said on Thursday that his stable had suffered a “devastating blow” with the news that Sheikh Mohammed Obaid al-Maktoum has decided to move his entire string, including this year’s King George winner Postponed, to Roger Varian’s stable, less than a mile from Cumani’s base on Newmarket’s Bury Road.
Cumani, in a statement on his website, on Thursday morning said no reason had been given for the Sheikh’s decision to move his horses after 20 years as an owner at Bedford House Stables. The trainer also said in an interview with Racing UK that there had been “inklings” in the spring that the Sheikh, a cousin of Sheikh Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai and the world’s biggest owner, was considering a move. This was then confirmed after Glorious Goodwood in early August, days after Postponed’s narrow win in the King George at Ascot.
That was Cumani’s second British Group One success for Sheikh Mohammed Obaid following the victory of High-Rise in the Derby at Epsom in 1998. The filly Zomaradah took the Oaks D’Italia in the owner’s familiar yellow and black silks the same season, while Cumani has saddled nine Group-race winners for the Sheikh in the last three seasons alone.
Cumani was also looking forward to running Postponed in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp next month, a race he has yet to win. After Postponed’s success in the Group Two Prix Foy at Longchamp on Sunday, he was quoted at a top price of 20-1 for the Arc.
“It is with great sadness that we have to announce that Sheikh Mohammed Obaid al-Maktoum has decided with immediate effect to remove all his horses from Bedford House and place them elsewhere,” Cumani said in his statement.
“No reasons have been given to us as to why this decision has been taken after an association that has lasted 20 years and has enjoyed plenty of success from High-Rise winning the Epsom Derby in 1998 through to Postponed landing the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes this year. Needless to say, it is a devastating blow for the whole team with the news coming so soon after Postponed’s win in the Qatar Prix Foy at the weekend which confirmed he was well on target for the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.”
When interviewed by Racing UK Cumani said that 35 horses will be joining Varian. So far this season he has saddled 64 individual horses, 23 of which were owned by Sheikh Mohammed Obaid, which suggests he will lose somewhere between one third and one half of his entire string.
Postponed, meanwhile, is by far the most successful performer in the stable. The four-year-old has won about £750,000 in prize money in 2015 alone, nearly 10 times as much as any other horse at Bedford House, while in all the Sheikh owns five of Cumani’s top 10 money-earners this season.
“Obviously we’re all very shocked about it,” Cumani said. “Especially, I feel very sorry for the staff who worked very hard all year on these horses and we’ve been told that we’re not to run any more horses when big-race targets were coming up, [which] is a little bit sad for the staff really.
“As you know they work hard and look after the horses and they care a lot about their horses.
“Owners have that prerogative. They buy the horses and they can choose who can train them. Yes, I’ve had inklings, it started in the spring with rumblings and then it was confirmed to me the week after Goodwood, but no date set. And now recently I’ve been told that I’m not to run any more horses.”
Cumani, who is 66, is well-known not only as a prolific trainer of winners at the highest level, but also as a mentor to several leading jockeys including the former champion Frankie Dettori, who started his career as an apprentice as Cumani’s yard.
Inevitably, Cumani has also suffered setbacks during his decades at the top of the sport. He was caught in the fallout from the Aga Khan’s dispute with the Jockey Club, then the sport’s regulator, over the disqualification of Sir Michael Stoute’s filly Aliysa from the Oaks in 1989 following a positive dope test. The Aga, who owned Kahyasi, Cumani’s first Derby winner, withdrew all his horses from Britain and did not return for four seasons.
Following the end of his boycott, the Aga rejoined the list of owners at Bedford House, but quit the yard abruptly early in 2000 following a dispute with Cumani about procedures to ensure compliance with medication regulations. Cumani lost 30 horses, three of which were winners at Royal Ascot the following summer.
Owners have fallen out with trainers and jockeys throughout the long history of racing. The most famous example in relatively recent memory is the morning in 1995 when a fleet of horseboxes arrived at the late Sir Henry Cecil’s Warren Place Stables to remove every horse owned by Sheikh Mohammed.
Sheikh Mohammed was, and still is, the owner of the most powerful and extensive bloodstock operation that racing has seen, and at the time, he was in the process of launching his Godolphin racing operation. His cousin’s string is small by comparison, and so of less long-term significance, but while Varian is undeniably one of the brightest and most talented young trainers in Newmarket, Sheikh Mohammed Obaid’s decision, and its timing in particular, will baffle many in the sport.
Had the Sheikh’s horses been struggling, his move would have been easier to understand, but Postponed’s victory at Ascot in late July was one of the biggest successes he has enjoyed. The colt has also been a realistic contender for the Arc, Europe’s most prestigious all-aged race, ever since his win in the King George.
To confirm Postponed’s switch of stables less than three weeks before his date at Longchamp seems bizarre, since the colt might need time to adapt to the unfamiliar routines and demands a new regime. It also raises the possibility that, should Postponed emerge victorious in the Arc on 4 October, his return to the winner’s enclosure will not be greeted with traditional warmth by the Longchamp crowd, which always includes thousands of British fans.
Postponed was involved in a minor controversy at Royal Ascot, when John Gosden, the season’s leading trainer, accused Adam Kirby of “unacceptable” riding to hold in Gosden’s runner Eagle Top in the Group Two Hardwicke Stakes. Cumani stood by the jockey, who is retained by the Sheikh as his principal rider, but the owner then decided to replace Kirby with Andrea Atzeni for the King George, in which Postponed beat Eagle Top by a nose.
Kirby rode a Cumani-trained winner for Sheikh Mohammed Obaid at Glorious Goodwood a few days later, after which the owner explained that he had made the change because he felt it would be a “lucky” decision. “I have never lost faith in Adam,” the Sheikh said. “It is only that he could not have luck on Postponed.”
The Sheikh, in other words, seems to have form when it comes to arbitrary decisions. There may, of course, be more to it than meets the eye, but to confirm his string’s departure from the Cumani yard at this late stage of the campaign looks like a move with more scope for embarrassment than vindication.
Meanwhile, the British Horseracing Authority has set a date for Wednesday next week to hear the appeal by connections of Simple Verse against the decision to demote the filly from first place in the Ladbrokes St Leger at Doncaster.
Trained by Ralph Beckett for Qatar Racing, the Andrea Atzeni-ridden three-year-old passed the post a head in front of the Aidan O’Brien-trained Bondi Beach, but a stewards’ inquiry was immediately called into interference as the pair appeared to bump twice in the closing stages.
Following a tense wait, during which Atzeni and Bondi Beach’s rider Colm O’Donoghue argued their respective cases in front of the stewards live on Channel 4, the announcement was made that Simple Verse had been placed second.
