After 25 years of trying for Sheikh Mohammed’s Dubai-based team, a first Kentucky Derby win provided the highlight of an unprecedented Classic weekend on both sides of the Atlantic
It is a dangerous word, ‘unique’, with the whole of human experience to measure it against, but there is little danger in using it to describe the extraordinary run of results achieved by Godolphin across last weekend.
From Friday evening in Louisville to Sunday afternoon at Newmarket, Godolphin horses swept the board in all four spring Classics, the Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby, the 2,000 Guineas and the 1,000 Guineas, a thunderous roll of honour unmistakably unique in the history of the sport.
Sheikh Mohammed developed the Godolphin brand and philosophy to challenge received wisdom and push the boundaries of possibility. After more than 30 years of turning the racing world royal blue – Balanchine, in
the 1994 Oaks at Epsom and then the Irish Derby, was the first notable product, the outrider for an innumerable, unstoppable posse – his horses have done something that would make even the most far-sighted visionary rub his eyes in disbelief.
First out of the gate was the unbeaten filly Good Cheer, a comfortable winner of the Kentucky Oaks for trainer Brad Cox and jockey Luis Saez.
Then came Ruling Court, hanging on obdurately to win the Betfred 2,000 Guineas for the deadly duo of Charlie Appleby and William Buick, who followed up 24 hours later with the dominant, also-unbeaten Desert Flower in the 1,000 Guineas. In between, Sovereignty – Bill Mott, Junior Alvarado – had skipped through the slop at Churchill Downs to win the Kentucky Derby.
“For Sheikh Mohammed to win the Guineas double, the Kentucky Oaks, the Kentucky Derby, I can’t put it into words,” said Buick in the flush, the rush of Desert Flower’s victory.
“It’s been an amazing weekend for everybody, it’s what dreams are made of. Sheikh Mohammed has put so much into the sport and he’s been rewarded this weekend.”
The sum of the parts is colossal, earth-shaking. Yet some of the parts are, individually, more well-worn than others. Godolphin won the Kentucky Oaks in 2023 with Pretty Mischievous, have won the 2,000 Guineas six times including three of the last four, have won the 1,000 Guineas five times (two of the last three, completing the transatlantic fillies’ double in 2023 with Mawj).
Red-rose ribbon for the blue team
But this was the first Kentucky Derby, the victory that tied the other three together with a red-rose ribbon and towered above them all for significance and prestige and satisfaction. A Derby trophy has been a long, long time coming for Sheikh Mohammed – pace the slightly dismal list of those who have tried and failed – and the process has forced him to recalibrate the original Godolphin ethos of dominating the world’s greatest races with horses conditioned in the Dubai desert.
“We’ve had a few good chances in the past,” said Michael Banahan, Godolphin’s director of bloodstock, at the post-race press conference in Louisville.
“We had Essential Quality four years ago, and it just wasn’t his day on the day [fourth]. But to be able to win the Oaks yesterday and then back it up with the Derby today – it hasn’t been done in 60, 70 years or something like that [in 1952, Calumet Farm owned both winners, Real Delight and Hill Gail].
“So to be able to do that for our boss, the founder of Godolphin, Sheikh Mohammed, is so, so special.”
Pothole-strewn path to glory
Sheikh Mohammed had suffered Churchill Downs disappointment after buying into the storied Arazi, only eighth in the 1992 running in the pre-Godolphin era.
However, the long and pothole-strewn path to glory in America’s greatest race began for the UAE-based outfit started with Worldly Manner, an archetype of the initial Godolphin method in the 1999 edition. He was purchased out of Bob Baffert’s barn for a sum reported to be $5 million after winning the G2 Del Mar Futurity, and spirited away to Dubai to be prepared for the Kentucky Derby.
After one trial race at home in the spring, Worldly Manner was returned Stateside to a cool reception from the locals. The New York Post, reflecting the spiky, hard-to-impress attitude of its constituency, poured scorn on the attempt.
“He tuned up yesterday morning at Churchill Downs in a seven-furlong workout that could have been timed with a sundial,” wrote racetrack hack Ed Fountaine. “The work took so long that big-race jockey Jerry Bailey didn’t have time to speak to reporters afterward.”
Few observers gave the prodigal contender even half a chance, although he was not disgraced in finishing seventh behind Charismatic after chasing a slowish pace to the quarter-pole. Sheikh Mohammed was not despondent, however, and replied to reporters’ questions bullishly, if a little hubristically: “We didn’t win it this time, but we’ll be back, and we’ll keep coming back until we do win it.”
