It’s been 33 years and countless billions in the making but in less than 48 hours the Godolphin operation completed an unprecedented run of international Classic dominance when Desert Flower landed Sunday’s Betfred 1,000 Guineas at Newmarket.
William Buick guided the evens favourite to victory in the fillies’ classic, completing the Guineas double after Ruling Court was victorious for Godolphin in Saturday’s 2,000. But that was only half the weekend story for the world’s biggest racing superpower.
Good Cheer’s Kentucky Oaks success for ‘The Boys in Blue’ on Friday night proved an aptly named precursor of what was to come.
In wet muddy conditions Sovereignty landed a sparkling Kentucky Derby, the first victory in America’s most famous race for the mammoth operation that was the brainchild of Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed back in 1992.
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Like Good Cheer and Desert Flower, it was another outstanding result for Godolphin’s own breeding. A reminder of the colossal spending power that has underpinned Sheikh Mohammed’s ambition for decades was the €2.3 million paid out for Ruling Court last year.
All of it sealed an outstanding classic ‘Quadruple’ for the controversial ruling figure from the Middle East, who in 1977 celebrated his first success as an owner at lowly Brighton. It was impossible to predict but Hatta proved to be the winner that sparked a racing revolution.
A decade and a half after that, and following huge success for the Maktoum family generally, Godolphin was set up by the Sheikh.
If the original aim of global dominance from a Dubai base had to be tempered, there were times since when such a series of results as this looked both inevitable and unlikely, racing fortunes fluctuating as much as the Sheikh’s own public image over the years.
Resolve got tested. Years of playing second-fiddle in Europe to John Magnier’s Irish-based Coolmore team, possessed as it was with produce from the prepotent sire Galileo, must have stung.
There was also the doping scandal that saw Godolphin’s trainer Mahmood al-Zarooni banned from racing after admitting to administering anabolic steroids at the team’s Newmarket base in 2010.
For someone credited with always having the final decision at Godolphin it was a devastating reputational blow to the Sheikh.
So was the fallout from British court rulings that he had abducted and mistreated two of his daughters. There was also embarrassing coverage of a marriage split to his sixth wife Princess Haya who received sole responsibility for looking after their children.
In the midst, too, of broader political turmoil in the Middle East, one constant that remained was the Sheikh’s desire to keep expanding Godolphin around the world.
There is now major representation in Australia and Japan as well as a remorseless pumping of resources into Britain and France. If Ireland has been an exception in terms of racing, the (IRE) denoting where Desert Flower was bred underscored the scale of interests here.
That the Sheikh was neither at Newmarket or Churchill Downs reflects how the 75-year-old has become an increasingly remote figure. His influence, though, has never been more apparent.
Desert Flower was immediately made favourite for next month’s Oaks at Epsom after she made most of the running to beat the Ollie Sangster pair of outsiders, Flight and Simmering. Aidan O’Brien’s Lake Victoria lost her unbeaten record in sixth. Red Letter for Ger Lyons was seventh.
Ruling Court has only The Lion In Winter ahead of him in Derby betting while in the US, Sovereignty, trained by veteran Bill Mott, has a potential Triple Crown in front of him in the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes over the coming weeks.
There’s even still at least the theoretical chance of a first English Triple Crown in 55 years through Ruling Court.
At Newmarket on Sunday, Charlie Appleby celebrated emulating Aidan O’Brien, who has trained both Guineas winners on four occasions. But he was also able to take in the broader context and his employer’s crucial role.
“The Kentucky Derby has been on the bucket list for 30-plus years, he’s had plenty of other goes at it, so to do that has been an amazing feat. But to do what’s been done this weekend, that’s why he is so passionate about it.
“It’s why thankfully each year he just keeps at it, looking for yearlings, looking for two-year-olds, it’s amazing. We’re having all this success now with the three-year-olds but he’s only worried about the two-year-olds because he knows they are the future,” Appelby said.
Desert Flower might even have her own Triple Crown ambitions, 40 years after Oh So Sharp completed the fillies’ version in the 1,000, Oaks and St Leger.
“I see no reason why she can’t stretch out to the mile and a half. She does all her best work in the last furlong. She settles well,” Appleby said. “They’re nice conversations to be having!”
