- This topic has 90 replies, 40 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 4 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Miserable start to the season for the boys in blue at this admittedly early stage.Just the one minor winner. Expensive purchase Palace Episode eclipsed at York leaving them without a Derby runner in all probability. Out of luck in the Guineas. Their two runners in the Yorkshire Cup beat one home.<br>Has the strategy of wintering their horses in Dubai actually hindered them ,with the horses struggling to reacclimatise to coldish and wet weather?<br>What about their purchases? The Geezer struck me as fairly consistent but not a winner and Palace Episode lacks scope and had a busy time last autumn before winning his G1- a good sale by the Ryan stable. <br>Is it all going to come right on better going as Dettori says? Chrisford looked worried!
I think they’re buying poorly and that their breeding programme is way off track. They are buying 2-y-os who are below top class and, guess what, when they’re 3 they’re still below top class. Breeding programme appears unfocused and lacks the nous and commercial wherewithall of Coolmore. Coolmore need that edge to survive and prosper, Godolphin don’t. Coolmore is driven by the bottom line and, therefore, by results. Godolphin lacks that drive and their racecourse results suffer for it.
Coolmore have it down to a T. O’Brien in Ireland for most of the horses, Wachmann gets a few too, a couple trainers in the UK and then Pletcher and one more in the US.
It’s producing top horses all the time – Scorpion, Galileo, High Chapparal, Bandini, Thunder Gulch, Lion Tamer, Stravinsky and they can market their stallions anywhere in the world.
Darley on the other hand are all mucked up, they ship in to Europe too late to be competitive early on, when they buy a horse for X race they start mucking him about (Henny Hughes), their stallion purchases require a good deal of thought – Rossini (I think), Reset, Exceed and Excel amongst others. There are plenty of stud’s in Europe I’d use before sending a mare however well treated to Darley which seems to be lacking a bit on the quality side of things as does Jonabell and with the likes of Coolmore, the other Newmarket Studs, Three Chimneys, etc. all competing they’ll find it tough.
They buy the odd top class racemare – Stellar Jayne’s one of the most recent examples to breed from but they generally get it wrong, don’t know their horses and from what I’ve heard push them much to hard too young.
Not forgetting Always Emirates, Dubai Millennium and Dubai Two Thousand Trackside.
Would also add that the reason they used for Aljabr’s defeat in the St. James Palace Stakes to Sendawar was jet-lag and failure to re-acclimatise after his trip to the US so either things have changed or the Sheikh hasn’t learnt.
Trackside
The fact that they were nevergoing to win the races just emphasises the main point here. They are a shambles. Run at the whim of a ridiculously rich oil tycoon that doesn’t like the word, ‘No.’ So as long as he ships his 400 horses to Dubai each winter so he can give them the odd pat now and again it can be justified.
Rumour is it that Godolphin had over 400 juveniles last year. The fact that the only runners they got in the guineas were horses they bought from other stables just show what a farce that is.
They would be better off sending their yearlingsto the likes of Jarvis/Johnston et al and having then keep them at 2 and 3. Godolphin can then cherry pick the top-class ones to run as older horses, the only group that Godolphin have ever really had a great deal of success with.
Trouble is, no-one has the balls to get off the gravy train and point this out to the Shiekh.
Not bad points DJ, particularly about cherry picking the Sheikh Mo one’s from Johnston etc. Would like to see him just buy them and leave them with the current trainer, at least as classic horses go.
Interestingly another big price purchase Balletto goes for Darley and trainer Tom Albertrani in the Preakness undercard tonight (Shuvee Handicap I think).
Obviously Sheikh Mo took a big gample a few years back when he made the decision to buy almost all the DM offspring.
That could have left his with a super-team of horses, but it didn’t. They were generally a poor bunch (with the exception of Dubawi).
They’re going to have to recover from that.
It seems that they breed very few of their best horses.
In the last few years, most have either been bought in from other owners (e.g. Shamardal, Sulamani, Kazzia) or transferred from the Shiekh’s colours in France (Doyen, Papineau).
This isn’t a good sign.
However, they made a change with their 2yo policy for 2004 and I’d still say it’s too early to decide if that’ll be a success.
2004 had a lot of DM horses that might not have been very good (most eggs in the wrong basket?).
2005 the stable had a lot of problems with their horses (except the 2 classic winners)
2006 has just started.
So, I’d be willing to give them another season. Let’s see if they’re challenging in the big juvenile races in October.
