While it has been another season to endure rather than enjoy for Manchester United fans, former boss Sir Alex Ferguson has had a glorious winter on the racecourse.
The 82-year-old has another ‘cup final’ to look forward to in Dubai this weekend, barely a fortnight after recording his first Cheltenham Festival wins courtesy of Protektorat in the Ryanair Chase and Monmiral in the Pertemps Hurdle.
But his most valuable successes have come via Spirit Dancer, the Richard Fahey-trained gelding bred and owned by Ferguson who is one of 12 runners chasing the £2.7million first prize in the mile and a half Sheema Classic on Saturday’s Dubai World Cup card at Meydan racecourse.
Spirit Dancer’s winter progress has been a stark reminder of how much British racing struggles with prizemoney in comparison to overseas jurisdictions.
As with the expansion of football in Saudi Arabia, which has splashed the cash to attract some of the sport’s biggest names, racing in the Middle East in now muscling up too.
Former Man United boss Sir Alex Ferguson has had a glorious winter on the racecourse
Ferguson’s most valuable successes have come via the Richard Fahey-trained Spirit Dancer
Dubai was the centre of the region’s thoroughbred racing industry when US horse Cigar won the first World Cup in 1996. Since then Qatar joined in as a major player with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain now all involved in increasingly integrated programmes.
A racehorse can win spectacular sums over in the Middle East and Spirit Dancer, who has made massive progress at the age of seven, has cashed in.
The gelding produced a career best in Great Britain when he won £96,000 in landing the Strensall Stakes at York in August. But his first win of the summer, in a York handicap in July, bagged Ferguson and his partners in the horse a mere £15,000.
Compare that with the £500,000 Spirit Dancer won when winning the Bahrain International Trophy in November and the £944,881 he skewered when successful in the Neom Cup at Riyadh in Saudi Arabia in February. In between there was even £20,000 for finishing fourth in a race at Meydan and Spirit Dancer’s career earnings now stand at £1.7m.
Even when you allow for the passage of time, that is a colossal sum when you recall that Rock of Gibraltar, the colt who won seven consecutive Group One races in a spectacular run of success which included the 2002 English and Irish 2,000 Guineas, earned a mere £1.2m. It was Rock of Gibraltar who was at the centre of Ferguson’s falling out with the Coolmore Stud partners.
If Spirit Dancer were to only manage eighth place in the Sheema Classic, he will add another £50,000 to his pot.
Fahey said: ‘We have had a good winter and it has been exciting. We couldn’t really have expected it. On the day the Bahrain race looked hot and he put it to bed quite easily.
‘Then he had to come home because of quarantine rules but I sent him back because I wanted to acclimatise him for Saudi.
Spirit Dancer and Oisin Orr win the lucrative Neom Cup in Saudi Arabia last month
‘He was beaten by a better horse Dubai but it meant I could leave him there for the Saudi race and he has now gone back to Dubai which he couldn’t have done last year.
‘They have changed the rules. The Middle East is becoming very on it and giving us poor little peasants from the north the chance to run for some decent money which is massive, especially for a seven-year-old gelding.’
At this advanced stage of his career Spirit Dancer’s official handicap rating has made a massive 21lb leap — 97 to 118 — in less than a year.
His task in the Sheema Classic is steep given his opponents are headed by Aidan O’Brien’s 2023 dual Derby winner Auguste Rodin, Emily Upjohn — the John and Thady Gosden-trained winner of last year’s Coronation Cup at Epsom — plus the 2022 Sheema Classic winner Shahryar, from Japan. But Spirit Dancer does not look out of place and Fahey is hoping the stamina supplied via the genes of his sire Frankel and the fact he has been finishing his races strongly means his first try over a mile and a half will be within his scope.
Fahey added: ‘When I saw the entries the other day I had a bit of a shock but if you are not entered you can’t beat them. It’s a good race. I am looking forward to seeing him run because he has a had a great preparation.’
One consequence of Spirit Dancer’s successful overseas winter is that Ferguson is unlikely to see much of him on a British racecourse this summer as Fahey plans for another overseas winter.
The trainer, who has high hopes for unbeaten three-year-olds Garfield Shadow and Airman plus useful Native American for the domestic season, said: ‘Spirit Dancer will have a good holiday and be trained to go out there again next year. He will probably have a run or two before he goes back on his travels.
‘I would love to take him to Hong Kong at some stage. I couldn’t this year because if you have been in Saudi you can’t go to Hong Kong but it looks like they are going to sort that out. The world is getting smaller for racehorses.’
2022 French Oaks winner Nashwa is still in training and set to run in the $5m Dubai Turf
Great to see Nashwa still going strong
Horses being shipped off to stud to deprive the sport of some of its most popular competitors is a perennial negative of Flat racing.
So it is a big plus that Nashwa, the 2022 French Oaks winner and regular mount of Hollie Doyle, is still in training at the age of five and out here to run in the $5million Dubai Turf over nine furlongs.
Last season started slowly for the John and Thady Gosden-trained mare but she landed her third Group One race win in Newmarket’s Falmouth Stakes as well as finishing second to Mostahdaf in York’s International Stakes and third to Auguste Rodin in the Irish Champion Stakes.
On the decision to keep Nashwa in training, Lord Grimthorpe, racing manager to owner Imad Alsagar’s Blue Diamond Stud said: ‘It’s always an enormous decision, not one to be taken lightly. With horses staying in training several criteria have to be met. Obviously soundness is one, opportunity and the wish of the owner.
‘She took a while to come to herself last year and I think at one stage we were questioning whether we had done the right thing and then she blossomed.
‘She seems to have come through the winter in very good shape, physically and mentally.
‘There are no gimmes at this level. You expect the best to turn up for $5m. She has won a Group One over a mile, and a mile and a quarter. In theory nine furlongs ought to be her optimum trip.’
Dettori out to make his mark in Dubai
Frankie Dettori’s California venture is going well. He is fourth in the jockey standings at Santa Anita having ridden 28 winners worth almost $2million in prizemoney.
And his desire to still compete on the world stage is underlined by his four rides on the Dubai World Cup card.
Frankie Dettori is booked for Star Of Mystery, the 3-1 favourite for the Al Quoz Sprint
They include an old ally, the John and Thady Gosden-trained Lord North. Together they will try to win the Dubai Turf for a fourth time.
Dettori’s other rides include Bold Journey in the Golden Shaheen, while he shoots for a record fifth win in the $12m World Cup on Newgate.
But don’t expect to see Dettori in Dubai’s multitude of international restaurants.
He is likely to be on starvation rations because he has also been booked for Star Of Mystery, the 3-1 favourite for the Al Quoz Sprint, who carries 8st 5lb, below the mark at which Dettori normally weighs out.
