First Among Equals

FIRST AMONG EQUALS 
Five years ago her sire stormed down the hill at Epsom to add the G1 Investec Derby to his G1 2000 Guineas victory, and now Taghrooda (GB) has claimed the honor of becoming Sea The Stars’ first Classic winner by remaining unbeaten with an impressive 3 3/4-length victory in the G1 Investec Oaks. 
It was a day of firsts. A first ride in the Oaks for Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum’s number one jockey Paul Hanagan–a debut which led to his first classic victory. And, almost surprisingly, it was a first Oaks success for Newmarket’s foremost trainer, John Gosden, who has already bagged this year’s G1 Irish 2000 Guineas with Kingman (GB) (Invincible Spirit {Ire}). 
The mixture of delight and relief of the close-knit Shadwell team was palpable as Tarfasha (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}) outgunned the brave front-running Volume (GB)– another first-crop runner, this time for Mount Nelson (GB)–to deliver the quinella for Sheikh Hamdan. Bloodstock manager Angus Gold hugged Hanagan in the press conference and was the first to admit the operation has had “a few quiet years”, but that matters little now, with a homebred Classic winner headlining a resurgence for the blue-and-white silks this season. 
The champion jockey in 2010 and 2011 when attached to Richard Fahey’s northern stable, Paul Hanagan was handed the job as Sheikh Hamdan’s retained jockey in 2012, moving his wife and two young sons south to the relatively unfamiliar territory of Newmarket. Admitting that he is likely never to be the champion jockey again, Hanagan explained that he took the job to be able to focus on riding better horses in bigger races. The gamble has paid off. 
“It went like clockwork,” he said of his spin around Epsom’s turning, undulating camber. “I’d been planning it in my head for at least a month and it really did go just as I wanted it to apart from at five furlongs out when we had a bit of a bump and [Taghrooda] changed legs. It took a little while to get her balanced again.” 
European flat racing is accustomed to jockeys of a flamboyant nature, but in Hanagan it will never see a Frankie Dettori-style flying dismount or the audacious whip-waving celebrations of Christophe Soumillon. It seems patronizing to call him a Liverpool lad, but his boyish features belie his 33 years, while his demeanor is still very much that of a journeyman jockey who can’t believe his luck. In life, they say, we make our own luck, and it’s hard to imagine a single voice in racing decrying a day in the sun for the humble, self-effacing rider. 
If Hanagan won’t sing his own praises, he has a more than able advocate in John Gosden, who is never shy of speaking up if he thinks something is wrong, and in this case was swift to point to the jockey’s deft horsemanship in putting Taghrooda back on course around the notoriously tricky Tattenham Corner after she suffered interference in running from a rival. 
“Coming down Tattenham Corner, a bang threw her onto her off-fore [leg] and as we all know, a horse can’t come round that bend on her off-fore. Paul was very quick to get her back on the right leg and that’s not easy, so full marks to him,” explained the trainer. 
“He’s a good team player who has got to know all Sheikh Hamdan’s horses at home and he’s an absolute pleasure to work with.” 
Taghrooda, too, it would seem, is easy to work with, the trainer having pointed to her “good mind” and “intelligence for racing.” She becomes just the latest in a stream of Group 1 winners for her Aga Khan family, which also includes the G1 Ascot Gold Cup winners Estimate (Ire) and Enzeli (Ire), as well as G1 Irish Oaks victrix Ebadiyla (Ire) and G1 Moyglare Stud Stakes heroine Edabiya (Ire). 
Gosden added: “She had been favourite [for the Oaks] after her win in the [Listed] Pretty Polly until Marvellous was so impressive in the Irish Guineas, and then we ended up as third favorite before the off, so Paul and I wandered out there nice and relaxed, the pressure was off.” 
If the pressure was off it was only temporarily, and it will have returned with the emptying of Saturday’s final glass of champagne, for in today’s Investec Derby Gosden saddles Western Hymn (GB) (High Chaparral {Ire}), who is co-owned by his wife, Rachel Hood. Her partner in the horse–who also heads to his Classic engagement with an unbeaten record to defend–is jump racing fan, owner and sponsor Robin Geffen of Neptune Investment Management, and the two of them have already teamed up to win the G1 St Leger with Arctic Cosmos (North Light {Ire}) in 2010. 
As the staunchest supporter of Newmarket’s historic status as the headquarters of British horseracing, Hood has found herself increasingly involved with local politics and has recently been appointed mayor of the town. No one will take greater pride than she for the most important British Classic to be won by a Newmarket-trained horse, just as her husband will have taken pride in receiving the Oaks trophy from Lady Cecil, the race having been run in memory of Gosden’s friend and fellow Newmarket trainer, Sir Henry Cecil, who died a year ago this Wednesday. 
Another much-loved trainer, John Hills, wasn’t far from the thoughts of those closely linked to the Shadwell camp on Oaks day. One of Sheikh Hamdan’s roster of trainers, Hills died last Sunday aged just 53. His twin brothers Richard and Michael rode in the Oaks-winning silks for many seasons until their retirement and Richard, who was aboard Ghanaati for his father Barry when Sheikh Hamdan last celebrated a British Classic win, is now employed as the operation’s racing manager. 
Typically, Paul Hanagan was the first to pay tribute to the trainer, saying in his immediate post-race interview: “Of course, we’ve had bad news this week that John Hills died and he was also an important part of the team–this one’s for him.”