Looking To The Future With Champions In Mind

By Emma Berry

On a morning organised to promote this Friday’s Dubai Future Champions Day at Newmarket, there could hardly be a bigger rabbit to pull out of the hat than a foal by Frankel (GB) who just so happens to be a half-brother to Dubawi (Ire). If genes count for anything then the bold bay colt, who was foaled exactly seven months before his first major photo call, has the words future champion imprinted in his DNA. 

Frankel has done more to promote the sport of horseracing and the town where he was trained and now stands at stud than any multi-million dollar advertising campaign could ever achieve. Though proven on the track, he has it all to prove at stud. 

The same cannot be said for Dubawi, whose swift rise through the ranks of the world’s elite stallions has offered gratification and solace to the man who bred and raced both him and his sire Dubai Millennium, who died at the age of just five, not long after Dubawi was conceived. 

“It gives Sheikh Mohammed an unbelievable amount of satisfaction to have seen Dubawi become so successful at stud,” says the Sheikh’s bloodstock advisor John Ferguson. “Dubai Millennium was a homebred and he was a dream from the day that he worked on the Limekilns and they decided to change his name from Yaazer to Dubai Millennium to then going on and winning the Dubai World Cup in the millennium year and retiring to stud. The day he died was awful, so when Dubawi came along it was almost like him rising from the ashes. For Dubawi to go on and be a great racehorse was one thing but then to become such an extraordinary stallion has been wonderful to see.” 

Treve’s tryst with Dubawi may have been delayed for a year as she attempts to bag her third G1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, but the stallion will not want for elite mares in his 2015 book. Ferguson alone spent 5,775,000gns on seven Dubawi yearlings during Book 1 of Tattersalls October Sale last week, boosting him to leading sire by his average price of 654,500gns for 10 sold. 

Ferguson continued: “Dubawi was knocked a bit when he first went to stud because although he’s an athletic horse, he’s a quite short-coupled and butty and some of his offspring didn’t walk as well as he did–but they ran. 

He continued, “His first crop, then second crop, just got stronger and stronger and I think what’s happened is that this year’s yearlings are from the first time the bloodstock world decided there is no doubt, this horse is special, and as a result he was sent some really special mares.” 

The man likely to be charged with training a number of those expensive yearlings, as well as plenty of Sheikh Mohammed’s homebreds, is Charlie Appleby, who has recently completed his first year at the helm of Moulton Paddocks, one of two large Godolphin training establishments in Newmarket. Appleby’s colleague Saeed Bin Suroor trains nearby at Lord Derby’s former stable, Stanley House. 

The circumstances surrounding Appleby’s promotion to trainer following the eight-year ban handed out to his former boss Mahmood Al Zarooni have been well documented. Recent restructuring at Godolphin and a new tighter liaison with its sister breeding empire, Darley, have hinted that the operation is keen to pursue a new direction, and in Appleby it appears to have the ideal man to aid that aim. Though by no means a new face at Godolphin–he has served 16 years with the operation in Britain, France and Dubai–he brings a refreshing brand of candor to his new role. 

“To get the Grade 1 winner out of the way at the end of last season steadied the ship for the winter,” he says, referring to the victory of Outstrip (GB) (Exceed and Excel {Aus}) in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf. “He took a lot of pressure off the whole team for this year. We have 70% 2-year-olds here, so at the moment it’s all about building for next year and beyond. You have to take your time with some of these young horses and that’s what we’ve done.” 

Evidence of this strategy is the lack of Godolphin entries in the major juvenile races this autumn but Appleby will be represented by Oasis Dream (GB) colt Charming Thought (GB) in tomorrow’s G1 Middle Park S. 

“We supplemented Charming Thought for Future Champions Day because we haven’t wanted to put the pressure on by making entries in the big juvenile races. We’re taking our time–we’re quite happy to go and win some listed races and let these horses come to themselves and be ready for the spring of next year. We’re not under pressure to run them again this year. We need to build up the older-horse team at Moulton Paddocks.” 

One sad postscript to the engaging morning spent with the affable trainer on Godolphin’s private gallops at Moulton Paddocks is the subsequent fatal training injury to 2012 G1 St Leger winner Encke (Kingmambo), who, along with Outstrip, French Navy (GB) (Shamardal) and Cat O’Mountain (Street Cry {Ire}) was one of the elder statesman of the team on parade with potential big-race engagements ahead of the close of the Flat turf season. 

Appleby, who lives at Moulton Paddocks with his Irish wife Aisling and three young daughters Emily, Erin and Edith, will once again divide his time between Newmarket and Dubai this winter, but another strategy shift, which will see many of the potentially smart Classic generation horses remain in the UK, means he will have a smaller team at his disposal for the Dubai International Racing Carnival. 

“Most of the 2-year-olds are not going to Dubai, some of the more backward ones may have a run in England through the winter,” says the trainer. “If you took those ones out to Dubai the window becomes very small for them. It’s easier to give them a run or two here and put them away for a month or two ahead of the spring. 

He added, “There’s a possibility that a filly like Yodelling, who is by Medgalia d’Oro (out of Echoes in Eternity {Ire}), could go as she might enjoy the dirt but we’d hope to bring her back in the spring too and look towards the Guineas–but there’s a long way to go with her yet.” 

There’s no denying the desire of everyone within the team to see Godolphin return to its former heyday, when the likes of Daylami (Ire), Sulamani (Ire) and Fantastic Light bore the royal blue silks with honour in many of the world’s top races. And, despite a sensibly gentle approach to his fledgling training career, it is, unsurprisingly, at the top of Appleby’s list of aspirations, too. 

“I’ve been working for Godolphin for 16 years now so I like to feel that I know it inside out,” he says. “Of course there’s pressure, but you have to look at it sensibly and pinpoint the horses we want to focus on and that’s what we’ve done this year. 

“This year has been about regrouping and looking to 2015. We’ve treated the 2-year-olds differently and are mapping out their careers with future Group races in mind. Our ultimate goal is to win Classics and Group 1 races and to produce stallions.” 

Dubai Future Champions days might be just the place to start.