Two years later, after three more Godolphin horses had disappeared without trace into the Churchill Downs dirt, Sheikh Mohammed was heard to be more philosophical about the situation.
“The Kentucky Derby is a more difficult race to win than I first believed,” he said, quoted in From The Desert To The Derby, by Jason Levin.
Embarrassing nadir
It would prove not just difficult but impossible until the attempt to win the Kentucky Derby off a relatively uncompetitive intramural trial in Dubai – which reached an embarrassing nadir when Thunder Snow put on a rodeo show in 2017, being pulled up after 30 yards – was abandoned, with the imperative of points-scoring on the ‘Road to the Kentucky Derby’ also helping to hasten the old way into oblivion.
Sovereignty, preceded by the gallant effort of the aforementioned Essential Quality, is the result of the altered approach, a US-bred horse with a US pedigree seasoned by a traditional Derby preparation from a trainer with an incomparable track record of winning major races in the US.
It differs greatly from the ‘pure Godolphin’ of 1994, but Sheikh Mohammed is nothing if not pragmatic and his willingness to adopt a more hard-nosed, less exclusive strategy to the situation has been repaid by this long-coveted victory. He did, after all, as he promised, keep coming back until he won it.
“I’ve had quite a long relationship with the man behind the Godolphin team, Sheikh Mohammed,” said Bill Mott after the Derby. “I think not only myself but a lot of us owe him a lot for keeping Godolphin going, and the breeding operation that they’ve got going now.
“It’s just a real solid organization, and they’re team players. They let you be part of the team, and they let Junior [Alvarado] and I be part of the team and help make the decisions on what’s going on.”
Bespoke protocol
Brad Cox and Luis Saez would no doubt echo those sentiments. In Europe, there is still a place for the original approach – Ruling Court won his Guineas off a Dubai prep – but the benefits of a more bespoke protocol were demonstrated by Desert Flower, who wintered at Appleby’s base in Newmarket.
“Do we expect to win this type of race? No, we don’t,” added Banahan. “You just expect to have some nice horses and give them the opportunity, give them to great trainers like we have.
“It took an awful lot of horses to get there before Masar eventually won the Epsom Derby for Godolphin [2018], so now we finally got one good enough to win the Kentucky Derby, which is fantastic. We’re delighted that we were fortunate enough to have Sovereignty be able to show his true talent.”
(In his excitement, it seems that even Banahan forgot the exceptional Lammtarra, who won the Epsom Classic for Godolphin and longserving trainer Saeed Bin Suroor as long ago as 1995, when the chestnut colt also won the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes at Ascot and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.
Though he was 100 per cent part of the Godolphin stable, Lammtarra carried the green and white silks of Sheikh Mohammed’s nephew Saeed bin Maktoum Al Maktoum rather than the Godolphin blue. In those early days, there were owners within Godolphin whorse representatives sometimes carried variant silks. Appleby-trained Masar embodied the modern Godolphin 23 years later.)
Naturally, Godolphin’s iron grip on the G1 schedule is far from over. There will be plenty of big occasions painted royal blue by this handful of aces and their barnmates, for Good Cheer is heading for the Acorn and a Saratoga summer, Ruling Court is second-favourite for the Derby, Desert Flower is favourite for the Oaks, and the excitable British media is already pushing the remote possibility of one or both horses bidding for the ‘other’ Triple Crown, not won since 1970. As for Sovereignty, it may be the Preakness next, perhaps more likely the Belmont.
Those with a nose for the calendar will have noted that the Acorn and the Epsom Oaks are run on Friday June 6, the Belmont and the Derby on the following day. Sheikh Mohammed and Godolphin could be heading for another unprecedented weekend; very dangerous word, unique.
Godolphin’s Kentucky Derby runners
1999 Worldly Manner Saeed Bin Suroor 7th
2000 China Visit Saeed Bin Suroor 6th
Curule Saeed Bin Suroor 7th
2001 Express Tour Saeed Bin Suroor 8th
2002 Essence Of Dubai Saeed Bin Suroor 9th
2009 Regal Ransom Saeed Bin Suroor 8th
Desert Party Saeed Bin Suroor 14th
2012 Alpha Kiaran McLaughlin 12th
2015 Frosted Kiaran McLaughlin 4th
2017 Thunder Snow Saeed Bin Suroor PU
2018 Enticed Kiaran McLaughlin 14th
2021 Essential Quality Brad Cox 4th
2025 Sovereignty Bill Mott WON
• Visit the Godolphin website
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