El Cordobes

Also honored in these same categories for 2024, Godolphin has been given the Eclipse Award for Best Owner and Best Breeder during Thursday night's ceremony. Godolphin both bred and raised 2025's GI Kentucky Derby winner and Champion 3-Year-Old Male Sovereignty (Into Mischief) along with GI Breeders' Cup Mile winner Notable Speech (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) and GI Longines Kentucky Oaks winner Good Cheer (Medaglia d'Oro). They also picked up top-level wins with homebred Rebel's Romance (Ire) (Dubawi {Ire}) and El Cordobes (Ire) (Frankel {GB}). As owners, Godophin earned more than $22,395,556,...

At the Breeders' Cup World Championship, fractions of a second and tiny strokes of luck define legacies. Flipping through the past performances, it's easy to see only the numbers: the morning-line odds, post positions and speed figures that quantify each race. But for the people who know these athletes best—the grooms who understand their quirks and habits, the riders who have their stride memorized, the assistants who have thought through every nuance of their daily routine--these horses represent something else entirely. "Horses are like your family," said Tony Gutierrez, who...

Rebel's Romance (Dubawi) and Notable Speech (Dubawi) look set to spearhead a top-class team for Charlie Appleby at next month's Breeders' Cup at Del Mar, a meeting at which the Godolphin trainer has excelled since saddling his first winner in 2013. Appleby took his tally of Breeders' Cup winners to 11 at Del Mar last year when Rebel's Romance won the Turf for a second time, having also been successful at Keeneland in 2022. More recently, the seven-year-old gained the ninth top-level victory of his career when heading back Stateside...

In this series, the TDN takes a look at notable successes of European-based sires in North America. This week's column is highlighted by the victory of El Cordobes at Saratoga. El Cordobes Breaks Through At The Spa Godolphin's El Cordobes (Frankel) broke through at the highest level in the August 9 GI Sword Dancer Stakes at Saratoga for Charlie Appleby (video). He is a winner of the G2 Princess of Wales's Stakes in England. Bred by Bjorn Nielsen, he was originally picked up for 2 million gns out of the...

Jamie Linwood was cheering as the horses rounded the final turn in the GI Sword Dancer Stakes, but it wasn't for the mount he had come to America to ride. It was the other Charlie Appleby trainee, Nations Pride (Ire) (Teofilo {Ire}), who looked like the stronger pick at the top of the stretch, but then El Cordobes (Ire) (Frankel {GB}) weaved through one gap and slipped through another, surging past his more-accomplished stablemate to snatch a dramatic victory. "I saw Nations Pride was going well and obviously we're the...

El Cordobes (Ire) (Frankel {GB}), the lesser-preferred, less-accomplished and less-exposed part of an uncoupled entry for Godolphin and trainer Charlie Appleby, took his cue from Flavien Prat in upper stretch, split rivals on two occasions inside the final furlong and a half and dove across the line first to take out Saturday's GI Resorts World Casino Sword Dancer Stakes at Saratoga. With the victory, El Cordobes earns an automatic berth into the field for the GI Longines Breeders' Cup Turf at Del Mar later this fall. Exiting a victory in...