As trackside said, they’re always going to go to Dubai for non-racing reasons.
And that means, most years, when they arrive in the UK, they’re going to start slowly.
As for the horses they bought over the winter, I’m not convinced. They look like they’re below the top rank.
Steve
This is a big year for their two year olds. They blew everything out of the water (including Coolmore) at the sales ring last year and at the very very least they will want one 2 year old Group 1 winner from the current crop.
Unreal to think they have never had a Derby winner in their colours.
I hope their Storm Cat X Tranquility Lake colt does something, still unsure of his name if anyone has any ideas?
Godolphin have named Winged Cupid as their only Derby hope having removed Palace Episode and others from the entries.<br>This one finished in front of Septimus last season.<br>Surely asking a lot to win at Epsom without a prep. race and with the stable so out of form. Available at 33/1
You cannot accurately assess Dunai Millennium’s worth as a stallion from one crop because he was also sent to the very best broodmares around.
What I will say is that there seemed to a few of his progeny that seemed to have their share temperament and weren’t totally straightfoward, i.e Quickfire, Echo of Light and Dubawi to a certain extent.
BTW, how can anyone say that Dubai Millennium was a dissapointing stallion? He had one crop to race, and had one top-class classic winner, and numerous other pattern-race performers…
I just had a quick look at the RP sire stats.
Apart from Dubawi, has he produced any horses that have won a group race in the UK, Ireland or France?
Steve
Interesting to hear Noseda’s comments about Proclamation and see what regard he clearly holds him in. Hopefully Godolphin will get him back to his best because a clash with George Washington in the Sussex would be something to savour.
Its very interesting that people that we might be criticising there methodology of overwintering horses in Dubai but why this year and not in previous years would it be having such a bad effect. Was the weather warmer then usual in Dubai…is it in colder then other years in England??
As for there buying strategy for horses already racing. I suppose they have had some success with this but I cant help the feeling that they sometimes tend to buy horses that are at the peak of what there capabilities are. For example I thought Coolmore were very shrewd in buying Hurricane run last year becauses they obviously realised its potential to be really really good. Im not sure why Godolphin bought The Geezer really….as much as Im a fan of the horse. Im not sure there is an awful lot of improvement in Imperial Stride (where is he by the way?) and as for Proclamation, he might be top class but I for one am yet to be convinced.
Whatever the comment about any of there horses, its clear that not many of them are even running close to form yet. Are they all kept together in England?
SHL
The irony of the Hurricane Run saga is that Godolphin had agreed to purchase Hurrican Run for a fee believed to be in excess of what Coolmore paid for him. The stumbling block was that Sheikh Mohammad would not allow the horse to run in it’s original owners colours for the Irish Derby. That somes up the shrewdnest of the Sheikh for me.
He also apparently wanted to purchase Electrocutionist after his 3-y-o campaign but the horse failed the vet. He again wanted it after it’s 4-y-o campaign, it again failed the vet. But the man that has to get his own way went out and bought him anyway.
I think it’s too early to write them off just yet and looking at their runners so far this season you can make out reasonable form cases as to why they have not been red hot. Deveron not liking the track, possibly the same for Gulf of Gold, Opera Cape not up to classic class, Palace Episode not having grown a millimetre over the winter apparently, Always Emirates running over an inadequate trip, Cherry Mix being a non-stayer, The Geezer being gross and needing the run, ground too soft for Portrayal, etc. Having said that, you would like to see a bit more from them on the whole, without neccesarily winning. I think wintering in Dubai (or the travelling at least) must take a bit out of the horses and I don’t think the 10-14 days that the Guineas meeting runners are given is long enough to get over it.
They have a few of their more interesting horses entered up this week (Reunite – entered in a 0-80 handicap on wednesday!, Sharpsburg, Librettist and With Interest) and I shall be watching closely. Cannot comment on their breeding programme as I know bugger all about it but I have to say that some of their purchases over the winter struck me as a little strange to say the least.
Just quickly to respond to a couple of earlier posts, Emirates to Dubai (and the other horses bearing the ‘Emirates’ name) were probably named due to the sponsorship of Godolphin by Emirates Airlines and maybe a tad more interesting than that, is the fact that Godolphin kept this seasons 2yo’s in Newmarket this winter and not Dubai.
All in all I like the Godolphin stable a great deal as you always get a run for your money, there is no attempt to manipulate a handicap mark, they are not a gambling stable and so their runners are often overpriced and they seem quite open with information on their horses. I’m sure they will come good.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.